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‘Nobody’s Safe’: How Heat Wave Hurts the Rich World


While linking climate change to the catastrophic flooding in Europe last week would require extensive scientific analysis, a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture and causes more heavy rainfall in many storms around the world. There is little doubt that extreme weather events will continue to become more frequent and more intense as a result of global warming. An article published Friday predicted a significant increase in slow-moving but intense ones. torrential rain in europe until the end of this century due to climate change.

“We must adapt to the change we are already cooking in the system and also avoid further change by reducing our emissions, reducing our impact on the climate,” said Richard Betts, a climate scientist at the Met Office in the UK. and professor at the University of Exeter.

This message has not been evident among policymakers and perhaps the public, particularly in the developed world, which maintains a sense of impunity.

The result is a lack of preparation, even in countries with the resources. In the United States, flooding has killed more than 1,000 people since 2010 alone. federal data. In the southwest, there are deaths from the heat exploded in recent years.

According to Jean Slick, head of the disaster and emergency management program at Royal Roads University in British Columbia, sometimes this is because governments struggle to respond to unprecedented disasters, such as last month’s heat wave in Western Canada. “You may have a plan, but you don’t know it will work,” said Ms. Slick.

Other times, because there are no political incentives to spend money on adaptation.

“Once they build a new flood infrastructure in their community, they probably won’t be in office anymore,” said Samantha Montano, a professor of emergency management at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. “But they will have to justify the millions, billions of dollars spent.”

Christopher Flavelle contributing reporting.



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