Thread by @_chandnisingh

It's 44°C in Delhi today 🥵

Yesterday, bad planning + phone blooper meant I was out in the scorching heat from 12-3pm. Tried taking a bus. The only AC one that came was full to the brim (COVID super spreader anyone?). The non AC bus was emptier but so hot. I took it. (1)

No one seems to realise that in extreme heat, COVID protocols take a backseat. This is what compounding risk looks like. At 43-44°C the heat outdoors is suffocating and a mask is the last thing you want to wear. (2)

Across the subcontinent, we have a history of living with heat. There is an almost perverse romanticism around the Indian summer. We keep water cool in earthen pots, water is kept for anyone to drink from in public spaces, vendors splash water on pavements to sit on. (3)

But these are #coping measures at best, reactive and effective for short periods of heat exposure.

And coping can lull us into the moral hazard of believing we can deal with this. But as days AND NIGHTS get hotter, coping can only get us so far. (4)

After an hour long ride, I was home.
Despite plenty of water & a cool home to come to, I'm still feeling the afteraffects of heat exposure a day later. Fatigue and a dessication, physical and mental. As a climate scientist, the question plaguing me is where do we go from here?(5)

And, what about those without enough clean water to drink, resources to cool their homes, or jobs that let them to stay indoors? It is deep #climateinjustice that those who face the brunt of the current heatwave have contributed so little to the problem (6)

As @aditimukherji rightly points out, for heat, which is projected to really test human survivability across the Indian subcontinent this century, #mitigation is the best #adaptation. (7)

https://twitter.com/aditimukherji/status/1519075065056354306?t=hsSqLikNNyhChOOT19sx8w&s=19

But sitting in an air conditioned room as it boils outside, it is almost unthinkable to consider mitigation, consider switching off. Those who can cool will cool, those who can't, can only cope.

Yes, let's plant 🌳, ventilate 🏘️, change work times. But it's just not enough (8)

We've spent so much breathless attention on the techbros and their mighty solutions that the ethical dilemmas and behavioral barriers of climate action have crept up on us and left our moral compass askew.

What DO we do with this heat here and now? (9)

So when people ask me about climate grief, climate anxiety, I am not sure. I feel angry and unmoored that the best we are doing is leaving the most vulnerable behind. Our best is actually airing our very worst. (10/end)