This is it - climate change is really beginning to bite

[Wowwee1234]

We know the climate is changing and it is us. This particular heat wave feels like the next step up after a winter of devastating storms.

YABU - It's just too hot
YANBU - This is the taste of things to come.

Those people seem to cope in other parts of the world. Why does the UK think it is so "special" and everything affects them more than anyone else? If your summers are getting warmer then it's about time you thought about what can be done to deal with that, but no, Brits just like to whinge (nothing new there) while sitting back doing nothing.

It’s really not new at all. the Brit’s are famous for showing pics of temperatures in their cars and posting it on Facebook lol and taking temperatures in the sun but in the med it’s in the shade, all the time.

They never mention the whole of the UK. I’ve been to the sourh coast and it’s much nicer breeeze then the m25 corridor and home counties etc. my mates lived up north 10c less last there last week and barely a sign of a heatwave just normal temperatures. They may be somewhere in the region of 26c-27c today but again it’s happened plenty of times before. It’s hot where I am but nothing like ive not seen before here lol but they don’t half exaggerate it all. Oh, and 2003 was a very hot summer, 2006 I grew the biggest sunflower ever! Strangely the hottest temps ever recorded are always near airports too in the UK 😆

There will also be wars because of climate crisis. There already are.

🤣

Wars, refugees and more. We live in a delicate ecobalance and we’re fucking up the planet for everyone and all the animals and plants too.

Do you have dc? Or are you talking about people you don’t know

Just like the summers I remember as a child!
Getting home from school and going straight in the sea, also every day off from school was spent swimming!!!
yes I am in the UK!

The problem is that (in the UK) we don’t seem to want to adapt. Other countries cope with what we call extreme (for us) weather but we just lurch every year through it.

we’ve been having rising temperatures for decades, so why aren’t we adapting? Air conditioning? Siestas? Houses built with extreme temperatures in mind? Nope, nothing changes, summer comes, we wring our hands.
we build on flood plains, don’t maintain river dredging (I live near the Somerset levels) and cover vast areas in concrete then wonder why we flood.

Absolutely moronic. No wonder we’re in the mess we’re in with this inane “just relax” attitude.

But what about everyone on "6 figures"? They won't earn that in Scotland.

Climate has been changing since before the Industrial revolution. It’s not all down to humans. Get a grip

It's coming, one way or another - however noble it is to sit with the 'authenticity' day in day out, why put yourself through that?

I'm authentically enjoying this good weather. #trueself

Yeah, I sort of agree. I don't deny climate change at all, and I am actually pretty worried about the state of things - and things to come. But I do remind myself that scientists are just people, and they do get things wrong to a degree.

Also, we are getting our info overwhelmingly through the media - and experienced scientists they are not. Statistics are much more difficult to interpret accurately than headline grabbers would have you believe.

Again, I'm not denying climate change - but certainly history is littered with doom and gloom predictions that haven't come to pass in their entirety or exactly how it was suggested.

I hadn’t thought before about climate refugees. How the fuck will we able to financially support them when AI by then will already have taken most of our jobs?

They would if the homegrown oil and gas industry wasn’t being decimated by 78% tax

It’s the British way - always expecting “someone else” to do it! Whether paying more tax, or driving less, or flying less or recycling more - it’s always “someone else” who should be doing it!

If you’re relying on the rock record-it’s not thousands of years we’re talking about it’s much longer timescales, millions and tens of millions. Thousands and hundreds of thousands of years of higher resolution climate information comes from ice records-which are obviously only a snapshot of the earths history since earth has been cold enough to have ice, estimated at a bit less than a million years of history. The earth is 4.5billion years old and a lot of climate change has happened in that time, and a lot of animals have come and gone. Mass exinctions are a normal part of behaviour on earth (not just the dinosaurs!)

Well that's their problem 😆

I agree with you. I live in sheltered accommodation and my landlord has blocks of flats up and down the country. The flats don't have windows in the bathrooms or kitchens. It's important to be able to let warm moist air out instead of being reliant on extractor fans which don't seem to do a lot.

Even more important is being able to open a window on one side of the flat and another on the opposite side to allow cross ventilation. Opening windows at dawn is an excellent way to cool a flat. We're talking about older people here who are vulnerable to heat, many die in heatwaves.

In my flat, unlike other flats I have lived in, I have East and South facing windows. I used to live in a flat where all the windows were on the South side of the flat. I pity the person living there now. Why is no one thinking of shutters for the windows like in other countries?

If you look at the death stats during heat waves in Europe you'll find the elderly die in the heat just as readily there.

Apparently it's about 2% when including abroad.
Which to be fair is not that bad considering we are just under 1% of world population in western consumerist country. We have also dropped a lot.
I belive largest issue is transport. Providing solid and afford public transport so moving people from one person daily drive to work, moving to green hgvs etc would make bigger dent than people dropping that steak a month they have... But people are easier to bully into submission than companies and government.
My mum takes public transport to work on mainland even though she has car. It's cheaper than driving, takes 15 min more BUT she has freedom to read not just stare at cars in front of her so it's not wasted time.
Trains here can be extortionate. Anyone remembers the guy who flew (i think) Sheffield to berlin then london because it was cheaper than train?

To face the future from a place of authenticity would be to face it with despair. No, I don't think that's how we face it best. People don't cope well with despair.

What you call rhetorical bypassing or a philosophical sleight of hand, others might call seeing the situation from a wider perspective.

It helps me to remember that individually we are only ever on this planet for a tiny blip of time anyway.

It helps me to remember that the universe is vast and it's vanishingly unlikely that earth is the only planet to have evolved complex life.

Those things are just as true as the devastating future our children face.

I don't see how it does you or anyone else any good to stay with your sense of despair for the sake of authenticity.

All we can do is carry on living our lives as if life will continue and embrace happiness wherever we find it. That's a form of denial but it's the only way to carry on living. It's the only way humans have ever lived in the face of every disaster we have ever endured. Our children will do that too, right up to the end. It's just how humans are.

Until you starve to death. If the South Island and the UK are underwater you might be a little naive as to the impact that will have on you and your 'holiday home', however high above sea level or is.

@PencilsInSpace

"That's a form of denial but it's the only way to carry on living."

Why is that the only way to carry on living? Why can't we carry on living while replacing fossil fuels with wind turbines and solar panels? Why can't we carry on living while replacing petrol or diesel cars with public transport or electric cars? Why can't we carry on living while using planes less? Especially when they are used to import roses from Kenya.

Eating less meat isn't going to kill us. Beef isn't an essential item for human happiness.

This isn't about despair. It's about selfish people who want to keep flying and driving SUVs. It's about uneducated people who think that they know better than scientists. Climate has always changed but it doesn't happen at random. There is always a reason for it. It's not complicated.