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It’s been an interesting week in jolly, old England. The thermometer that is positioned in a hanging plant basket just outside the kitchen window where it can be read of a morning from the climate comfort of the indoors crept to 39c on Wednesday. Allowing a few degrees for the fact that the rear of the house cops the full blast of the PM sun, and we can safely call the temperature that day as 35c. Meanwhile, due to the simple exercise of keeping the curtains closed on the sunny side of the house as the day went on, indoors maintained a temperature a noticeable 6-7 degrees lower than outside. If only he house (an extended 1930’s semi) had some decent shading verandas it’d be even more pleasant.

If only..

If only all those people who gleefully jumped up during this winter’s snowfalls, pointed out the window and jabbered “See…snow. In England. Just proves global warming is a load of hot air. If the climate was warming we wouldn’t have snow now would we?” would now take a sweaty moment to consider the meaning of a different day. As Goerge Monbiot points out, the same climate deniers are noticeably silent in the face of a heatwave.

A four day UK heatwave does not a global climate trend make however. It may be likely that the UK regionally gets more hot weather incidents as a result of changing climate, but the specific incident of a few hot days is not the indicator that we’ve suddenly reached climate tipping point.

However, the recent heatwave ought to provide something for the climate deniers to think about. Because they’re also fond of saying “We’ll anyway, I like hot weather. We fly to Spain every year to holiday in the beautiful heat. If it does get hotter, I’m all for it. Malaga in East Anglia I say. Bring it on!” That’d be the same people then who drearily moaned there way through four days of hot days this week? Moaning about sleepless nights, their faces flushed red after the small exertion of walking 200 metres from the town carpark to the school to pick up little Edward or Edwina. The same ones passing out at their desks due to the lack of office air conditioning, having already dangerously weakened themselves through the hot crush of the morning commute on the Tube.

What they might well think is “This hot weather is not as much fun when you have to live in it, going to work in a suit when its 35c, and going about the everyday humdrum of life under blazing, cloudless skies.” Because the lesson of this week’s heatwave is not “One heatwave = final proof of global climate change,” the lesson is “England’s infrastructure is not designed to deal with hot weather.”

England’s housing stock for instance lacks the wide eves or verandahs to be found in countries like Spain, Australia, and South Africa, that provides shading for the walls of the dwelling when the sun is at its hottest point. Meanwhile the county’s office stock is, aside from new structures such as The Gherkin, devoid of air-conditioning, and locked in a design that gives no thought to the need for extensive natural air flow on a hot day. Instead, what windows there are are likely to remain shut against the incessant roar and exhaust fug from the traffic below.

Little Edwina will be spending the day sitting in a school classroom, distracted from lessons by the heat, the stickiness, and her state of mild dehydration. The UK school system doesn’t do heat well - there is an almost complete lack of shady areas in the playground.

Summer hats that would protect faces, heads and eyes from the fierce midday sun (right when school lunch break is) are not a feature of 99% of school uniforms, and there is no universal policy anyway that would encourage / force pupils to wear them outside on the hottest days.

As the drought conditions across southern England showed a few years ago, this nation is also woefully unprepared to deal with any extended period of summer dryness; at the time of the hosepipe ban high street retailers (remember them?) continued to sell an extensive range of backyard wading pools “All of which can be filled and refilled with impunity.”

In short; 35c is an enjoyable lark when on holidays, dressed in swimming trunks, sunglasses, a beach hat and with nothing more taxing for the mind to do than read a Dan Browne novel by the poolside bar. Living with 35c: working, commuting, shopping, schooling, cooking, cleaning, sleeping and myriad of other daily activities are not at all as much fun. Its even less fun when the basic infrastructure of the country isn’t geared toward dealing with it. And changing that infrastructure will require a lot of money, a lot of time, and a lot of disruption.

Tags: Climate change, Local, Random thoughts

This entry was posted on Friday, July 3rd, 2009 at 7:36 am and is filed under Author, Climate_Change, Simon Perry, Solutions_for_society. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.