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Why do we pretend heatwaves are fun – and ignore the brutal, burning reality?

 An estimated 600 people will die as a result of this one heatwave. Those
kinds of numbers from a virus would spark at least a localised lockdown,
and in a plane crash, a national day of mourning.

But it’s hard to respond to climate fatalities proportionately without confronting global
heating and taking on the underlying inequalities that make some people
more vulnerable than others. High temperatures are much more dangerous when
you’re disabled, when you’re homeless, when you’re incarcerated, when
you’re old. It would be pretty rum to be squeezing disability benefits at
the same time as worrying about whether disabled people are at greater risk
from the weather, and need more care – better to imagine this an act of
God, in which the deaths cannot possibly be prevented.

 Guardian 23rd June 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jun/23/why-do-we-pretend-heatwaves-are-fun-and-ignore-the-brutal-burning-reality

June 27, 2025 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | climate change, UK