This is it - climate change is really beginning to bite

MS affects the bodies ability to regulate temperature. And the bodies ability to detect when it's going wrong.

There will be a host of other conditions that have similar effects.

All of the mean a sufferer could become heat exhausted without warning (bearing in mind it can be difficult for someone unimpaired).

That is a fucktonne of people to be checking.

Exactly. It’s like autumn in London at the moment, there are so many dry, dead leaves everywhere. All the grass is parched and dead as well, and it’s only early July.

Why people want to pretend weeks of unnaturally high temperatures with no rain is somehow normal for the uk, I have no idea.

We also had the same conversations about 1976 in 2022 when we had so little rain that the trees started dropping their drought-stressed leaves in August. It was shit scary. That’s happening again this year but its only July. We’re worrying about fires.
The point is we’re having the same conversations about 1976 more frequently. It’s getting hotter and drier and for longer. You’ll know that if you try to grow anything. It’s almost cooking some of my plants.

@SouthernNights59

"However, people do have those conditions in other parts of the world".

Correct - and very high temperatures also kill vulnerable people with those conditions in those parts of the world too.

"As I just said, people in the UK need to learn to adapt to the weather and act accordingly."

You adapt to those conditions by installing air conditioning in private and public spaces - but this is extremely costly in energy terms and not accessible for many of the most vulnerable people, who also tend to be the poorest, and live in the worst housing.

Honestly - I appreciate you've taken a line on this issue which is something along the lines of 'Vulnerable people dying in heatwaves! Get over yourselves! Stop making a fuss!' It wouldn't kill you to just acknowledge that extreme weather events arising from climate change are taking lives, and that for people who aren't sociopaths, this is concerning.

You are more like to flood than be burgled in England.

Traditional flood defences can not protect homes from flooding due to intense rainfall (surface water flooding) which is incredibly difficult to predict and even more difficult to mitigate for!

£4 billion will not reduce the number of properties at risk overall with a greater then 2c increase in mean temperatures, and rising sea levels.

Surface water drainage infrastructure hasn’t been improved since privatisation in the 1980s, much of it is still Victorian era infrastructure. Intense rainfall causes it to flood in relatively frequent storms.

Surface water flooding is often mixed with raw sewage as we use combined sewers so the resulting flooding is hazardous to health.

Our oil and gas reserves were mostly used up in the 1980s, and the small amount we have left has been sold to international companies who sell it to us at the going international rate!

It was all privatised in the 1980s, and since then North Sea oil is not reserved for domestic use. It's extracted by private companies who then sell it on the global market to the highest bidder. It doesn't stay in the UK, and it's not priced for UK customers.

The UK can't refine and manufacture the amount of oil-based products it uses. Overall refinery capacity in the UK has fallen by around 30% since 2010. This means we rely on other countries to produce the products we need.

Job’s comforter has joined the chat.

I'm not in Britain and I'm not a Brit. Where I live we've had the 4th extreme weather event in 2 months. This month only we've had all the rain we normally would get in a year. But hey, we just need to get used to a bit more water, right?

I'm just glad I chose not to have children. Your childrrn will have to get used to the worst human migration event ever witnessed due to many areas in the world becoming uninhabitable, and it won't be a peaceful migration. Good luck to them. When they ask you why you did nothing to prevent this, you can explain to them that you thought they'd just get used to warmer summers.

Hopefully if it is normal for today's children then they will adapt and cope - not like the idiots who think that a few hot days mean the end of the world is nigh!!

I'm not denying climate change by the way, but honestly, you need to get a grip. If you think it's hot how do you think people are coping in areas where it is much hotter, for a longer length of time.

Typical Brits, over-dramatic and not willing to do anything to help themselves.

Why not use our homegrown oil&gas reserves? No need to sell into the international market, just use it domestically?

I am sorry to hear about your son. However, people do have those conditions in other parts of the world. As I just said, people in the UK need to learn to adapt to the weather and act accordingly.

Ranting and raving about a few hot days (which is all it is) is going to change nothing.

I have no family myself, and fully expect to go through my old age alone. However I will no doubt cope, as my parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents did, by taking sensible precautions. Should someone who is so vulnerable that they could die from heat or cold even be living alone? Being old in itself is not enough to die from a few hot days, unless of course they drink nothing. My DF lived the last few years of his life in an extremely hot apartment, he did all the things required to cool it down and got on with life - with a heart condition and asthma (and required no input from me).

Brits don't seem to be good at adapting, rather they prefer to moan and expect "someone else" to fix everything for them. If you are getting more hot weather then everyone needs to learn how to deal with it.

Some people here have air con, some don't. For a few hot days a year it is possible to cope without it. I rather suspect the heatwaves in Europe were a bit hotter than in the UK.

