Introduction
The news in the summer of 2017 was all about the hurricanes in the Caribbean (three of which ripped into the US causing extensive damage), the earthquakes in Iran, Iraq, and Mexico, and disastrous, flooding in India, Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh that drowned over a thousand people and displaced millions more.
In 2018, the roll call of natural disasters continued: stifling heatwaves in Australia, numerous destructive wildfires along the west coast of America and Canada, and more devastating hurricanes tearing into the Caribbean islands and the USA. Then in early 2019, the monster cyclone Idai barrelled into Mozambique killing at least 1000 people and leaving almost half a million homeless.
Are these disasters becoming more frequent, and are they somehow related to climate change? Or do they always happen every 10 or 20 years, and so the disasters of the last few years are just a normal run of horrible weather: storms, heatwaves, and floods. And earthquakes? They have been devastating cities and destroying lives since the beginning of recorded time.
But then most people have read that scientists and meteorologists are saying that global temperatures are now increasing year after year. After 2015, which was a record-breaking year, 2016 was hotter still and then so was 2017. The five hottest years on record have all occurred since 2010. Is this just part of a normal cycle of temperature variations that sometimes go up and then eventually come down? Maybe this has all happened before and we will all soon be back to normal?
In this chapter we want to examine the evidence that the climate appears to be permanently changing. We will look at all the signs that the Earth is suffering from a multitude of stresses and forces that are making life dangerous and miserable not just for people in almost all countries around the world, but for most of the ecosystems and animal species on the planet. Something is seriously wrong. Thatās why the title of this chapter is āA planet in perilā: because something out there is having a malign influence on what was once a beautiful and healthy planet.
Heat Waves
Although there is no standard definition of a heat wave, itās a phenomenon that everyone understands. We all have a general sense of what the term means. Itās not just that itās hotter than normal for the time of year: the heat keeps going for several days, the temperature hardly falls overnight, and for most people, the hot weather is close to unbearable. When some people actually die of heatstroke and exhaustion during this period, there is no disputing the term. Itās a heatwave. 1
Heatwaves have been around for a long time: they are not events that have suddenly appeared since scientists started worrying about climate change and global heating. The first well-documented case may be the extreme heat that settled over London in 1858. The River Thames at the time was little more than a massive and foul sewer carrying the human waste of more than two million people slowly out to sea. Since the river is tidal in central Londonāmost of the filth came back in again. The smell was bad enough in the winter, but in the summer heat of 1858 the stench was intolerable. Since drinking water came from ground water sources outside the city but also contaminated by human waste, cholera was a constant threat.
The abominable stench from the River Thames in the mid-nineteenth century finally resulted in government action to build a sewerage system that still operates today.
There is a lesson to be learned from this event in Britain (which is not the obvious one that seemingly only catastrophic events lead to any real government action); it is that heat waves make all the other environmental problems and health issues that are present at the time much, much worse.
Heat waves occurred regularly throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Among the most well-documented heat waves in the United States are those that occurred in 1980 (St. Louis and Kansas City, Missouri), 1995 (Chicago, Illinois), and 1999 (Cincinnati, Ohio; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Chicago, Illinois). The highest death rates in these heat waves occurred in people over 65 years of age. 2
But since the year 2000, there have been some extreme events. In 2003, a record heat wave over western Europe resulted in the deaths of as many as 70,000 people, mostly in Italy and France. The young, the sick, and the elderly were most affected. Some estimates run as high as 80,000 deaths. For the period 2000ā2106, at least 136,000 fatalities were recorded in Europe due to heat-related health complications, which represents more than 87% of all disaster-related deaths in that region. 3
In July 2006, heat waves again suffocated Europe and North Americaāwhere over 200 people died in the US. Temperatures in South Dakota reached 54 Ā°C; in California the heat rose to 50 Ā°C. A year later, Europe again experienced sustained temperatures over 45 Ā°C. This pattern has continued every year since.
The most extreme recent event is reckoned to be the Russian heat wave of July 2010āwhen thousands of people died: the exact number is unknown. Scores of people reportedly drowned while swimming drunk. 4
In the summer of 2011, a heatwave in Texas produced temperatures over 45 Ā°C. The associated drought and record wildfires cost an estimated $12 billion. 5
2015 was an extreme year for heatwaves. In Egypt temperatures reached 45 Ā°Cāover 60 people died. This was followed by extreme temperatures in Iran which were reported as a heat index of 73 Ā°C! Then Pakistan was scorched in June by 49 Ā°C heat that left 1200 dead; almost 2000 were hospitalized for dehydration and heat stroke. The month before in India, over 2500 people succumbed to the overpowering heat.
In 2016, the hot weather continued its assault. In southern Africa at the beginning of the year an extreme heatwave set ināexacerbated by the continuing drought. Many places broke records in early Januaryārecords that had been set only weeks earlier in late 2015. The first week of January 2016, the temperature reached 42 Ā°C in Pretoria and almost 39 Ā°C in Johannesburg, both of which were 3 Ā°C or more above previous records.
Extreme heat also suffocated South and South-East Asia in April and May 2016 prior to the start of the summer monsoon. The extreme heat was centred on Thailand, where a national record of 44.6 Ā°C was set at Mae Hong Son in April. Several records were broken in Malaysia in March and April, and in May temperatures rose to 51 Ā°C in Phalodiāthe highest temperature ever recorded for India.
In the Middle East and northern Africa, temperatures were at record highs. The highest temperature was recorded at Mitribah in Kuwait in July 2016 where the mercury hit 54 Ā°C which, if confirmed, would be the highest temperature on record for Asia. The same month, temperatures rose to 54 Ā°C in Basra, Iraq and 53 Ā°C in Dehloran, Iran. 6
In early August 2016, a heat wave in Europe dubbed āLuciferā caused several deaths. As sweltering heat settled across western Europe, temperatures rose to 38 Ā°C in Italy, 40 Ā°C in France, and 44 Ā°C in Spain. 7
In the same year, several countries, including Mexico and India, reported record high temperatures while many other countries observed near record highs. A weeklong heat waves at the end of April over the northern and eastern Indian peninsular, with temperatures over 44 Ā°C, contributed to a water crisis for 330 million people and caused 300 fatalities. 8
The intense heat continued into 2018. Although many ...