Europe is roasting under a cruel sun. As the continent endures a record-breaking summer (with temperatures reaching a searing 44°C in Portgual), scientists warn that climate change has already doubled the chances of such heatwaves occurring.

Whilst climate scientists are often reluctant to draw direct links between individual weather events and rising greenhouse gas emissions, there is nevertheless a growing body of evidence suggesting that extreme weather is becoming both more frequent and more intense.

Scorching temperatures can be life-threatening, with infants and the elderly being particularly vulnerable. New research suggests that deaths caused by heatwaves are likely to spike dramatically over the coming decades, with heavily-populated parts of the world (such as in Northern China) being rendered uninhabitable, potentially displacing hundreds of millions of people.

Over 90% of EU citizens see climate change as a serious problem. Yet the global response has been frustrated by scepticism about the science, including from US President Donald Trump. As extreme weather events, such as heatwaves, grow more frequent, will it help to convince people who are still on the fence?

Is Europe’s heatwave proof of climate change? And if it’s not, then what is? What will it take to change the mind of climate sceptics? Let us know your thoughts and comments in the form below and we’ll take them to policymakers and experts for their reactions!

IMAGE CREDITS: CC-BY-SA-2.0 – Hisakuni Fujimoto


43 comments Post a commentcomment

What do YOU think?

  1. avatar
    Ivan

    There is no evidence to support the ‘theory’ so no, it isn’t. But I’m sure some very well funded climate change scientist will be on the media claiming it is. 8|

    • avatar
      Liz

      The law provided rung-by-rung growth of the taxes on fuel and fossil fuels and laid the foundation for the tax for energy. So, no climate change, no taxes again. You are right!

    • avatar
      Georgi

      Yeah. Why the hell do we have those climate scientists talking about climate? We should instead get people who don’t know anything. Like Ivan.

    • avatar
      Ivan

      Georgi Simply because they are paid to comrade, just like journalists are paid to convince people what their editors want us to believe. Ever heard of a funded climate scientist that does not push the same agenda ? What makes you think climate change scientists know anything about the climate ? News flash … They have no idea how it works so how would they know how to fix it.

    • avatar
      Maia Alexandrova

      Ivan
      For a blind person there is no evidence that other people may actually be able to see… If you see nothing, then only nothing exists. That’s the little world you are living in… The more your mind opens and grows, the more of the bigger picture it will be able to encompass. It seems that process for you is painfully slow…

  2. avatar
    Christine

    Can we stop this stupid ‘is climate change real’ stuff. Climate scientists are not only agreed but now scared. We need to change the way we live urgently

    • avatar
      John

      Have a look at the comments here and you’ll see there are *still* people who think it’s a conspiracy.

    • avatar
      Christine

      John too depressing x

  3. avatar
    Radu

    Ever wondered why the climate change hysteria attract so many socialists?

    • avatar
      Adrian

      Ever wonder why you’re an idiot?

  4. avatar
    EU Reform- Proactive

    ……………“what will it take to change the mind of climate sceptics?”

    Let’s assume it does & “everyone” (100%) believes the same prepared EU/EUI/DE “thing”- than what? Why have continued & unnecessary arguments?

    Please show (publish) the EU ACTION PLAN (“counter measures”) & also the EU’s- EIB- EBRD- CEB +++ available money + timetable! Thank you!

    In the meantime- please give this suffering pussy some cozy shelter in the air-conditioned EU Berlaymont- before the SPCA issues a serious warning!

  5. avatar
    Taline

    do you need to ask?? start for solutions rather than asking questions..

  6. avatar
    John costigane

    Climate change is a natural phenomenon. This is the real Null hypothesis of climate. Let alarmists disprove this null. Computer model forecasts are not science, neither are scare stories about a frightening future. They have nothing. So I say put up or shut up.

  7. avatar
    Dan

    The five warmest years globally ever recorded have all occurred in the 2010s,are we to believe that’s just a coincidence?.

