We must adapt now to cope with increasingly hot summers in the future
While the country basked in the sunshine this week, one thing became glaringly obvious - we are not remotely ready for the new normal.
There seems to have been one thing and one thing only on everyone’s minds this week - just how ridiculously hot it is.
I am sure I would have enjoyed the gorgeous sunshine and heat a lot more if I had been sunbathing and reading a book in my garden rather than stuck inside the Scottish Parliament building, where The Scotsman’s office was more akin to a sauna than a comfortable working environment.
Records have been broken, but scientists are warning even hotter temperatures are likely to happen in the coming years.
There is just one problem though - Scotland is woefully underprepared for this.
The Climate Change Committee has warned of this. It said successive UK governments have been “woeful” at getting the country ready for more extreme heat.
It said: “The UK was built for a climate that no longer exists today and will be increasingly distant in years to come.”
It has brought a lot of the country to a standstill with schools closed, flights and trains cancelled, and roads needing to be gritted.
So why, when other European countries that are hotter are able to carry on, can we not? It is similar to how everyone panics as soon as there is a drop of snow in the winter.
There are solutions to our problems out there. Some of the suggestions that have previously been put forward include rolling out air conditioning in schools and hospitals, setting a maximum workplace temperature in a similar way to the minimum workplace temperature, and changing the school and workday so there is no manual labour or being stuck in classrooms at the hottest points of the day.
There is a glaringly big problem here though - all of this costs money. The bill for all these suggestions could come to billions of pounds that neither the UK or Scottish governments have right now.
Yes, these measures will probably save money in the long run, but neither government can afford to spend it at the moment.
Government priorities are also shifting - following the Aberdeen South by-election last week, there is lots of talk about trying to get the North Sea oil and gas opened back up properly. Good for the economy, but perhaps not so good for the climate.
Other places in Europe have been enduring much harsher temperatures than us this past week, and they have been forced to make adaptations. Perhaps in the interim Scotland can look to these examples when the instinct is to panic.
In Amsterdam and Paris, public buildings such as libraries, theatres, churches and community centres are opening up to allow people to sit somewhere with a cooler temperature and drinking water.
We have seen this in Scotland in recent years with ‘warm banks’ in the winter, giving people somewhere warm to go when they cannot afford to heat their own homes. Maybe a similar summer solution could be considered too.
In Italy, workers who cannot carry on in the heat such as construction and farm workers are getting state-funded furlough payments, similar to what we saw here during the coronavirus pandemic.
In Brussels, one school moved their exams into a nearby church where it was cooler.
It is not a glamorous way of securing people’s votes, but there needs to be some action taken now so that we do not see the country coming to a standstill and people’s lives being put in danger during increasingly hot summer days.
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