A severe heatwave is ongoing in Europe. Temperature records broken in France, Switzerland, Germany and Spain.
On 11 July 2023, the Land Surface Temperature (LST) in some areas of Extremadura (Spain) exceeded 60°C, as highlighted in this data visualisation derived from measurements from the Copernicus Sentinel-3 Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer (SLSTR) instrument. The ongoing heatwave in Spain this week is resulting in a total of 13 autonomous communities, being at extreme risk (red alert), significant risk (orange alert), and risk (yellow alert) due to maximum temperatures that, in some cases, will exceed 40°C and reach a maximum of 43°C.
For reference, “in areas where vegetation is dense, the land surface temperature never rises above 35°C. The hottest land surface temperatures on Earth are in plant-free desert landscapes.”
That’s it, negative externalities. Thanks for reminding me of the word. Which group would I support if I wanted to change something in Portugal? I have found a lot of middle class ‘feel good activism’ (planting trees which then die, talking endlessly about what to do, pass the same old advice to fellow citizens …), but that doesn’t really cut it. The country is a beautiful banana republic and has a few nice valleys to hide in, and I have been living here long enough to want to help protect these places. How can we hold accountable the industries who want to come here to destroy and extract?
Frankly, having even become a member of a supposedly thinking leftwing party in Portugal, I have concluded that the country is screwed as there really isn’t any strategical thinking or even merelly political ideas constructed from the bottom up out of principles: it’s all tribalism, celebrity culture, slogan parroting and people with a ridiculously narrow life experience improvising politics in the spot.
Looking around, I don’t think there is a single political movement in the country with an actual thought through strategy or vision for improving things. Politics in Portugal is a microcosmos of the management culture in the country - which I can tell you from experience is amazingly bad compared to the rest of Europe - only with people that are even worse than that perry lousy average.
I’ll probably go back to live abroad.