Are we there yet?
is it Doomsday already?
Heatwave
There’s a heatwave (in the UK). You may have noticed!
The media wants to tell me that; “The UK infrastructure is just not set up to cope with such hot temperatures”.
Should we examine that statement and see if we think it holds water?
Have you done any travelling?
I have a friend from Africa who tells me that she finds the UK heat oppressive despite her hailing from a much hotter climate.
It reminded me of when I had my Canadian buddy over in winter time and he was shocked at how cold he felt despite it being a pretty mild 6 degrees C. As a Canadian mountain guide, he’s used to living and working at -20 and sometimes much lower.
I’ve also lived and operated for periods of time in both the arctic and tropical regions…and I totally agree!
I’d say the UK heat feels oppressive at anything above 18C degrees, possibly cooler, and the UK manages to chill you to the bone at around 6C degrees.
The common denominator, between winter and summer in the UK is the humidity factor.
I think we often forget that we live on an island and that brings with it a lot of wet-weather systems.
So it’s not like being on holiday where we often adapt to the very hot climate quite quickly.
I live in a hundred-year-old sandstone-built house and it’s a pleasantly cool environment without air-con and without even a fan.
The stone keeps heat in in the winter and the heat out in the summer.
It could be that our great-grandparents who didn’t have fridges or air-conditioning had to think about temperature control a lot more deeply than we do.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
1. The modern world (over)-relies on technology.
2. The future is looking more and more uncertain.
3. Technology can’t be relied upon when the infrastructure that supports it breaks down or is interrupted.
Your future decisions might want to factor the above in.
With the additional family member (baby Luna) joining us a year and a half ago we thought about getting a bigger car. I even went down to Newcastle to test-drive one. We decided it wasn’t prudent in the end.
Nobody knew that the fuel prices were going to go up as much as they have but the future looked jolly uncertain. BREXIT, Covid, wars in Europe, global shifts in weather patterns, you name it it’s all happening.
I don’t think it’s a time to live cautiously. I think it’s a time you, me, and the world align ourselves with nature instead of our own best interests.
This may involve bold moves to a remote Scottish island as our friends did during the lockdown. It may involve finding an allotment space where you can begin to learn how to grow your own food. It may just involve selling all the shit you don’t need.
Whatever you do, just build some resilience into your world.