The posters pooh-poohing net zero as an expensive fantasy should wake up. Look at how much the cost of living has gone up since the invasion of Ukraine. The invasion was partly down to Russia gambling that Europe wouldn't retaliate for fear of an energy crisis - and also because Russia was trying to shore up its energy influence as a fossil fuel power.

It's the current situation which is the expensive fantasy. Decarbonising will make us better off and less vulnerable to outrageously bad behaviour by unfriendly powers. The quicker the better!

"Seriously, some of you need to get a grip. People who are so vulnerable that they are liable to die from cold or heat really should have someone checking on them to make sure they are okay. A few hot days a year is not going to kill someone if they take sensible precautions".

My 21 year old son has leukaemia and bipolar one, and is on chemotherapy, antipsychotics and antidepressants. People on these medications are highly at risk from overheating. He blacked out the other day from the heat - ended up in urgent care with a cut head, and had no memory of falling or losing consciousness. Please stop telling people to 'get a grip' because they've pointed out that very high temperatures are dangerous for vulnerable people. Very hot temperatures KILL - hence the excess death rate following a heat wave.

It's hot for the UK, and the types of buildings they have here, even if it's not that hot for the Med. If people are beginning to buy aircon units it's a sign that it's getting too hot for here.

Not everyone has someone who can check up on them, and it's not easy to suddenly acquire friends and family. Some elderly people just outlive all their friends and family. But they might have many good years left, and they deserve to enjoy them!

I remember the summer of 2003. 70,000 people died in Europe because of heatwaves: Heat and health

The 70,000 didn't die because they were British whingers - but because it was too hot.

Of course I care, but you live in the UK - it's really not that hot!!!!

Seriously, some of you need to get a grip. People who are so vulnerable that they are liable to die from cold or heat really should have someone checking on them to make sure they are okay. A few hot days a year is not going to kill someone if they take sensible precautions.

Well we were told by that nice Mr. Gove to ignore experts when it came to deciding on future prosperity, so it would be uppity to ignore our betters.

Pig headed ignorance will see us through. After all, it never did our ancestors any harm.

I can’t recall it ever being as hot as it was yesterday or the day before. It was crazy. Were the storms really that bad though? I live in a rural area and we didn’t seem to have as many trees down as usual or much flooding.

In reference to another ott comment 🙄

Averages don't matter when considering deaths, extremes do.

Remember that the Gulf Stream moderates our weather, if it moves then we'll see a more extreme temperatures.

If there is any claim I am "not looking at the facts" in that report, it's because they aren't actually providing any.

They are just nebulously skirting round the issue and not actually providing clear data for comparison. It's just a list of hard to compare snippets of information. Why ?

And I clearly made a statement that correlation does not equal causation. That goes for hot weather as well as cold weather too. No cherry picking from me.

I'm not that interested in predictions. My guess is that a great many who predict have an agenda and wouldn't predict something that would potentially affect the concensus or their funding.

YANBU - this is a classic case of stable door v horse! 🐎

Again, you are not looking at the facts related to climate change, you are comparing winter cold weather (which can be mitigated for with insulation and heating) and ignoring this part of the report you quoted a link to:

The ONS and UKHSA research identified that during these 5 ‘heat-periods’, around 56,000 deaths occurred in England and Wales. This represents more than 3,200 excess deaths above the 5-year average for the equivalent days.

See below for the scale of the future problems associated with hot weather alone, ignoring other issues such as wildfires, drought, crop failures and infrastructure failures caused by extreme heat!

The annual number of heat-related deaths in England and Wales is set to rise up to fiftyfold over the next 50 years because of climate change, finds new research by UCL and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

The researchers found that even under the most optimistic scenario, associated with 1.6 degrees of warming over preindustrial levels by the end of the century and with high levels of adaptation, the annual number of heat-related deaths will increase up to sixfold. Today’s baseline of 634 annual heat-related deaths will rise to 3,007 per year in the 2050s, 4,004 in the 2060s and up to 4,592 in the 2070s. The worst-case scenario, with 4.3 degrees of warming over the same period and minimal adaptation, would see up to a more than fifty-fold increase in heat-related deaths to 10,317 in the 2050s, 19,478 in the 2060s, and 34,027 in the 2070s.

For comparison, the record-setting hot summer of 2022 saw 2,985 excess heat deaths, indicating a potential “new normal” by as early as the 2050s. For the low emissions scenario this would mean an additional 21 to 32 significantly hotter than average days per year, and an additional 64 to 73 such hot days under the high emission scenario.

https://www.technologynetworks.com/tn/news/heat-related-deaths-in-england-and-wales-projected-to-increase-fiftyfold-over-50-years-402227#:~:text=Deaths%20will%20still%20increase%20sixfold%20under%20the%20best%2Dcase%20scenario.&text=The%20annual%20number%20of%20heat,School%20of%20Hygiene%20%26%20Tropical%20Medicine.