As sweat soaks into your clothing on your Northern Line journey, you’d be forgiven for believing you’ve been mystically transported to the unrelenting heat of Marrakech. But it’s actually hotter in London now.
The same is true in comparison to Islamabad, Havana and perhaps soon, Cairo. This week, the Met Office issued a warning that temperatures could reach 40˚C in parts of Britain; heating for which we are not ready. In other cities around the world, infrastructure and labor laws are designed to keep their populations safe and fresh. Domestically, we are stuck in old buildings designed to insulate and the workers kept there by inadequate legislation. Caught up in British bureaucracy and a fetish for heritage, there is no cure for the extreme heat waves that are becoming an annual occurrence.
The issue of air conditioning in Britain is plagued by hypocrisy and debates over conservation: to reverse the ever-increasing heat, you have to contribute more to its root cause. Beyond environmental concerns, architectural purists decry the modernization of ‘listed’ buildings for their historical significance.
This week, El Paso is being warned about temperatures “moving between 102 and 107 degrees“, or 38.9˚C and 41.7˚C for those on the right side of the Atlantic. While facing the same temperatures, El Paso operates cooling centres, such as public libraries, so that the public have immediately accessible places to cool down if they are caught in the heat. Although unsuitable for British cooling conditions, wet cooling is also used “El Paso” Cheaper to install and more environmentally friendly It supports in using a fan and water tank to blow moist and cool air into a room.
It is hard to conceive of this heat without feeling guilty and angry about the climate. Even harder to explain the current heat wave without acknowledging that it is our responsibility. Don’t look to politicians for a solution to any of this. While Nigel Farage and Reform UK may not outwardly denounce climate change as a hoax, the promise of “Net Zero Scrap and Related Subsidies” certainly speaks for itself. Reform’s latest general election manifesto says: “We are better off adapting to warming, rather than pretending we can stop it.”
But the dangers posed by the heat wave are not insignificant. Almost four years ago for this paper, Richard Seymour expressed the fatal reality of these synthetic catastrophes. Now here we are again. Extreme heat waves really are the new normal. But they should not be normalised, argue Bob Ward and Emma Howard Boyd of the Grantham Research Institute for Climate Change and the Environment, LSE. Boyd wrote in a press statement: “This week’s extreme temperatures risk losses to the economy of hundreds of millions of pounds due to lower productivity and infrastructure failures. More worryingly it will cause the deaths of hundreds of people across the country. This is not normal.”
Unlike other European countries that are more used to the heat, schools and workplaces in Britain do not have a legal maximum temperature. Instead, employers are only encouraged to keep temperatures at a “comfortable level” (Health and Safety Executive). In Spain, (also colder than Britain this week) the maximum temperature allowed for ‘sedentary’ office work is 27C. The result is a lack of productivity and therefore economic suffering. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal in 1999, former Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew credits air conditioning as the single most influential innovation for his nation. It is what made civil engineering possible. As a result, Singapore is, in some respects, arguably a more developed nation than Britain today.
No one is proposing to tear down the Tower of London or Big Ben to build a giant hydro-powered fan from the Thames. Solutions for a warming climate don’t have to be fancy. Normal houses with solar panels on the roof can supply energy equivalent to five hours a day with air conditioning during this heat wave. Even non-listed buildings that are simply out of date are suffering. Built to retain heat rather than lose it, private homes are boiling and parents are buying air conditioners for schools to keep their children cool.
Refusal of air conditioning units in listed buildings is significantly more widespread due to the necessary consultation with a Listed Building Consent (LBC) ‘conservation officer’, many of whom are said to refuse applications on the grounds of inefficient design or excessive noise. Apparently, the conservation carried out by these LBC officers is two-fold, preserving the climate, preserving the architecture unfit for the 21st century. The application of air conditioning relies on environmental progress as the cleanest energy. Without it, we make the problem worse.
This infrastructure modernization is essential. If not only for the quality of life, but also for economic growth. There is a reason why Spain is one of the fastest growing European economiesand it’s not just about siestas. If we want to escape, we may have to adopt some of their principles.
(Further reading: Welcome to hell)
