Extreme heat conference cancelled due to extreme heat

Last Wednesday as temperatures in England soared to 35 degrees, more than 12 degrees above average, the London School of Economics cancelled an event to discuss the impact of extreme heat due to the extreme heat. A heatwave, supercharged to its record-breaking extreme , had settled over Europe under a dome of high pressure and unleashed carnage across the continent. So-called “red” warnings had been issued in London alerting people to the threat of extreme heat. Melted bitumen on tram tracks in Leipzig. Alamy Stock PhotoThe event on June 24 was to have marked the start of London Climate Week. Its panel was to have included Professor Lord Nicholas Stern, a former World Bank chief economist, famous also as the author of the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change. Apologising for the cancellation, the LSE explained that the venue it planned to hold the event in, known simply as the Old Building, did not have cooling mechanisms in place “like most buildings in London” and it would be unsafe to host a public gathering within its solid stone walls. Given the death toll that was already mounting across Europe, it was not an unreasonable concern. That day the London Ambulance Service responded to 7900 calls, including 642 that fell into its most serious category. This was a record, but the record fell again the following day. In France, hospitals buckled under the strain and staff in some resorted to begging fast food outlets for ice in which to pack patients suffering heat exhaustion. In early reports, health authorities recorded more than 1000 excess deaths due to heat, but there were other causes of death too. France’s Sport and Youth Minister Marina Ferrari warned that more than 90 people drowned between June 19 the start of July as people sought to cool off in rivers and streams. A three-year-old boy died after he climbed into a car in Paris while his parents were distracted, and was trapped by a child lock. Heatwaves are no longer one-off freak events,” it said. “Every summer we fail to prepare for them is a summer we pay for in lives.” A woman using a fan in London on June 26, the day the London School of Economics cancelled its event on extreme heat. Getty ImagesSpain’s Carlos III Health Institute said in a report that there were at least 1028 heat-related deaths in the final days of June, and it is now bracing for temperatures of up to 44 degrees this weekend.