gingerautie:

mllemusketeer:

katsdisturbed:

snooziep:

spectralarchers:

rifa:

chaos-dog:

kingjaffejoffer:

imsoshive:

If Canada don’t GET THE FUCK …

lmao

There are now more than 90 people dead. You can bitch and whine that’s it’s hotter where you are, but you have to understand that it’s the elderly, homeless and small children who don’t have air conditioning and are susceptible to health problems. How fucking despicable can you be to just laugh at people dying because temperatures are hotter where you are. Our infrastructure was built to withstand -30 C°, not the heat. It’s not about how Canadians are “weak”, it’s literally just shitty circumstances.

Not to mention that people who are accustomed to cold climates have a physically more difficult time coping with temperatures that their bodies aren’t used to. Also a lot of people who have never had to cope with hotter temperatures aren’t as familiar with heat exhaustion or heat stroke, don’t know how to manage the heat safely , etc!

That last point.

Denmark is currently in its hottest summer ever recorded, and the number of people I’ve talked to who have only now discovered what a heat stroke is amazes me, because I grew up in the South of France where summers are hot as fuck every year – my brother-in-law went out for a bike ride without a hat and with a half a liter of water for three hours and came back and was sick because of it. 

The idea that he’d get sick because of the sun didn’t even OCCUR to him, because in his 30+ years on this green ball swirling through space, it’s never been an issue for him.

In the South of France, most cafés have mist sprayers and all shops / malls are air-conditioned. In Denmark, most cafés do NOT have mist sprayers (but heat lights!) and the shops are not always air-conditioned.

Most of the warehouses have been out of portable air-conditioners and fans on an off since May because people are hot and have no air-condition installed. The buildings are built to keep heat IN. Not out.

No air con, buildings designed to keep heat in, not even ceiling fans, no drinking fountains, windows that don’t open in buildings, and we expect people to work in those buildings, in their full uniform which has no ‘hot weather’ option – I mean what employer is going to provide short sleeves and shorts for that one week every three years where it gets above 25/80 degrees? – windows that don’t open on public transport, and often no shade while waiting for said public transport, we have heaters and insulation and draft excluders, we buy black cars and dark clothes, we buy sunscreen for our holidays in Spain, then forget where we put it, when we find it and apply it we sweat it off again because we’re not used to the heat, we walk places rather than drive and even if we drove, our cars don’t have proper air con and we don’t have covered parking, school playgrounds and public parks have no shade, people don’t have pools so kids play out all summer in the heat. We don’t have ‘American style’ large fridges or freezers with ice makers and they break down when competing with hotter than usual ambient temperature, most of us don’t even own cool boxes – or if we do it’s at the back of the shed full of spiders.

So yes, we have to be told it’s going to be hot. And we have to be warned to check our elderly neighbours and to help them take the blankets off their bed or to swap to a summer duvet, to suggest they have a cold drink instead of a pot of tea and take off their cardigan.

Because we only know people who got sunstroke on their holidays abroad.

And we have never in our lives known anyone who died from the heat.

To anybody who thinks it’s funny when people die, you can go fuck off a tall bridge. 

I live in Phoenix. It’s going to be 115F/46C degrees today. This is nothing unusual for this time of year. And yet every year we lose people to the heat. I can’t imagine what super temps must be like when you are not used to it. England, Quebec, and most of Europe’s home were designed to keep heat in. Not let it out. So instead of giggling like evil children over someone else’s horror, try being a little more understanding at the very least of what they are going through.

^^^ *I live in Actual Hell high-five* 

It’s totally easy to live in 115 – 122 F or 46 – 50 C if you are a) used to it and most importantly b) HAVE AIR CONDITIONING AND INFRASTRUCTURE TO DEAL WITH IT

I will take 115 with air conditioning available over 93 with no air conditioning any goddamn day of the week, even if I have to be outside/working because I can get my happy butt back indoors, cool down with the AC at 75 or even 78, and then pop out again. Without AC you can’t do that and it’s much harder to manage. 

(btw if you’re having trouble sleeping because of heat, roll an ice pack up in a towel and put it at the foot of the bed. Ditch the flat sheet; fitted sheet and a really light duvet is all you should have. I have a silly Transformers one from Target that hardly insulates anything but is just enough weight to make me happy. Drink lots. Go slow. Eat salty things, and don’t just drink water. For those who like skirts, skirts and light dresses are your friends; I have a special selection for IT’S TOO HOT TO CLOTHES days–light, loose, well away from the body and importantly COTTON. Poly knits are murder. You’ll be amazed by how much you cool off by taking your socks off. Damp down the patios under your windows, keep your blinds drawn, limit cooking–rotisserie chicken+ a solution of lemon juice, peel, ginger, sugar and soy sauce, refrigerated is a good meal over rice and with cucumbers in vinegar. Be careful and check on your neighbors.)

In most places where this is an issue people are aware that it’s an issue, that it’s happening more frequently, and that we need large scale infrastructure changes to reduce deaths in the future.

The thing is, for every small thing we can do (eg. adding a maximum working temperature as well as the minimum we already have) there’s several things that are either going to be huge projects taking half a century (rebuild/remodel the majority of residential housing in the entire country anyone) or just aren’t financially viable because it’s not that bad yet, like the uniform thing, or installing air conditioning units in residential areas and schools. And then there are things that are just complicated, like making sure everyone over 65 knows all the “everyone knows” things for living in hot weather when that generation grew up putting a vest on “just in case” of cold weather.

So the “get with the program, global warming is happening you idiots” comments aren’t helpful either.