Europe is melting, and not in the romantic, summer-in-Provence kind of way. Rome just touched 46 degrees Celsius – about 115 for those of us still clinging to Fahrenheit. Paris is shuttering schools. Spain’s power grid is wheezing under the weight of millions trying to cool down. We’re supposed to be the enlightened, forward-thinking, techno-wizard generation. So why does it feel like we’re stuck in a sauna with no exit?
It’s tempting to look at a heatwave and chalk it up to summer. After all, this isn’t the first time thermometers have spiked. But what’s unfolding across Europe right now isn’t just a weather story – it’s a governance story. A competence story. And yes, a morality story.
In theory, countries like France, Italy, and Spain are well-resourced, developed, and equipped to handle modern-day crises. In practice, their response to this climate event has looked a lot like duck-and-cover, which might be amusing, if it weren’t also deadly. The people most affected aren’t the ones making the policies. They’re the ones delivering the groceries, mopping the hospital floors, and watering the crops. And while the air conditioning hums comfortably in parliamentary buildings, the elderly in subsidised flats are boiling alive.
Let’s talk about that word we don’t like to say out loud: class. Yes, class still exists – even in places with universal health care and free college tuition. The difference is that the privileged get to pretend it doesn’t matter. But it does, especially when the heat index hits triple digits.
In Marseille, low-income seniors are showing up at hospitals dehydrated and disoriented. In Madrid, street vendors now work in the early hours of the morning, dodging both heatstroke and hunger. These are not isolated anecdotes. They are warnings. And they’re being ignored.
There’s a growing trend in politics to talk a big game about “resilience.” Everyone’s resilient these days, apparently. Farmers. Single moms. Infrastructure. But resilience is not a plan. It’s a buzzword, often deployed when there’s no real solution in sight. Real preparation requires investment – public cooling centres, shaded sidewalks, retrofitted apartments, and a functioning safety net. You know, the unsexy stuff.
Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, things are not different either. States like Arizona and Texas are facing similar heat emergencies. Florida – never one to be outdone in the race to the bottom – just banned mandatory water breaks for outdoor workers. That’s not small government. That’s cruelty in legislative form.
It’s almost comical, in a tragic sort of way. The same leaders who rail against the global elite and claim to speak for the common man are often the ones gutting the very systems that would help that common man survive. In Hungary, Viktor Orbán shakes his fist at EU climate policies while cities fry under cloudless skies. In Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni talks a good game about sovereignty, but local officials are left begging for emergency relief as hospitals fill with heatstroke victims.
And here’s the kicker: We’ve known this was coming. Scientists, reporters, grandmothers – they’ve all been sounding the alarm for years. But because climate change doesn’t arrive with a tidy press release, and because its effects are felt most painfully by people with the least power, it’s been easy to ignore. Until now.
This isn’t just about weather. It’s about whether democratic governments can still do the one thing they were designed to do: protect their people. Not in some vague, ideological sense – but in the basic, literal sense of keeping them alive.
You don’t need to be a socialist or an activist to see the writing on the wall. You just need to pay attention. The heat isn’t going away. If anything, it’s getting worse. So the question isn’t whether another heatwave will strike. It’s whether we’ll be ready when it does.
There’s no shortage of solutions. Urban greening, public housing upgrades, paid leave for outdoor workers, clear emergency response protocols. None of it is rocket science. But all of it requires political will, and that’s in shorter supply than ice water in a heatwave.
The media loves to show pictures of tourists splashing in fountains and farmers spraying wilting crops. But the real story is quieter and far more devastating: emergency rooms packed with overheated pensioners, bus drivers collapsing in transit depots, delivery drivers pouring water over their heads between stops. In Asia and Africa, the consequences are even more acute. In India, heatwaves have killed hundreds this summer alone, with major cities like Delhi and Ahmedabad experiencing power outages and water shortages.
In sub-Saharan Africa, where cooling infrastructure is scarce, farmers are watching crops wither under relentless sun while healthcare systems buckle under heat-related illnesses. These are not future threats but present realities for billions – most of whom contributed the least to climate change but face its harshest effects. It’s not the stuff of headlines, but it’s the reality we’ve built.
This isn’t about blame. It’s about responsibility. We’re past the point where good intentions count for anything. Either we build societies that can withstand climate extremes, or we start counting the casualties. And rest assured, they won’t be the ones writing the policies. They’ll be the ones living – or dying – with the consequences.
We have a choice. We can invest now, while there’s still time. Or we can continue to pretend that record-breaking heat is just a summer quirk, and that public spending is a luxury we can’t afford. But make no mistake: if democracy fails to protect its people from the climate crisis, it won’t be the heat that kills it. It’ll be the indifference.
That’s the story worth telling. That’s the heat we should really worry about.
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