adapt AND die
The article by Hannah Martin in the Guardian entitled ‘Deadly heatwaves are the new reality – we need to transform the UK’s cities and towns to survive them’ also evokes another proverb, namely ‘the path to hell is paved with good intentions’. Martin no doubt means well in suggesting all manner of strategies to ‘adapt’ to deadly heatwaves in particular, and to the climate crisis in general. She also does not fail to mention that ‘we must not forget that there is still a moral case to reduce our emissions’. Oh really? So, the presumably immoral emitters will suddenly turn good, moral citizens? Well, no, obviously not, but we should still remind them on occasions to register our protest that we know will not be heeded in the slightest, hence let’s adapt instead and die with a good conscience in that we cared but failed. All the mitigation strategies mentioned by Martin will not in the slightest address her immediate (and potentially tragic) problem of reducing the heat in her nursey room from 26 to 20 degrees Celsius (as recommended by health professionals) lest she cranks up the air-conditioning and thereby increases the heat outside, thereby having to crank up the air-conditioning even more, entering a viscous circle (as she mentions the various destructive effects of air-conditioning). Sure, the billionaire and millionaire classes will do so no matter what the cost, building themselves boltholes that will survive the heat for the time being (as very well described in Tim Winton’s novel Juice) while the rest of us (the 99% or so) shrivel and burn in the heatwave inside and out. Presumably only at that stage will Martin consider Winton’s idea that we join a guerilla army to flush out the air-conditioned, subterranean palaces, its inhabitants having missed the last flight out to Mars. Martin’s moniker ‘deadly heatwaves’ is yet another sign of the confused logic that has infested the minds of the adapters (as if this is an evolutionary process) for the only solution for whatever causes death is to kill the cause (as anti-biotics kill the harmful bacteria and anti-viral drugs kill the killer virus). While I would never stoop so low as to advocate to kill humans that cause death (a linguist once proposed that ‘cause to die’ is a feature definition for ‘kill’), one would hope that human civilisation has at least progressed to the stage of prosecuting climate killers in a court of law. While humans are known to have adapted to all manner of disasters in the past, now is the tipping point of no return, and any talk of adaptation is self-destructive.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/06/deadly-heatwaves-adapt-cities-towns
