How to avoid dying from heatwaves
Dear reader,
Yes, we made the lucky 13! June 2024 indeed has been the 13th month in a row with a new global temperature record and the forecasts for the coming months do not see an end to that trend anytime soon.
However, with almost everybody outside the USA admitting that there is a relation between heatwaves and climate change, there are some countries and cities which are not fighting against the heatwaves, but at least try to stop the global dire result in their destination: hundreds of thousands of people dying.
The Economist listed in a recent article some activities. France for example, reacted to a heatwave in Europe which killed more than 70,000 people in 2003, by creating a national plan for heatwaves, with an early-warning system and guidelines on everything from sporting events to training medical staff. As a result, recent heatwaves had 90% fewer casualties than in 2003.
Cities in countries from Vietnam to India and the USA offer “cooling places” with air-condition, including public libraries or purpose-build facilities. Singapore is famous for designing buildings and cityscapes to funnel wind around the city, while not only planting trees but also creating vertical parks on the facades of high-rise buildings which help to bring down temperatures and humidity levels. Transforming city centres into Sponge Cities does not only help to prevent flooding and support water storage, but also results in cooling down the areas.
As nice as these initiatives are, there are only a few of them and almost all of them concentrate on urban areas, whereas the majority of people suffering and being not able to get or afford air-conditioning are living in the global South and in the countryside. For tourism, especially in low-lying areas along the coast including the majority of megacities, many activities will have to move indoors.
When the Seagaia Ocean Dome was built in 1995 in Kyushu/Japan, located just next to the ocean, it created a huge controlled indoor ocean beach resort with 200 different kinds of waves. It was seen as a symbol of the Japanese conviction that human-made nature is more beautiful and controllable than, well, natural nature. Your humble editor wrote an academic article about that already 20 years ago. At that time, however, it was impossible to regain the investment by Mitsubishi of almost two billion USD and Seagaia went through several bankruptcies and re-openings, to be finally being demolished in 2017. In other places, further away from tropical beaches, similar attractions on a smaller scale survive, including Tropical Islands close to Berlin, which started as a construction hall for Zeppelins. It might well be that we will more of such attractions again in coming years also in Spain or Bali.
As always, all best wishes from Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Georg Arlt and the complete Meaningful Tourism Centre team!