DERRY JOURNAL Editorial: Record heatwave a climate clarion call

Yet the record temperatures and dire consequences thereof must surely now be viewed as the urgent alarms for concerted action on climate change that they so clearly are. As the mercury rose on Monday, a temperature of 33 degrees Celsius was recorded at a Met Éireann station in Phoenix Park.

It was the second highest temperature ever noted in Ireland - the record being 33.3 degrees Celsius at Kilkenny on June 26, 1887. Monday was, thus, the hottest day in Dublin’s history, with the 33 degrees reading higher than any recorded in Ireland throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.

In Britain, it was even worse. The Met Office reported temperatures in excess of 40 degrees Celsius for the first time. Brushfires more commonly witnessed in semi-desert regions of southern Europe, Australia and California were seen destroying verdure and housing in the ‘home counties’ of England.

The incredibly high temperatures in Britain have undoubtedly caused countless untimely deaths. Although the total toll has not been tallied, Britain’s parliamentary Environmental Audit Committee, in a report on the impact of heatwaves four years ago, noted that excessive heat - such as that experienced in recent days - leads to many premature deaths from cardiac, kidney and respiratory disease.

In 2018, the Met Office was projecting that UK summer temperatures could regularly reach 38.5 degrees Celsius by the 2040s. It breached that in England this week. How regular such temperatures become remains to be seen.

The EAC projected there will be 7,000 heat-related deaths every year in the UK by 2050 if the Government does not take action. That’s to say nothing of the potential for rising sea levels, escalating resource wars and civilisational and societal breakdown if our course is not changed.

Contrary to myth, a frog will jump out of a pot of boiling water before being scalded to death. Are we finally going to wake up?

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