It is hot, very hot. But it is always hot in summer. We are used to it; people get on with their jobs and with normal life. And, anyway, the Kingdom is well air-conditioned. A prolonged power cut, though — that would be another matter.
Nonetheless, we ought to spare a thought for people across Europe sweltering in the worst heat wave in half a century — and often no air-conditioning there. Temperatures in the upper 30s, even over 40 degrees, which we in the Kingdom would find quite bearable, may be good for ice-cream and soft drinks industries, but the long scorching summer is having catastrophic effects across the continent.
Forest fires rage out of control in Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Poland. Rivers are at record low levels, there are water bans across the continent and in the Swiss Alps scientists report melting glaciers, raising fears of landslides. Even Sweden is sweltering. Harvests have been atrocious, with grain yields way below average. Elsewhere the picture is of failed crops, of growing dust bowls and farmers having to buy in expensive fodder to feed their animals — if they are not actually dying; in Brittany the heat has killed 100,000, mainly poultry, and Brittany is one of the cooler parts of France.
There is the human cost too. Some 40 people have died from heat exhaustion or in forest fires.
The cost will run into billions of euros, and much of it will have to be met by the EU rather than national governments. In Portugal, where the fires have decimated the country’s valuable cork forests, the government has announced emergency aid of E100 million — but Portugal, as one of the poorest members of the EU, can ill afford it. Nor is there any sign of a letup.
Coming after last year’s floods across Central Europe, the question that many Europeans are now asking is whether the heat wave is an exception or the sign of things to come. What if it is a trend? What if, as many scientists are busy claiming, this is global warming in action?
More fans and more air conditioners are not the answer. Rather, it will mean tremendous social and economic change — with price tags attached. There will be dramatic effects on European agriculture; and who is going to head for London or Paris in summer if they are as hot as Riyadh or Jeddah?
But then maybe Riyadh and Jeddah are going to get even hotter. Unfortunately, no one has investigated the effects of global warming on the Middle East, let alone the Kingdom. Back in Europe though, disaster is already here, and people are worried. It is getting more and more difficult to cling to the belief that climate change is a figment of the environmentalists’ imagination.
