Dear Colleagues,

At last, also over here in Western Europe everybody now realizes that  ‘climate change is here’  – not somewhere in the future, or just affecting faraway places. Almost “on mutually agreed terms”, dare I say, now that this region is suffering from extreme heat. That would include myself : ) As far as I can tell, it’s also the first time the “airco debate”  is so prominent over here, with climate inequality steadily growing. The use of airco is a nuanced issue – certainly for vulnerable people where it obviously can be a life-saver.  From a slightly different angle, though: Republicans and other climate sceptics in the US would never have been so successful in dismissing climate change as a ‘hoax’ if they had been ‘experiencing’ scorching heat themselves for decades already (without airco, that is). And probably would have been a lot less keen too to make that case.

Earlier this week, Greta Thunberg commented on the heat wave in the UK:  ‘this is only the...