Don’t believe in climate change? Then come over to Europe

Just how hot does it have to get before the global frog understands he’s cooking?

Hundreds of people have been urged to evacuate affected areas.

Having become used to Australia’s run of record-setting or near-record annual temperatures, it’s somehow been surprising to spend the past month in a dry and increasingly hot Europe.

At the start of July, it was amusing to witness the English carrying on about a London “heatwave” with the temperature hitting 28 degrees Celsius.

I picked up a copy of The Times boarding the plane on Thursday morning. The front page reported Britain expected to set its highest-ever recorded temperature of 38.5 degrees Celsius. Britain’s temperature records go back to the 1600s.

That’s after the bushfire tragedy in Greece, absolutely extraordinary temperatures in Finland above the Arctic Circle, major wildfires in Sweden, even the seemingly immaterial matter of the dust and dead grass in Paris and London parks, all while seeing news reports of Japan’s killer heatwave.

Read Michael Pascoe’s story from The New Daily - “Don’t believe in climate change? Then come over to Europe.”