When did the narrative around warm weather change?

I love the nebulous phrase 'since records began' which is trotted out every few minutes by the news media. I always want to know a) WHEN did the records begin and b) what the precise criteria for those recordings is. Some measurements only started being taken in the 1950s or 1980s for example. Without this information, it doesn't mean anything really. It just sounds alarming.

I’ve absolutely loved this hot few weeks and the beautiful sunny spring we had.
I am concerned about climate change but last year was so miserable and wet that this year has been a lovely welcome boost.
The last prolonged hot spell I can remember was in 2017 and I loved that too!

It depends how you define ‘hotter.’ Over what time scale? Compared to what baseline? A lot of charts start in the 1850s, right after the Little Ice Age, of course it’s warmer now than then. But if you look at historical climate trends over thousands of years, this isn’t shocking. What is shocking is how aggressively we're told to panic, while ignoring historical context and uncertainty in climate modelling.

I just don’t buy the apocalyptic messaging

Questions to you though:

What do you think will happen when glaciers stop feeding the rivers that flow into the Bay of Bengal?

What do you think will happen when human life becomes insupportable in large parts of the Arabian peninsula and Indian subcontinent? Have you ever experienced 50 degrees Celsius in a home that lacks aircon? What do you think all these people will do? a) stay where they are or b) move north?

What do you think will happen when permafrost on the tundra thaws and releases the methane that's stored in it?

We haven't had a sunny summer for 2 years. I love all this sunshine.

I remember the summers of 1974 and 1976 and have lots of lovely photos of us on the beach and in the garden with the hosepipe on. I don't remember anyone complaining (except my grandmother who didn't like the heat and used to come out with all those phrases from Peter Kays stand up routine):

'There's no air movement'
'I like it warm but not this warm'
'It's sticky weather'
'I prefer winter, at least you can put another jumper on'
'I'm sweating cobs'

...and my favourite which makes me smile whenever I hear it:

'There's no air.'

Brilliant! It's the fatties' fault!

(I am a fatty...)

One degree warmer on average across the year but with extremes of summer heat that are far more extreme.

I just don’t buy the apocalyptic messaging

So, what do you think the end game is as the world gets hotter and hotter and hotter?

Yep. We're so bombarded with alarmist headlines so frequently that it's really difficult to tell the difference between genuine danger, and media scaremongering. Somebody needs to learn the lesson of the boy who cried wolf. See also:
1999: The whole of Cornwall will be gridlocked because of everybody "flocking" to see the eclipse.
1999: People will burn their eyes out watching the eclipse. The papers were full of people wearing "eclipse glasses": like the virtue-signalling pictures of the masks in 2020.
1999: The millennium bug will wipe out humanity.
2000: Everybody will be killed by their mobile phones frying their brains. (Probably screen addiction that we now have is far worse than this.)
2001: Foot and Mouth.
2001: Terrorists are around every corner.
2001: Paedophiles are around every corner, teaching your children, and offering them sweeties. (fast forward to now, and people telling little boys they can become little girls and vice versa are welcomed with open arms.)
2003: Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.
etc. etc.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/19/britain-heatwave-1976-crisis-summer-heat

Yeah, yeah, yeah - a little bit of global warming and skin cancer. People are so joyless banging on about those...

I was trying to remember the depth of the advised shallow baths in 1976. And you had to share. And it wasn't every day. The 2/3 showers a day or you're grim crew would faint at the horror.
Frequent news items about villages flooded long ago for reservoirs reappearing.
I was on a hiking trip in the Scottish Highlands in August 1976 and kept coming across public loos that were out of action because they used stored rainwater and had run out.
And plenty of people got sunburn to the point of blistering in those days.

@frozendaisyI need to hear more about your strange day at Kew!!

We had a lovely 1976. Lots of BBQs, sleeping outside for weeks in tents or on balconies. All our neighbours out and about until late at night, playing outside until late, lots of socialising, it was fun.

My parents were pretty relaxed about it. My mum being Italian and Dad having been a tank commander in WW2 in North Africa then Italy, we were well prepared for a bit of heat.

I DO think current younger generations are not as resilient as previous generations. I know that's a generalisation, but we did seem to be able to tough things out a bit more jn the past. No air con, no fans, skin being burned on vinyl car seats, basic SPF6 sun cream, no constant hydration.

That's nothing new though. In fact I'd say it's pretty traditional

In the 70s they thought we were going into an ice age… the earth is always changing.

Well said! I have written on another thread that Brits just don't seem to be able to adapt to anything outside the norm. As for the number of posters who seem to believe that the UK is the hottest, and most humid, place on earth - there are no words.

It is quite possible to deal with a bit of hot weather using sensible precautions, but people have to do it themselves, no amount of moaning or expecting someone else to fix it is going to change things.

Incidentally, in defence of your mother, while I don't doubt some people do die in hot weather (although not as many as in extreme cold), I have never heard of, or read articles about it, where I live.

You definitely can't account for stupidity. No one in the UK should be going to hospital for heat related issues. We have shops that open early and close late, we have access to fridges, freezers and cold water from taps. I see people running in the middle of the day, the elderly out without hats on out in the middle of the day, bald men in soft tops with no hat on, babies lying fully exposed in buggies etc. I do wonder what happened to common sense!!!

I was thinking exactly the same thing. I see it in my town centre too People sat outside pubs for hours and hours going as red as lobsters. Its just idiotic

No one wants to be inconvenienced in the slightest ever about anything nowadays

Many enjoy regurgitating “project fear” about climate change. They don’t want to give up or pay more for a big car, or a flight, but they also don’t like it too hot, or too cold or too wet.

And then there is the bollocks English nostalgia traditions nonsense, afternoon tea on the lawn, watching cricket at the village green, polite neighbours, stiff upper lip, wearing neat boaters and cutting a very tidy privet hedge, because that is supposed the English nirvana (which doesn’t fucking exist) - expect just outside the houses round the back of Kew Gardens! (Strange day, stranger people)

It’s largely insane.

And as for the predictable British weather, yeah that era has almost going, going gone. Whether you believe the science or not, makes no difference more extreme weather is here. In 15 years time 32C in the height of summer will be a cooler day.

As the UK heats places already hotter heat as well.

And many people seek out these temperatures for a holiday, I know you don’t have to work in them, but others do to give you a holiday.

The UK thinks it’s special and it’s not really just a small island off the west coast of Europe having to deal with climate change like everywhere else.

Climate change is extremely alarming but also you don't like that headlines are scary?

I thought I'd explained it.

Ok, you asked why I thought climate change was alarming but alarmist headlines weren't a good idea. I don't like any alarmist headlines
The danger with a largely scientific illiterate public is that when there is a danger and media outlets largely see it as an opportunity to generate dramatic headlines, the public then start to dismiss the actual science when they don't see much evidence of the dramatic headlines being true. When people are asked to believe everything they read they end up believing nothing they read. It's a downward spiral. We saw it during Covid.

When they see weather maps now being presented differently (anything over a certain temperature being represented in ever deepening shades of scary red rather than actual figures), some people get very alarmed - especially when they keep being bombarded with information about how dangerous it all is - and many people start to dismiss them altogether, along with all climate science. And so you get the "it's called summer, get over it" posts on SM.

Watch the video on temp changes
76 was weather
Now it's climate

Presumably there were also people in the "good old days" who didn't like hot weather?

Seems like you're maybe exposed to a few more of those people now than you were then?

I’m guessing she means Supertramp.
Edit: cross post with the actual answer!

“Supergrass? In 1976?”

@PickAChew no, Supergrass in 1995, heatwave that summer