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.

It really is hot this year isn’t it. I saw the other day it’s almost as bad as the summer of ‘76…

Quite!

It's triggered an autonomic dysfunction for me - I cannot imagine much further from lovely than this... I am cycling through pouring sweat but feeling cold - shivering so hard its hurting - zombie falling asleep at every turn - digestion system basically non functional - blood sugar through the roof almost all the time despite normally good BG control... massive build up of lymphatic fluid in all sorts of disgusting places. And no, I haven't got flu!

Yes, so bloody lovely indeed and through it all I have to either sit on an inflatable pressure sore cushion on my sofa or on a similarly sweaty ass inducing one on my wheelchair (lying down in a cool room doesn't exist, there is no cool room).

I am getting air con. Yes, I realise that probably contributes to the problem, but id rather that than heat shortening my life span which it probably will.

It's bloody lovely if you don't have cancer/hypertension/are elderly/are frail/are pregnant/are a manual worker/are on a high dose of antidepressants or antipsychotics.

The heatwave over just 3 days June was linked to about 570 excess deaths.

There you go...there are still many morons in the comments!

The heatwave in 76 was an isolated event in an overall much cooler decade, and affected a much smaller geographical area than the heatwaves we're currently seeing.

I remember in the 80's at primary (East Midlands so would have been June - we always broke up before July) a few occasions where we were told we should stay in the shade and take it easy at lunch as the temperature was or was going to be, 'in the 90s'. But then, me and my mum also both remember there being a lot more snow in the Winters in the East Midlands decades ago.
I think a big problem no one talks about is the issue of all the concrete, brick and tarmac trapping heat- this is only going to get worse if we go on mad building sprees. According to the BBC heatmap, I live in a really hot little corner of a hot estate. When I drive a couple of miles to pick my DD up from her school, that area is a tree-lined road full of mostly older (one or two are late medieval) large detached houses and massive gardens and it's close to a large area of ancient woodland. On a day like today, standing outside the school is actually pleasant - not so if we go in our tiny garden - it feels like an oven! My estate was started in the late 70s and was progressively added to till the mid 90s - and these days a lot of people extend their properties into their already small gardens. An adjacent estate was mostly built in the 60s. Before that it was all farmland and a bit of woodland here 😬

It was like this summer of 2022 so I don’t think anyone can say that this summer (which we’re not even half way through yet) proves that climate change is having a big impact? I know the planet is fucked but there’s nothing different about this summer so I think there’s a bit of hysteria going on.

It really is hot this year isn’t it. I saw the other day it’s almost as bad as the summer of ‘76…

This June was warmer though....

The Romans introduced grape growing in England after the Roman Conquest of 43 AD, and planted them as far North as Hadrian’s Wall, so this isn’t a new thing. And apparently Britons grew grapes in the 11th century during the Medieval Warming, but then it became too cold to grow them during the mini ice age of 1645 to 1715 (when the Thames used to freeze so solidly that ice fairs were held on it).

I know, fancy having a lovely hot summer day in July, never heard of before!

There’s some massive fires near Marseille apparently, people told to shelter in place, etc.

It was sun rain sun rain sun rain in spring in Kent. Damn near perfect growing year so far. Potatoes have all been harvested and are amazing. Wheat the best crop I've ever seen. Farmers moan about the weather every year, always some excuse to put food prices up.

Last year was the wettest spring for years and South East water wanted a hosepipe ban after two weeks of sunshine.

Anyway, school holidays at the end of next week so that will draw the inevitable line under the sunny weather.

Reservoirs are low because the water companies haven't invested in them.

Think about how much the population increased in the last 30 years vs how many new reservoirs have been built.

There's always a hot year followed by cooler ones.

Enjoy it while it's here and then we'll be back to the usual drizzle

You realise the temperature won't stabilise though? So it won't be a matter of just adapting to a new climate. And what happens to the people who live in current deserts? The sky really is falling. It's easier if you resign yourself to it. It's almost comforting because all the things we worry about will mean nothing in 20 or 30 years.

It's not state school holidays yet. It'll rain solidly for six weeks after 23rd July and by August we'll be in autumn clothes.

And these high rise flats don't help.

They need to install air con into them.

You can't blame climate change when it's the design of the residence that's causing the heat.

The old victoriana style houses with the high ceilings keep a lot cooler in this weather.

WE DIDN'T LISTEN!

Honestly im in bed sweating under my tits - I'm blaming Taylor swift snd her private jet tbh

No reservoir has been built for 40 years I think. And it's expected that parts of Europe eg central Spain or parts of Greece will be unliveable in the next few decades. Water is going to be a precious resource.

Yep and everything in the flat gets warm The walls the door handles plus the more worrying things that are mounted on the walls.

Please do not seek to emulate the PP's outlook; hold on to your authentic and clear-sighted response of unease and worry.

The peddlars of "The planet will be fine, it doesn't matter if humanity is wiped out," angle are attempting a bit of rhetorical bypassing; it is a common rut into which can people drop when the dread of the reality of the unfolding crisis feels overwhelming. It entirely shrugs off the truth that any 'wiping out' will not be a swift and painless business as the phrase implies, but rather involve a century of displacement due to resource-based conflict (war, invasion and occupation), loss, disease, famine and starvation, social collapse, regression of human and employment rights, violence, fear and death. And not 'only' in remote communities and countries in the global South, but right here in the UK.

@EvangelicalAboutButteredToast you mean the weakening of the Gulf Stream surely?

It's possible for people to enjoy the weather today - and for the climate to still be changing!

Since other posters are suggesting it's just like 1976 - it does feel different to the kind of summers and winters I remember from childhood. The sun today felt really severe and cruel, not normal for England. Just as the relentless storm we were getting earlier this year felt tropical, too much rain too quickly, and the flash flooding is extremely dangerous. The 2021 flooding in Europe was devastating.

I met up with a friend last year who lives in Addis Ababa and she was despairing, in a really dark place, about what climate change is doing to Ethiopia and what will happen to climate refugees.

Love all the climate crisis deniers popping on to say hello while we all swelter 😂

Yes very worrying - especially thinking of my 8mo old and her future!!