New events from Bristol Climate Writers - plus the weather
The UK is humid all year round. It is well known that 30C, say, in England, is very different from 30C in a dry country. The humidity means that we cannot sweat effectively, as sweat doesn't evaporate off our skin, and our bodies therefore cannot physically cool down. 30C in the UK - with humidity at 86%, which happened recently - feels unbearable. We call this "muggy" weather. We sweat a lot at even 22C, and can't get cool.
The opposite is also true. The humidity in the winter - which we call "damp" - seeps into our bones, at least that's what it feels like, as our homes and our clothing get progressively damper and thus feel chillier over the autumn/winter/spring months. This is why airing our clothes and bed sheets is so important, getting things completely dry. Many homes have heated "airing cupboards" for this purpose.
Sometimes people ask why we don't have the infrastructure (such as air conditioning) to deal with extremes of weather. The UK lies in a temperate zone, and therefore such infrastructure has not hitherto been necessary. An additional problem is that air conditioning only pushes the problem outside, making it even hotter. Birds, insects, animals and plants can't adapt or use air conditioning - they are likely to be dying in these heatwaves.
As This year's El Niño increases in intensity, the UK, like the rest of the world, will be grappling with ever increasing climate chaos, warned of for several decades and not acted on much by governments anywhere, as far as I can see. What is increasingly clear is that fossil fuels are not the answer. We need to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, use alternative sources of energy, and heat-proof our homes (insulation and solar-reflective window films would be a good place to start).
*no-one is able to function effectively in these temperatures and humidity. I think of India, which has experienced temperatures of nearly 50C.
Meanwhile, Bristol Climate Writers keep going. Eco Poet Helen Moore launched a brilliant new collection of poetry, The Last Lighthouse in Rising Seas, in June; in early July Peter Reason hosted a wonderful event in Bath, exploring river song and river story; also in July I very much enjoyed my visit to Penzance where I taught a class on climate writing; and Nick Hunt will be running a course on speculative fiction in Bristol this coming autumn. If you want to keep abreast of events, please sign up on the BCW page on this website!
