This shouldn't be a shock to anyone, but summers are getting a lot hotter here than it has been since I started living here. It used to be that in summer, it would be in low to mid 20s and reliably sunny between mid June to about mid August. Perhaps the sunshine stayed till September. Somewhere along the way, there would be rain as well. But that was 2+ decades ago.
In the past few years, there has been many days where wildfire smoke dominated the skies and air. Rain is rarity now in the summer. And it has started to get hot. It is not unusual for days when the highs are over 30C.
This is starting to cause homes to get very hot. Most apartment buildings in Vancouver are covered in glass. While it makes for great views, it also turns apartments into little ovens. My apartment faces West and it regularly goes over 30C by the end of the day. And it barely cools down overnight. The outside is a lot cooler in the evenings.
A few years ago, we had something called a heat dome - basically a prolonged period of hot weather that didn't move away. This killed 600+ people due to the heat. It is incredible to think that in a wealthy country, in a modern city that so many vulnerable people died from something like heat.
Now, you may say, why not use air conditioning to manage the heat? Well, the simple reason is, most places were not built with AC in mind. We built buildings to stay warm, not cold. Most of Vancouver does not have ACs built into homes or apartment buildings. Offices seem to have it, but it is kind of hard to sleep at work. Not everyone has an office either or work in a place that has AC. There are changes to laws the province has done to allow heatpumps and mini split AC units in multi-family homes. There are also rebates for installing it. Unfortunately, most apartment building stratas don't seem to be in a rush to investigate how to get these things in a orderly, organised way. My building definitely has not done much to further heatpump installation.
People have little portable ACs with a hose sticking out the window these days, but a) they are ugly, and b) you need to have somewhere to store the thing once summer is over. In my case, my apartment does not have enough space to store the AC after summer. Also, I would need at least 2 to keep my apartment bearable. Which means I have to find space to store 2.
The elephant in the room or in this little conversation is climate change. Governments and society seem to have given up on getting a handle on climate change. We used to have a carbon tax on fuel that WORKED. We got rid of it to win elections. Our cities could plant a lot more urban trees to line streets and parks to provide shade. I walk to work regularly. There are some streets that have a great tree canopy and other parts that just have bare concrete that just radiates heat in the afternoons. The difference in walking on the tree lined sidewalks to the non-tree lined ones is very much noticeable. The thing is, trees take time to grow. You can't just magically have a shade giving tree in a summer season. It takes decades for trees to get to the point where shade is substantial.
People are doing their bits to try and mitigate climate change. But it seems so little in comparison to what the weather is doing. I see lots of electric cars in Vancouver and I see lots of people use bikes, e-scooters and public transit. I also see ridiculous traffic in Vancouver at all hours of the day. So, cars, electric or not, add to congestion. On my part, I do own a car and drive it once in a while. Last year, I drove about 1500kms. Yes. My insurance guy double checked that it was indeed the case. I walk a lot, I take transit a fair bit (and have an employer that pays for a bunch of it), and ride my bike when the weather is nice. If the city didn't have such a bike theft problem, I would really consider using my bike more (or getting an e-bike to go shopping with).
So what is the point of this post? Well, I am not sure really. I guess maybe it is an appeal to readers to try and do their bit to combat climate change? Maybe walk more, or ride your bike if it is safe. Heck, take transit, advocate for better transit in your city and use it. Plant a tree, plant 3. Garden, do something so I don't melt in my apartment. And people don't die from something like heat. Because this isn't going to get better any time soon and not without all of us doing something about it.
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