Climate and Political Heatwaves Kill
Image by Matt Palmer.
Late July 1987 was a bad time for Athens, Greece. A suffocating heat wave embraced the polis of Athena. Hundreds of Athenians died. The government ordered gravediggers to work overtime days and nights. And to keep bodies chill, hospitals received ice from the fish market. “The Athens summer,” said Alan Cowell, a New York Times reporter, “has been injected with the grisly, and the macabre…. What has normally been a time for leisure has become a time of horror and of questioning of the state’s ability to cope with extremes.”
I heard about this 1987 climate disaster from my niece Theodora. I was talking on the phone to her mother, Georgia who is my sister. Georgia mentioned her daughter Theodora was visiting her in Cephalonia from Athens. When I said hello to Theodora, we exchanged good wishes and, rather immediately, we started talking about climate conditions, especially heat. I told her that in Claremont, southern California, where I live, the daily temperature was 100 degrees Fahrenheit. “But in Claremont,” I said to her, “temperatures drop at night, so, at 6 in the morning, the temperature is 60 degrees Fahrenheit.” “On the contrary with us,” she said, “in Athens and Cephalonia [in the Ionian Sea], the stifling temperature remains the same day and night.”
Theodora explained that an air conditioner in nearly every room saves their lives. Walking is uncomfortable. I then tried to explain why the rulers of the world are doing practically nothing to fight climate change. At that point, she said to me, “do you remember the 1987 heat wave in Athens?” When I replied that I had never heard of it, she rattled data and memories.
“More than 4,000 people died in Athens,” she said. “They used a refrigerated train for the bodies. We did not have air conditioners in houses and apartments. Cars had no cooling devices. Hospitals had no air conditioners. The country suffered. But we are now moving back to 1987. Heat waves are ruling our lives.”
Consequences of heat waves
The World Health Organization says heatwaves are dangerous. Heatwaves are a mixture of high temperatures and hot weather lasting for several days. That climate condition kills. “Heatwaves,” says WHO, “are among the most dangerous of natural hazards.” They kill hundreds of thousands of people per year. A study explains heatwaves: “Earth’s average surface temperature has risen at a rate of 0·07°C [Celsius] per decade since 1880, a rate that has nearly tripled since the 1990s. The acceleration of global warming has resulted in 19 of the 20 hottest years occurring after 2000 and an unprecedented frequency, intensity, and duration of extreme temperature events, such as heatwaves, worldwide.”
In 2021, heatwaves in North America killed hundreds of people in Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia. Why this heat is becoming a killer and who is responsible? “The main culprit of global warming today,” said two reporters, “is humans burning fossil fuels. Thousands of scientists, who have studied the causes across decades, have reached this overwhelming consensus. Globally in 2022, humans emitted roughly 36.8 billion metric tons of planet-warming carbon dioxide by burning coal, natural gas and oil for energy.” This obvious truth, however, does not seem to matter.
Heatwaves defined 2023 much more than 2021 or 1987. In 2023, Canada and the arctic suffered tremendously. Canada was on forest fires and the arctic started melting. The United States did not fare much better. The South boiled over. I remember the heat and moisture in New Orleans. I lived not far from the University of New Orleans where I was teaching. Walking about 20 minutes to the university was enough for taking another shower. “It’s not just the heat, as Southerners have explained for generations. It’s the moist, soupy, suffocating humidity. And this year [2023] the punishing conditions have been relentless.”
Political heatwaves
The high temperatures and suffocating punishment of heatwaves and fires, and floods, and droughts, and other miseries of discomfort and limitation of personal freedom to enjoy life and the natural world are becoming a national and international climate and political curse. For instance, the United States is in a deep sleep. Americans are absorbed by the age deficiencies of President Joe Biden and the political dangers of reelecting tyrant and former president Donald Trump. They don’t ask why a convicted felon, who tried to overthrow the government, is not in prison. And they are not disturbed that he is not merely free but he is also a candidate for president. How could that be in a democracy? When I ask that question, I get incomprehensible rumblings, almost theological dogmas about the “rights” of accused persons to appeal to a higher court. But what is to appeal? The evidence that Trump triggered those who attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021, is unassailable. I watched the House Hearings about the Trump effort to deny Biden the White House. I am convinced that Trump was the brain and the inspiration behind the awful attack on the Capitol. Yet, regrettably, Trump is running for president. Biden should have made that impossible. Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, says he is afraid for his safety and the safety of this country. He warned that if Trump gets to the White House, he will have unlimited power to do unlimited harm.
Biden is probably afraid of Trump in the White House. But he is consumed with his standing. His first “debate” with Trump did not go well. He mumbled most of the time. Trump kept insulting him, calling Biden incompetent, weak, and dangerous. Even Democrats attacked Biden and asked him to quit. But Biden said no. He felt obliged to give another speech and answer questions from chosen reporters. He said he was the best man to defeat Trump. And he is right. With the exception of his unacceptable and warmongering ideas and policies on Ukraine and Russia and Israel, Biden said it was too late to replace him with another Democrat to defeat Trump. He is right. With money being the defining factor of politics in America, only billionaires talk through the robots they fund. Biden has been in this game and political business for some 50 years. He knows who’s who in the money business behind the election. He defeated Trump in 2020, and if the Democrats stand behind him, he will defeat Trump again.
The grave political problems of America – climate chaos funded by billionaires, the Supreme Court becoming a house of tyranny, and the money of the billionaires in politics – must be faced head on and resolved as soon as possible. But will a reelected Biden be in a position (mental and political) to address them? He would need a Democratic House and Senate. In fact, he would also need the overwhelming number of Americans in the streets demanding a sweep of the stables: Reforming or abolishing the Supreme Court, no more money or billionaires in American politics, and a national mobilization to fight the heatwaves of the climate and political enemies in the room. They kill. Finally, fossil fuels must be banned, and all the resources of the country must be dedicated to bring solar and wind energy to light and move the country.
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