Heat Waves

Forget global warming, we’re getting cooked!


46 degress Celcius and more than 100 dead (including a 20 year old) in central California. 21 people dead in France (15 000 died in France and 20 000 in Italy in 2003), putting the toll so far at 80. According to the New York Times, 16 500 dairy cows have died in the heat in California (the state produces 12% of America’s milk supply). The remaining cows are producing 20% less milk because they are panting and under strain.

Some morgues in California are full to overflowing with dead bodies. In some cases bodies are ‘double-stacked’. The intensity of the heat and duration has been blamed for the carnage. Even a walnut farmer is reported to have said that the intense sunlight ‘burns them inside the shell’. Fruits like peaches and plums are ripening unevenly.

Searing heat waves are withering the world from California and Canada to Italy, France and Germany

Meanwhile a consultant for the oil industry, and member of the George C. Marshall Institute, Bill ‘O Keefe, has said these heat waves are part of a ‘natural cycle’ of highs and lows.

Thanks Bill. Tell that to the cows and walnuts. A lot of people, in Europe and America, are beginning to wonder if these severe heat waves have got anything to do with Global Warming. The short answer is: “Duh.”

The good news is that fossil fuel depletion will cause us to turn increasingly to hybrids – these are both more fuel efficient and cleaner cars. They’re also very expensive for the time being. The not so good news is that wild weather (extremely hot or cold) inevitably leads to the overloading of electricity grids (as is currently happening in New York). In summer, especially if it is a hot summer, air conditioners work overtime. This puts enormous strain on a nation’s ability to meet total energy demand. Given the antiquated state of international power supply infrastructure (in the USA, China and SA, to name but a few), extreme weather is the last thing we need.

When I lived in South Korea, my last summer there was the most unbearable. When stepping out of one’s apartment, it felt like stepping into a sauna – that’s including the steamy humidity. It had that same unbearable I-can’t-take-it-for-another-moment heat of a sauna or an oven. I defied these conditions last year (in July) when I did a half Ironman in almost 40 degree heat and very high humidity. I had to lie in a stream of water at one point (during the race) to cool off, and after finishing the race I stood in the transition area – basically a parking lot, and overheated. I lay under a nearby airplane (it was set in an open-air military museum in the Iron Triangle area of Korea, close to the border) and fought to remain conscious. Finally, I recovered some of my strength and made a beeline for an SUV, and the air conditioned comfort inside.

I remember commenting to a friend afterwards: “If the temperature in this country gets just a bit higher, people are going to start dying here in droves.” That might not be very accurate. The Koreans are used to hot food, and they often sauna for fun. But the point is, it appears to be getting hotter in Korea too, and we had blackouts while I was working in that country too. My last summer there was definitely the worst of 4. Before I left, air conditioners had sold out, and there were long waiting lists for air conditioners. I knew a Korean family who decided that summer, for the first time, to order an air conditioner, and there weren’t any left. The school where I worked – which was by no means a new school – also had three or four air conditioners installed in classrooms that particular summer. I had mine going right through the night, or else it was too muggy to sleep. I did this despite the fact that my electricity bills were costing me a fortune. I had to: it was simply too hot and unbearable outside to allow the apartment to become an oven.

What’s amusing – in a macabre sort of way – is that people are still going: “Could this be global warming?” Hurricanes, the most powerful and numerous in history, are sweeping our oceans, and we’ve still got ‘experts’ telling us that we’re seeing ‘natural cycles’. I don’t claim to be an expert. When it comes to the weather, I don’t think anyone is. But it’s clear that we are seeing a trend of warmer weather. According to NASA, 2005 was – worldwide – the warmest year in a century. So far, the first half of this year is the warmest half-year since records began in 1895*. We’re seeing a number of disturbing signs, and these signs are forming a pattern and we’ve got some disturbing statistics (like sea levels rising 1.5mm per year).

We’ve also got a lot of local people saying: “I have never seen this sort of thing before.” The trend (among humans) has been to sort’ve ignore the threat, since it appears not to be imminent. Of course, over a period of time, 1.5mm adds up. Sea levels are up 20cm now, since 1900**.

The bad news is, even in the face of catastrophic climate change, fossil fuel depletion will force us to look at some nasty, highly polluting alternatives. We’ll do this once we’ve discovered wind and solar is amazing, but just doesn’t give us nearly as much as we need, and the “Great Solutions” to all our problems turn out to be abysmal flops (like hydrogen and biofuels). South Africa needs to become less dependent on imported oil (as does every other country), and they’ll attempt to achieve this by upping their synthesis of coal to oil. That will mean plenty more pollution. I just hope we’re not going to waste each other’s time, staring at the gray havens, going, “Global warming maybe?” It would be a lot more practical to build something like the atmosphere processors we saw in the movie Aliens, to make the most of what writer James H. Kunstler predicts will be the Dim Ages.

Meanwhile, as we adapt to an oven for an atmosphere, the tipping point fast approaches (and here, fast means possibly within a decade) for the inverse of these conditions: an Ice Age. Does that mean we’ll see more skiing resorts in South Africa? We’ll have to work hard to find the bright side in this difficult period of our common human experience.

*According to the American Data Centre for Climate Study**From a Reuters article in Die Volksbald, Sake: Hittegolwe – aardverwarming of nie?