Too darn hot

After more than half my life in the UK, I can’t take the heat anymore. This summer whenever the temperature goes over 22 degrees, I feel as if I’m about to expire from heat exhaustion. And to think how I used to miss the 30+ degree tropical sauna of Malaysia!

Part of the problem is that it never is very warm for very long in England so we rarely get the chance to acclimatize to higher temperatures before our bodies have to curl up again against the cold. I think it’s not so much the actual heat but the relative temperatures that’s the cause of the discomfort. If I feel comfortable at 12 degrees then a 1.5 times rise in temperature is going to feel like a furnace. I’m beginning to see now how those Scandinavians and Eskimos and others who live at 40 below for much of the year can experience Zero degrees as a heatwave while the rest of us may yet be shivering in our Shoes.

Another problem is that the UK is just not built for warm weather. The building and internal furnishings are all engineered to keep heat in for most of the year. The towns and cities are closely packed and crowded with people and traffic - especially London. Here in the Capital, buses still spew out hot air through their heating vents throughout the summer! And the tube is of course a journey into the inferno.

In contrast, during my last visit to Malaysia I was often too cold and had to wear a jacket over my shirts most of the time while the daily temperature was 30 degrees or more. Why? Air conditioning. From the house to the car to restaurants and shops and offices - I was insulated from the muggy, tropical heat by air conditioning. Air Con is a life saver on the equator but I suspect also contributes to global warming in a bad way since it produces a lot of hot air in direct proportion to the cool air created.

To be fair, the UK has also been going down the air con route with many major shops and offices - and even commuter trains - increasingly offering a cool sanctuary from the sweltering summer. That’s a thumbs up for many of us Londoners but a thumbs down, sadly, for the environment.