Renaming the increasingly numerous and intense heatwaves with the names of the companies that have concealed their responsibilities and continue to exacerbate the situation would highlight the causes and consequences of climate change in a very concrete way.
The wet bulb is the mixture of heat and humidity that makes the temperature unbearable or even fatal for even the healthiest of humans. This threshold was briefly exceeded in 2022 during the heatwave in Jacobabad, Pakistan. If this is already happening in a world that has warmed by +1.2°C globally, it’s clear that these heatwaves will wreak havoc at +2°C, or even +3°C if we don’t change our economic system. The consequences are highly unequal, and the frequency with which this threshold will be reached or exceeded will become increasingly important if we do not drastically and rapidly reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.
