In the UK, rails are painted white in some areas to prevent train tracks from buckling in the heat. In the country, rail passengers are also warned to travel only when necessary.
Why? For the first time in its history, the UK has issued the highest level of extreme temperature warnings for England, southern Scotland and Wales. This red warning, given for the first time, means that diseases and deaths can occur not only in high-risk groups, but also in fit and healthy people, with the effect of temperature exceeding 41C, and precautions should be taken accordingly.
Portugal, Spain, France and Greece are also battling massive forest fires caused by heatwaves exceeding 45C.
Meanwhile, authorities in the French Alps have urged mountaineers to delay their trips to Mont Blanc due to “extraordinary climatic conditions” and drought-induced rockfalls.
The call comes after part of Italy’s largest Alpine glacier thawed due to global warming, toppling and killing 11 people.
Does anyone still say the climate crisis is bullshit?
For those who do not take the climate crisis seriously, these are the concrete parts of the world today. If the necessary precautions are not taken, the climate crisis will infiltrate every aspect of our lives. Transport and energy infrastructure will collapse, unable to withstand extreme weather conditions. Even simple journeys will become increasingly problematic and power cuts will increase dramatically.
As thousands of people struggle with increasing heat and humidity, poisoning cases from food and water pollution and new diseases strengthened by the heat will emerge.
The fact that living conditions are getting harder and harder for many will bring along different individual and social problems.
It was a pessimistic picture, I know. But looking at what’s going on today, being optimistic about the future without doing anything about it can only be naive or stupid.
It’s not a climate crisis, it’s a humanitarian crisis!
Let’s put one thing clearly: Climate change is not a crisis created by nature, but a very serious crisis created by human, whose consequences are still not taken seriously as it should be.
Human, who has learned to live in a balanced way with nature over the centuries, has turned this relationship into an endless source to satisfy the insatiable hunger of consumption in favor of itself, with the industrial revolution.
In such a short time, nature has become unable to recover the damage inflicted on it by this brutality and to balance itself. And so, this unique balance and harmony that had been going on for thousands of years was broken. Nature has shifted from being clear and consistent to giving more obscure responses. This was demonstrated by unprecedented temperatures, fires, floods and droughts.
Today, the disasters we experience on earth; fires, floods, droughts, and unprecedented storms are caused by the disruption of the balance between nature and human being in favor of humans and in a very distorted way.
Humans, who cause such damage to nature, are in a shaky astonishment and despair regarding the natural disasters that have happened to them today. However, he has to realize that what happened to him is actually caused by himself and the solution is still within himself.
The solution is in us, in individuals!
Do not look at those who say how small our impact will be individually, and that states and institutions should be the ones who should take the main precautions. It should be kept in mind that the triggers of good or bad actions taken by big companies and governments working with short-term agendas are individuals and individual demands.
For this reason, we continue to take steps, even if small, forcing our environment to transform and taking responsibility.
