As Extreme Heat Becomes New Normal in Europe, Governments Scramble to Respond

PARIS — In France, a once uncommon word is increasingly on people’s lips: “canicule,” or heat wave, and its growing usage is a stark reminder of what scientists say may be the new normal: extreme heat and its deadly toll.

Cooling off in the Trocadero fountain on Thursday in Paris.

Across France this week, and also in Britain, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, heat records were smashed, leaving millions of Europeans searching for solutions to endure temperatures soaring above 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

With summers getting hotter, and their populations suffering — and dying — officials across Europe have been scrambling to come up with measures to protect desperate residents in places that never even had the need for air-conditioning before.

France has taken what is arguably the most aggressive stance, moved by a heat wave in the summer of 2003 that killed 15,000 people.

Read the story from The New York Times by Elian Peltier - “As Extreme Heat Becomes New Normal in Europe, Governments Scramble to Respond.”

Why Aren’t the Media Covering Climate Change All Day, Every Day?

At a time when the president shouting “fake news” is old news and daily scandals are the new normal, it is both difficult and important for the media to strike a balance between the serious and the sensational. I understand how tough that tension is. Every day at The Nation, we try to cover what is important, but that’s not always easy—especially when much of the media privileges stories with the biggest shock factor.

The flooded banks of the Seine in Paris.

Over one seven-day period this summer, when children were being separated from their families at the border, MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News dedicated only one hour and eight minutes to the crisis—combined. During that same span, the three networks spent 34 hours and 28 minutes covering Omarosa Manigault Newman and her tell-all book.

Read the story by Katrina vanden Heuvel from The Nation - “Why Aren’t the Media Covering Climate Change All Day, Every Day?”

Extreme weather: why the impact will be felt more widely

Extreme is the new normal when it comes to weather, with devastation caused by floods, fires and cyclones filling our news feeds all too frequently.

Health services need to build surge capacity
 to prepare for extreme weather events in the future. 

Thanks to the relatively recent development of event attribution in climate science, researchers can now confidently attribute the increase in extreme weather events to human-forced climate change.

For Australians, climate change means more heatwaves, more droughts, more intense cyclones (although less of them) and more flooding. The impact of such weather is already a reality for many who have lost homes and, tragically, loved ones, in events like the recent Queensland and northern New South Wales floods.

But the impact of extreme weather will be felt more widely. How will it affect our health? Are our buildings changing to adapt? Will our insurance policies change?

We asked seven University of Melbourne experts about our preparedness.

Read the story by Catriona May on the University of Melbourne’s Pursuit website - “Extreme weather: why the impact will be felt more widely.”

Climate change will stir 'unimaginable' refugee crisis, says military

 People wait to receive aid at Guthail, Jamalpur,
 Bangladesh, where the river Yamuna’s water level
is 118cm over the danger line.

Climate change is set to cause a refugee crisis of “unimaginable scale”, according to senior military figures, who warn that global warming is the greatest security threat of the 21st century and that mass migration will become the “new normal”.

The generals said the impacts of climate change were already factors in the conflicts driving a current crisis of migration into Europe, having been linked to the Arab Spring, the war in Syria and the Boko Haram terrorist insurgency.

Military leaders have long warned that global warming could multiply and accelerate security threats around the world by provoking conflicts and migration. They are now warning that immediate action is required.

“Climate change is the greatest security threat of the 21st century,” said Maj Gen Munir Muniruzzaman, chairman of the Global Military Advisory Council on climate change and a former military adviser to the president of Bangladesh. He said one metre of sea level rise will flood 20% of his nation. “We’re going to see refugee problems on an unimaginable scale, potentially above 30 million people.”

Read The Guardian story - “Climate change will stir 'unimaginable' refugee crisis, says military.”

Record-breaking heat giving the world a 'new norm'

Subtle changes are bringing major
and significant weather outcomes.

As the world endures a third straight year of record-breaking heat, a new study has given fresh insight into what global warming is likely to mean for Australians if it is not curbed.

Using new methodology, Germany-based researchers Climate Analytics found the difference between 1.5 and 2 degrees of warming – the two goals included in the Paris climate deal – would be much greater in terms of extreme events and disasters than previously believed.

Already, at about 1 degree warmer than pre-industrial times, parts of the world are experiencing more frequent and intense extreme events – heatwaves, unusual dry spells, dumping rainfall, massive coral bleaching.

The report says the upper end of current climate extremes would be "the new normal" at 1.5 degrees warming - which could be just 10 to 20 years away under the current trajectory.

Read Adam Morton’s story in the Melbourne Age - “Climate change: Warning of extreme events and a move into uncharted territory.”

Isis arose in the shadow of climate change



Isis arose in the shadow of climate change.

Climate change played a key role in the rise of the Islamic State.

Humans instinctively search for order and stability, two things that climate change both threaten and which has been promised by Isis, even if it meant bending to a rather thuggish bureaucracy.

Such is our hunger for order and stability, and a sense of community, that is seems that we are prepared for forego many usual benefits to bring that sense of normality back into our lives.

Ironically, the “party” we have enjoyed to the past two centuries as we have gouged ourselves on the believed inexhaustible benefits of fossil fuels energy, have embedded our lives with a fanciful idea of normality and most of us have no understanding of what the “new normal” will be or why we should embrace it.

The idea of normal being implemented by Isis is not only wrong in the extreme, but so restrictive and limiting that the idea of a contented life is not on the landscape at all.

Escape from catastrophic climate change is most certainly going to require order and stability, but most certainly not that presently enforced upon people in those areas it now has in its control.

Even living with climate change is going to demand order and control and within that a powerful sense of community and an inner contentment that is absent in every way from the Isis idea of community – Robert McLean.

Read The Guardian story that discusses what is behind Isis - “The Isis papers: behind 'death cult' image lies a methodical bureaucracy.”