Feels like 40 degrees – Let’s get a Ministry for the Future

For the first time in history, the country in which I live – the Netherlands – has issued a Code Red alert due to the heat. Code red is only issued when the environmental circumstances are such that there is a significant risk of “destabilising of society”. I can only remember that we’ve had this for very severe storms in the past. Today, we have it for heat. In Utrecht, it’s right now 37 degrees Celsius, but due to high humidity levels, it feels like 40. In the South-East of the Netherlands, temperatures are around 39 degrees, hence feel-like temperatures well over 40. And the reporting we saw from London and Paris looked even worse. The weather presenters here have done a good job in explaining the relation to climate change. Some right-wing politicians keep downplaying these explanations, saying we should enjoy the lovely weather with a cool beer by the pool, but I think reality is hitting too hard for that kind of ideological nonsense to have much influence very longer. One friend…