As Londoners endure what could be the hottest day in British history, the conversation inevitably turns to climate change.
The fact that human activity is making the planet warmer is now a universally-agreed scientific certainty.
And yet, there are still people who disagree.
A recent tweet from London’s Walking and Cycling Commissioner, Will Norman, hit back at climate change cynics clinging to one particular argument: that the current heatwave is no different to the one London suffered in 1976.
Forty-six years ago, the country experienced 16 consecutive days over 30°C. Many people died and the hottest day of all was July 3, when temperatures reached 35.9 °C.
But, as Norman points out, that heatwave was a phenomenon isolated to the UK. The current rising temperatures are a worldwide problem that people across the globe are dealing with.
He illustrates it with some pretty stark data cribbed from Nasa.
People keep telling me that because the UK had a heatwave in 1976, climate change is overhyped.
So hereâs the global heat anomaly maps from June 1976 and June 2022. https://t.co/GGVg46UTcI pic.twitter.com/tngiGoEEUl
If you’ve any doubt at all about how serious this is, just take a look down the bottom at the difference experienced by Antarctica.
Norman’s tweet received support from atmospheric scientist Simon Lee, who pointed out he made the same comparison during the 2018 heatwave.
I had to make the same point in 2018 (the original âvs. 1976â comparison tweet), and Iâm sure itâll unfortunately be the case in a future heatwave too. https://t.co/zJBIQ0SfSM
Earlier this year a damning report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) pointed out global warming represents a grave threat to physical and mental health, cities and coastal communities, food and water supplies, and wildlife across the world.
Any further delays to curb greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to already inevitable climate change means humanity will miss a ‘brief and rapidly closing window’ to secure a liveable and sustainable future, the scientists warned.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the report as ‘an atlas of human suffering and a damning indictment of failed climate leadership’, adding that nearly half of humanity is in the climate danger zone and many ecosystems are at the point of no return.
The assessment is the second in a series of three reports from the IPCC in the latest review of climate science, which take place every seven years or so for governments.
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