Hot and hotter days

How much hotter is your hometown than when you were born?

Find the answer in the New York Times website. There you can read how your hometown has changed so far and how much hotter it may get. On the blank fields provided, I entered “Cebu City, Philippines” as my hometown, and “1976” as the year I was born.

Here’s what the results show: When I was born, the Cebu City area had about 58 days per year when temperatures reached 32 degrees Celsius or more. Today, the Cebu City area can expect 117 days at or above 32 degrees Celsius per year, on average. By the time I’m 80, there could be 166 of those very hot days. The Cebu City area is likely to feel this extra heat even if countries take action to lower their greenhouse gas emissions by the end of the century.

This model is based on an analysis conducted for the New York Times by Climate Impact Lab (http://www.impactlab.org/). Climate Impact Lab is a group of climate scientists, economists and data analysts from the Rhodium Group, the University of Chicago, Rutgers University, and the University of California, Berkeley.

The model further states that while the Cebu City area averaged 58 days of 32 degrees or higher temperatures in 1960, it could expect between 162 and 273 very hot days by the end of this century. Hot tropical regions can expect even more heat in the future. In Jakarta, Indonesia, such heat may last for most of the year, almost without respite. Incidentally, Indonesia has seen an increase in incidence of forest fires due to prolonged dry spells in recent years. You may still remember the haze that enveloped Cebu in 2015 which was said to originate from Indonesian forest fires.

“If countries continue emitting at historically high rates, the future could look even hotter,” analysts warn. This future projection assumes that countries will abide by their pledges in the Paris Agreement to curb carbon emission. As of today, most countries appear to be failing to meet their pledges. No major industrialized country is currently on track to meet its goal, according to the New York Times.

The data presented do not account yet for humidity. In humid regions, an increase in 32-degree days can be dangerous especially to the most vulnerable sectors in the population like the elderly, infants, and people with chronic medical conditions.

What can we do then to stem the looming threat, or at least, prepare for the inevitable?

I’ll be blunt. At the rate we’re going, it seems we can no longer prevent the looming bigger climate-induced disasters. Experts concede that it may be unlikely for the world economy to rapidly transform into a sustainable model within just a few years. The unemployment and massive inconvenience that would result from drastic measures to cut carbon emissions would make politicians think twice about acting promptly on climate change.

At the personal level, we can change to a simpler and more sustainable lifestyle. It’s a choice we can make, but it will be a difficult choice for most of us. We’re so used already to the conveniences of the industrial age that we need a major paradigm shift.

For starters, we can get people to talk more about the issue on climate change. The more people talk about it in various channels, the bigger the chance that all sectors including our leaders realize the urgency of transforming the economy and our way of life to one that preserves the planet rather than destroys it.