The bodies are piling up across a continent unprepared for the new normal. As of this morning, confirmed deaths linked to the scorching heatwave sweeping Europe have passed 1,300. Germany recorded an all-time high of 41.7 degrees Celsius on Tuesday, smashing previous records. But the real story, the one the suits in Whitehall don't want to talk about, is what comes next.
Sources within Public Health England confirm that officials have been quietly revising their heatwave response plans. The term 'new normal' is being used in internal briefings. These are people who should know: they've seen the models, they've tracked the excess deaths. And they're scared.
The UK's Met Office issued its first ever 'red' extreme heat warning for parts of England. But warnings don't save lives. The dead are mostly the elderly, the isolated, the poor. Those without air conditioning, without the means to escape. In London, ambulances took 40 minutes on average to reach the most critical calls. That's 40 minutes in a city where the tarmac melts and the tube becomes a sauna.
Across the Channel, France is bracing for what officials call 'unprecedented' temperatures. But unprecedented is a word that's lost its meaning. Records fall every summer now. The real question is whether our infrastructure can cope. In Germany, railway tracks buckled. In Spain, wildfires forced thousands from their homes. In Italy, the Po River dried up, revealing a world war two bomb.
But don't expect any grand plan from the politicians. They're too busy fighting culture wars and cutting taxes for their donors. The real work is being done by paramedics, firefighters, and social workers who go door to door checking on the vulnerable. They're the ones who see the bodies before the official count comes in.
Documents obtained by this newsroom show that the European Commission has been warned for years about the increasing frequency and intensity of heatwaves. Yet funding for adaptation measures remains pitiful. The billions spent on bailing out banks dwarfs what is allocated for heatwave preparedness. It's a choice, not an oversight.
And what of the future? Climate scientists predict that by 2050, summers like this will be the norm across Europe. That means thousands of excess deaths every year if we don't adapt. But adaptation costs money. And money talks.
So as the mercury rises, the bodies accumulate. And the official narrative remains: stay hydrated, check on neighbours, avoid the sun. But that's not a strategy. It's a band-aid on a haemorrhage. The new normal isn't just heat. It's death. And it's coming for us all.
