One Good Thing about the heat emergency

People will be aware for the next few days Daisymae, but once it turns cooler, it will be forgotten.

Or they’ll just say - have an ice cream, stop moaning.

Let's hope you're right, Daisymae!

Sky News is due to hold a Conservative leader debate on Tuesday.

So maybe the candidates will be put on the spot about the climate change issue.

Daisymae

It will concentrate minds on action that needs to be taken to reduce carbon emissions. Time and time again action has been kicked into the long grass. Tomorrow's problem, well going to be increasingly difficult to keep heads in sand by Wednesday.

I fear it will make little difference.

The climate change deniers (I'm married to one!) will continue to deny.

Those who are already pressing for more action will continue to do so, but probably with little more support than ever.

Meanwhile, the vast majority might pay lip service while this heatwave lasts - while relaxing in the coolness of the energy-guzzling portable air conditioning units that they have just rushed out to buy, or as some do when it gets too hot for them at home, spend the hot days driving aimlessly around in their nice, cool, air conditioned cars!

According to the article that comes up on the way to these forums - Gransnet has followed the Express and the Sun - in treating this recent heatwave as just a bit of hot weather. A great day to go to the beach....

Well..it put my daughter in hospital. She was caught out arriving in Birmingham, had been drinking water continually (as advised on TV) - but couldn't get a taxi, had to walk to her hotel in the heat, didn't feel like eating.

Once she arrived at the hotel she felt really ill. This ended in her phoning several times for an ambulance. Eventually - and I think it took too long - paramedics came and found her 'unresponsive and having seizures'. At the hospital she was found to have a very low sodium level in her blood. ('Hyponatremia'). In fact, if left, she could have died.

She is still feeling that her brain is not right, and I think is slightly confused. She's very distressed by her very sudden discharge yesterday; the only help from the hospital was a taxi to the hotel where a lot of her property had been left!
My sister and I are trying to help.

Message - if it gets this hot again, (and it will!) DON'T drink gallons of water with no food - you need salt. Exercising will make it worse, too.

40 degrees of heat is dangerous.

Thank you for the reminder Alie2Oxon - both salt and sugar are really important to keep the body fluids in balance. We too have had a couple of instances with our daughter when she has suffered from heat exhaustion. We carry sachets of Dioralyte now, just in case - and she's in her 30's! It seems that some people are more prone to it than others.
I hope your daughter is better soon.

What an awful thing to happen to your daughter Alie2Oxon. I hope she makes a full recovery and thanks for the warning. This heat is dire and very dangerous.

Message - if it gets this hot again, (and it will!) DON'T drink gallons of water with no food - you need salt. Exercising will make it worse, too

Other minerals and salts can be lost too, so rehydration sports drinks are good or juice.
Yes, that needs highlighting again and again.
It has been mentioned in posts on here.

I hope your DD makes a full recovery, Alie2Oxon

StarDreamer

Sky News is due to hold a Conservative leader debate on Tuesday.

So maybe the candidates will be put on the spot about the climate change issue.

So why when they were down here in Exeter yesterday did the candidates not visit the Met Office to learn about the science behind the climate crisis and why it is critical to take urgent action to cut carbon emissions?

Alie2Oxon, so sorry to read about your daughter. Hoping she soon feels a lot better.

I've reported my own post to GN. I'm truly annoyed that that
article is still coming up.

NOT a great day for the beach.

40 degrees of heat is dangerous.

And yet millions, billions even, of people live in temperatures that high, and often higher. They survive and thrive.

We are evolutionarily tropical animals.

Oh that’s all right then. Let’s not worry about the destruction of the planet. Let’s just go on heating it up so more places are unliveable in or consumed with fires and floods

Yes, I talked to an Indian man once and he told me "We never go out in the midday sun"......

40 degrees is about our normal body heat, so our usual was of cooling off - to sweat - cannot work!

ABOVE, not about!

vegansrock

Oh that’s all right then. Let’s not worry about the destruction of the planet. Let’s just go on heating it up so more places are unliveable in or consumed with fires and floods

According to Alex Epstein, fossil fuels, as well as causing acknowledged problems, also solve those problems. He argues that as fossil fuel use has increased, solutions to climate problems have also increased, so much so that climate-related disaster deaths have decreased by 98% over the last century. This is what he calls a 180º difference from what we are being told.

This is not a denial of climate change. Rather it is an acknowledgement of our improving ability to deal with climate change.

Photo from his book, Fossil Future showing stats from reputable source, as all his stats are.

Alie2Oxon

Yes, I talked to an Indian man once and he told me "We never go out in the midday sun"......

40 degrees is about our normal body heat, so our usual was of cooling off - to sweat - cannot work!

Interesting. When I lived and worked in Thailand, including in schools with no air-con and with temperatures in the upper thirties and low forties, I sweated masses even when standing still. I presume everyone else did too.

Admittedly, that wasn't in direct sunlight. I avoided that as much as possible, as the Thais do.

And, as your post suggests, Indians.

Baggs - I see your data comes from something called the Maddison Project - so who is funding this?

Independent or companies to do with fossil fuels?