As the thermometer threatens to shatter 40C across France, Italy and Spain, the continent once again finds itself staring into the abyss of its own making. This is not merely a weather event; it is a moral and intellectual failure dressed in Celsius. We speak of ‘heat alerts’ as if the sun itself has gone rogue, when in truth we have wilfully ignored the lessons of history.
The Roman Empire fell not because of a single barbarian invasion but because of a slow rot: decadence, hubris, a refusal to adapt. Today, our barbarians are the carbon emissions we cheerfully pump into the atmosphere while binge-watching Netflix. The Victorians, for all their faults, understood that progress required sacrifice and discipline.
We, by contrast, demand air conditioning on demand, cheap flights for weekend breaks, and strawberries in December. Now we pay the price. The heatwave is not a crisis to be managed; it is a ticking clock reminding us that empires die when they forget how to endure discomfort.
