GoKawiilA grotesque illustration featuring a human being melted into a pile of goo with a hand reaching out.
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Europe is in the grips of a devastating and deadly heatwave, shattering temperature records for the month of June across the continent.
The United Kingdom, a nation known for its generally moderate and rainy summers, has been hit hard. In one particularly ironic development, a Wednesday event at the London School of Economics titled “Extreme Heat: Improving governance and strengthening action around the world” had to be cancelled because of — you guessed it — record temperatures in the capital of just shy of 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
As the BBC reports, organizers from the Zurich Climate Resilience Alliance lamented that the university’s facilities simply weren’t ready to provide sufficient cooling, “like most buildings in London.”
Sheer irony aside, the alliance is using the opportunity to send an important message.
“The magnitude of future impacts from extreme heat will largely depend on global mitigation efforts, local heat governance, and response plans,” a spokesperson for the group told the BBC. “Cities like London have unique potential to adapt to changing heat risks through effective risk management at multiple levels, connecting policies and incentives, and strengthening community adaptation capacity.”
The UK capital city is melting before our very eyes, a devastating predicament for a largely unprepared population not accustomed to record temperatures.
“London isn’t just calling,” said UN secretary general Antonio Guterres at a separate climate event earlier this week. “It’s cooking.”
Hundreds of schools have had to close across southern England as temperatures kept climbing, per the BBC, while users of the London Underground had to endure service disruptions amidst stifling heat.
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