What will you do to adapt?

What did you do to stay cool this summer?

By the time you read this, I hope we’ll be heading into somewhat cooler weather, but at the time of writing, we’ve just experienced the hottest temperatures ever in the UK.

My wife and I had the joy and the misfortune to celebrate our son’s graduation on the day that the UK’s temperature record broke the 40°C barrier, peaking at just over that in Coningsby in Lincolnshire. Where we were in Birmingham, my son got one degree, but we all got 37 degrees in the shade.

Wales and Scotland also saw temperature records, and there have been devastating wildfires in Portugal, Spain and France. In what seems to be a new phenomenon, fires in Britain linked to the heatwave also destroyed homes and businesses. The London Fire Brigade said it was their busiest day since World War II and the government declared a national emergency.

It’s only three years since the last temperature record was set in Cambridge, not far from me. I see that I wrote about extreme weather in last September’s en, following heatwaves and floods across North America and Europe. The pattern seems to be repeating.

Hotter and drier

Not far from where I live there is a controversy about a new town being developed. Locals are complaining that too much precious water has been abstracted, and as a result village ponds are drying up and farmers can’t water their crops. All this in a hot and dry region which is getting hotter and drier.

One heatwave doesn’t prove climate change, and the weather is of course naturally variable, yet the trends are clear, the climate really is getting hotter. We now hear very little about the arguments from a few years ago that global warming is on pause (which even then relied on a very selective use of data). The arguments of climate sceptics are now about delay rather than outright denial.

In the midst of this it’s remarkable that the candidates to be the next prime minister seem unwilling to give climate change the necessary political urgency. All of them acknowledge the reality of climate change, but their comments have implied some backpeddling on commitments to tackle it. There will be a lot on the plate of the new prime minister – the cost of living crisis, Ukraine, the NHS, to name only three issues – but if left too late the climate crisis will have far greater long-term costs.

I’m afraid this is the new reality, and we’re going to have to adapt to rising temperatures even if the world stopped all greenhouse gas emissions now – and yet the world has only seen a 1.1° rise on pre-industrial levels so far.

So you might say, keep cool and care for creation. But caring for creation is also an act of love and kindness to people who suffer the consequences of extreme weather, from farmers suffering drought to people who risk losing homes from fire or flood.

Summer visitors

On a more cheerful note, this summer has also seen a small flock of bee-eaters nesting in Norfolk. Bee-eaters, possibly my favourite European bird, are small, exuberantly coloured insect-eating birds which normally summer in southern Europe. They are quite a rarity in the UK, and although one bee-eater doesn’t make a climate crisis, it’s a small sign that the natural world is changing. We might welcome birds from hotter climates, but their arrival portends new stresses on creation.

There are steps we can take to adapt to a changing climate. We might use water efficient appliances in our homes, plant our gardens with drought-resistant species, and provide plenty of shade. Many older church buildings may keep cool in summer, but others might benefit from good insulation which also keeps them warm in winter and helps with the energy bills. What will you do to adapt?