As The UK Bakes Under A Deadly Heat Dome, Conservatives Want To Turn Up The Temperature
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According to CNBC, on June 22, 2026, the Met Office — the UK’s official weather service — issued a rare red “extreme heat” warning for Wednesday and Thursday. It warned that the country’s highest temperature on record for June is “very likely” to be broken over the coming days.
A red warning is only issued when an exceptional spell of hot and humid weather is expected. The combination of high heat and high humidity means the body may be unable to cool itself without the aid of mechanical devices such as air conditioners and heat pumps. The red warning indicates the potential for adverse health effects throughout the population wide and means substantial changes in daily routines will be required.
The Met Office warning said the mercury could reach at least 39 degrees Celsius (102º F) this week, while evening temperatures were unlikely to drop below 20 degrees Celsius (68º F). “Red warnings are reserved for the most severe events and we’re expecting severe and significant impacts from this heatwave, with health impacts likely for many, even beyond those who are normally more vulnerable to the heat,” said Mark Sidaway, deputy chief forecaster of the Met Office. Extreme heat alerts were also issued in France, Spain, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland.
You would think that people suffering from such extreme heat would want to do something about it, but you would be wrong. Last week in a by-election in Scotland, the Conservatives soundly beat every other candidate in the Aberdeen South region. The Conservative’s winning message called for more oil and gas extraction from the North Sea, something that has been rejected by the Labour Party. The win came after weeks of hammering the ruling Scottish National Party over restrictions on oil and gas drilling. The win was the first for the Conservative Party in that district in 60 years.
The victory is a boost for Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, whose party was ejected from national office in 2024 and has been challenged from the right by Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. According to Politico, the Tories threw significant weight behind making the Aberdeen South by-election a referendum on drilling in the North Sea.
We Don’t Need No Stinking Climate Policies!
Badenoch has moved the Tories sharply away from green policies, ditching the net-zero targets the Labour Party has created and embracing the oil and gas industry. “The industry is the economic lifeblood of the north east,” Badenoch said during the campaign, while railing at the Labour government’s “ban on new drilling, backed by the SNP.”
The election highlights the difficulty of convincing voters to elect leaders with vision. In 2024, millions of Americans marched to the polls to elect the buffoon who now serves as the president because the cost of eggs was too high. Never mind that he promised to dismantle a constitutional democracy that was 248 years old to get those eggs prices down. And now the people of Scotland have said, “We don’t care about punishingly high heat and humidity. Gives us more of what created the problem in the first place!”
Europe’s heat wave is its second so-called heat dome in just two months and comes as scientists warn climate change is behind the increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. The burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and gas is the chief driver of the climate crisis, CNBC said in its report. Europe has warmed twice as fast as any other continent since the 1980s, according to the EU Copernicus Climate Change Service.
Blindingly Obvious
Richard Allan, professor of climate science at the UK’s University of Reading, said that while a heat wave in June is perhaps to be expected, temperatures nudging toward 40 degrees Celsius were unprecedented for the UK prior to 2022. “Whilst May brought record dry heat, this week will see a more muggy heatwave that makes it difficult to stay cool and critical for those with underlying health conditions,” he said.
“It is blindingly obvious that heatwaves will increase in severity as rising greenhouse gases stifle the planet’s ability to lose heat to space,” he added. “A warmer atmosphere’s greater thirst for water also means a more rapidly on-setting drought, but also the intensification of extreme rainfall and associated flooding as excess water drained from the soil and oceans is channeled into storms that can often be sparked off by summer heat.”
On a similar note, the UK last week indicated it would lower its EV mandate in response to pressure from labor unions and manufacturers who want to keep building conventional cars — until the seas close over the British Isles, apparently. Unite union general secretary Sharon Graham said failure to lower the mandate would be “an act of self-harm to a sector which is a jewel in the crown of UK manufacturing.”
Never mind that those vehicles are a significant source of carbon dioxide, which is driving the rise in temperatures the UK is experiencing this week. No one, it seems, is willing to make the connection between the use of fossil fuels and a warming planet. “Nothing to see here, folks. Move along. Just keep doing what you have always done. Nothing to worry about. Everything will be fine.”
For a while, it seemed Americans were the dumbest voters in the world, but the UK is rapidly catching up. Given the observable evidence, it is no wonder the British Empire ceased to exist. The wonder is that it happened at all.
Featured chart by RCraig09, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0 license).
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