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This, from yesterday's Times hints at the deeper consequences of climate change. Heat related deaths and record temperatures get most of the public attention, but the italicized lines below indicate some of the broader problems that threaten our very lifeline; necessities like food, water and power. If we don't get our act together in a hurry we are in for major social dislocations in the near future.
Record heat wilts Europe, strains power supply and hurts crops
By Thomas Crampton The New York Times
Published: July 26, 2006
PARIS With Paris, London and Berlin experiencing peak temperatures, matching those of Bangkok, Hong Kong and New Delhi, Europe's heat wave this summer has already headed for the record books. The severe and prolonged heat has prompted the authorities across Europe to issue advice on everything from personal safety to power use.
A 1911 record for the highest July temperature in Britain was broken last week when Wisley, a village in Surrey, hit 97.7 degrees...
In the Netherlands, July will probably qualify as the hottest month since temperatures were first measured in 1706, the Dutch meteorological institute, KNMI, said Tuesday...
Many parts of Germany have hit the highest July temperatures since records began to be kept....
A second type of warning was also issued in Europe - about strained electricity supplies, along with destroyed crops and forest fires.
Europe's increased demand for air-conditioning could make summer a greater challenge than winter for electricity suppliers, a report by the Datamonitor Group warned.
Nuclear power stations in France and Spain have been forced to cut output because the river water normally used to cool reactors is too warm.
Low water levels in the Po River in northern Italy affected hydroelectric supplies, prompting power shortages in Rome that knocked out air-conditioning and left people trapped in elevators.
Scorching temperatures and drought could destroy up to 20 percent of Poland's grain harvest, warned the country's agriculture minister, Andrzej Lepper. "It is quite simply dramatic, and if the weather does not change we could have a disaster," he said on Polish Radio.
Germany is facing crop losses of up to 50 percent in the worst-hit regions, according to Gerd Sonnleitner, the president of the national farmers association.
Forest fires affected regions as far afield as Corsica, in the Mediterranean, where homes near the capital, Ajaccio, were threatened, and the Czech Republic, Finland and Sweden.
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