  8. avatar
    Stadex

    The easiest way to shut up a pro climate change debater is to ask the following question ”What percentage of climate change is natural vs man made?”. Nobody every asks this question. I have tried hard to get an answer to it and I have yet to find the answer, I even wrote my Government and they didn’t have the answer except to send me some stupid climate reports which might as well be written in Chinese.

    • avatar
      Maia Alexandrova

      Stadex, the answer was in those “stupid” climate reports, but you were unable to make sense of it. YOU could not digest the answer and assumed that such doesn’t exist, but the reality is different. One needs to learn to analyse data to understand the processes that are happening.

  9. avatar
    Mars

    You people truly love, because you give to one another so much with gasoline from your vehicle exhaust. Those trying to escape pollution, you just call it tourism. Cigarette smoking inhales, so you’ve banned it as selfish. You even love Doctor Mengele, that’s why you want all your super products testet in a similar fashion on animals. And you think of residence as luxury – you call it building -, though you have to be in danger in nature to need such luxury goods. Like the loss of hair as animals naturely have for isolation, but instead of realising with your odd growing of hair, that you’re sick, you also call clothes for development. That’s just what you get for putting enemies in mental institutions. You think of yourselves as pure with ethics like crocodiles’, though you’re also serial killers. “Look the world came by a catastrophe”, because you can’t remember, you self caused it. It started around Plato, he too had become sick to his senses and so he started to record to help remember. With lost sight of purpose, you begin to philosophy – debate -. What’s there to debate? Yes, there is global warming, that what the Sun do.

  10. avatar
    Maia Alexandrova

    Of course, it is a proof and it did not happen only in Europe, but in the whole northern hemisphere of the Earth. It is a global process. There is more and more freak weather everywhere and we will have to either adapt to it, or die, but in the meantime, clean the planet from our waste and stop producing more.

    I can see the house of the future – a passive, smart house which will have the equipment to produce all the energy it needs from renewable sources and by recycling the waste of its inhabitants. There will be no electricity, gas or water bills. I don’t know how many years it will take for humanity to get there, but it will eventually happen. The environment will force us to move in that direction.

  11. avatar
    Nuno

    This year was the hottest ever and my region saw a drought. I don’t remember a drought in my region, in my 26 year lifetime. And i am talking about a little island in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. So yes, i think it is proof of climate change, and it will get a lot worst if we change our ways of life, which i think is near impossible at this point.

  12. avatar
    Riccardo

    No debate. What do scientists say?

  13. avatar
    Peter

    Let’s ignore the piles of data that says it is and ask random people for their expert opinion.

  14. avatar
    Николай

    Start planting trees asap

  15. avatar
    Pedro

    1 Heatwave proves nothing, repeated heatwaves and continuous record temperature does!

    • avatar
      Николай

      Pedro – just every previous heatwave is with lower temp

    • avatar
      Pedro

      Николай – guess it proves it then!

  16. avatar
    Frank

    Now that’s what I call a chocolate bar.

  17. avatar
    Sándor

    Yes, of course! Weather is the synonime of climate whenever it is warm. There is a HUGE difference the moment it gets cold. It is called dialectics.

  18. avatar
    John

    The heatwave itself is not even an indication but the increasing frequency of the heatwaves most probably is..

  19. avatar
    Peré

    As a single event no. But if you take it with the increasing number of heatwaves over the years. Then you get a pattern which can be used as proof for climate change.

  20. avatar
    Любомир

    Let’s ask climatologists about such things, not random users. This isn’t a matter of opinion, it’s a scientific inquiry.

  21. avatar
    Helena

    It is not proof, it is evidence…

  22. avatar
    Nikos

    Scientific facts are not opinions.

  23. avatar
    Nikolaos

    Oooooooooor it is the sun acting crazy again.
    But nooo keep up pushing your agendas

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