The danger posed by heatwaves deserves to be taken more seriously

WHAT IS MOST shocking about the heatwave affecting the Pacific Northwest is not merely that it has hit a usually temperate area, nor that so many long-standing temperature records are being broken. It is that those records are being broken by such large margins. In Portland, Oregon, thermometers reached an unprecedented 46.6°C (116°F)—making it one of several cities in the region where previous records have been beaten by a full 5°C (9°F). Meanwhile, heatwaves are also raging in central Europe and even in Siberia.

Heatwaves may generate headlines, but less attention is paid to them than they deserve. In 2018 roughly 300,000 people over the age of 65 died as a result of extreme heat, mainly in India and China, a 54% increase since 2000, according to a report in the Lancet, a medical journal. Unlike storms and floods, heat does not lead to dramatic before-and-after pictures or widespread damage to property. It is a silent killer, its victims often apparent only in retrospect, as statisticians tot up excess deaths and hospital admissions. (The fact that as many as 70,000 people died as a result of a heatwave in Europe in 2003, for example, became apparent only in 2008.) Heat also kills by exacerbating conditions such as heart problems, so not all the deaths it causes may be directly attributed to it.