Ecowatch: This is not just extreme weather – it’s a public health emergency

A study of 700 cities found heat-attributable deaths comprising nearly 1% of all mortality, with South-East Asian cities disproportionately represented at the high end. — Filepic/The Star

IN temperate countries, heat is a summer exception. In South-East Asia, it is a permanent, intensifying condition. There is no heat season here, there is only heat, compounded year on year, degree by degree.

We grew up with it. We assume we are adapted to it. We are not. What has changed is not that it is hot. What has changed is that it is now lethally hot, for longer, and for more people at once.