A Rant About The Heat

Us Brits are never satisfied. When it rains we want sun. When it’s sunny we want rain. Admittedly when it’s sunny we can wait a bit for the rain but only for so long! This heatwave has been around for weeks but at least we have started to get some rain now. It has made a number of things cross my mind though…

I promised you a rant and a rant you will get, but not until you’ve read a bit more…promise! I started writing just a normal post and then it morphed, so you could read the normal bit first and then you’ll see the rant…

Dogs In Cars

I can’t stand to hear of dogs being trapped in cars on a warm day, and especially not on boiling hot days like we’ve had recently. Cars get much warmer inside than the outside temperature and in heat like we’ve had recently it can easily get to 40 degrees or much higher. Leaving a dog in there, even for a short while, is dangerous and could result in serious life threatening issues for the dog. It’s awful to hear of dogs dying in cars in such heat (I even heard on the news of it happening to a baby!).

What’s the advice I’ve read to help with dogs in this heat? Firstly avoid walking them during the day and instead try walking them first thing in the morning or late at night. Other than that play with them in the house to help them use up their energy.

Have plenty of water available for them to drink of course, and maybe even a paddling pool for them to roll in outside in the shade. I’m sure most of them would just love that anyway!

I’d also be very conscious of how short you cut your dogs hair. They are at risk of sun burn and even skin cancer, and having longer hair acts as a bit of a barrier from the sun (but not entirely, and it’s less of a barrier for light coloured dogs). You can actually buy sun cream for dogs if you felt this would be of benefit to your dog.

Wildfires

It’s devastating to see the impact the wildfires are having in different areas of the world including here in the UK. In Greece many people have died from wildfires, and even in Sweden they are having wildfires and have had to call in international assistance to cope as they’re just not used to it.

It’s dreadful and my thoughts go out to anyone impacted at all by these fires. I’ve even read a post from a fellow Dad blogger about his personal experience with wildfires (here). It’s all very harrowing.

Babies In The Sun

Of course being the focus of my blog I have to comment on the impact of the sun on babies. They are without doubt incredibly vulnerable at this time when it’s so sunny and warm. I have written a blog post about how to take care of babies in the sun that was targeted at babies under six months but now because N is older than six months I’m starting to look at what else we can do to help protect him from the sun. Much of the same guidance applies like keeping them in the shade keeping them well covered with cool clothing, but now of course we can start to add sun cream. We’ve made sure to get sun cream that covers both UVA and UVB protection and we ended up buying ours from Aldi for about £1.50 and it came very well reviewed.

In the end sometimes it’s easier to just keep them indoors. We aren’t just talking about being exposed to sun but actually the extra heat of being outside the house can also be extremely difficult for babies so frequently we’ve not gone to baby events simply because of the heat.

Extra challenges for babies in this extreme heat come at nighttime when it’s very difficult to decide what we should put our baby in to sleep. We are using Grobags and with a variety of togs all the way down to 0.5. Our son is very comfortable in Grobags, he likes sleeping in them so we are keen to make sure that he still can and this is helped by having a 0.5 tog. In fact if the weather became so bad that his room temperature was above 27°, rather than allowing him to sleep with no Grobag and just in a vest, we would probably end up just putting him in a nappy in his Grobag because it works so well for him. We use this website (here) to decide what to put him in at night if in doubt.

One thing we have purchased recently which you may have seen in one of my reviews is an air-conditioning unit (here). This air-conditioning unit is very good at cooling the room temperature however it does skyrocket right back up very shortly after we put into bed due to the heat. At least it does allow us to get him to go to sleep easier.

What is to blame?

It’s hard to tell really what’s causing this heat but it’s well documented that this excessive heat is happening more frequently now than it ever has done in the past. In fact I heard on the BBC recently that’s the weather we are experiencing now used to be seen once every 50 years but now is expected to be seen once every five years.

I think we have to ask ourselves why that is. I personally think it’s clear that global warming is happening and as humans, and an expanding population of humans, it’s up to us to solve it. I believe we have caused it and now it’s all about how to reduce the impact of it. Is it too late to change? Is it too late to turn back from this precipice? Is this extreme weather something our next generation will have to get used to? That they will experience much more frequently? Is it our fault? Can we really do something about it? Or is it too late?

It’s fair to say this started, in my humble opinion, a long time ago with the industrial revolution. Clearly nobody regrets the industrial revolution. We wouldn’t be where we are today without it. However if we do nothing to change the situation the weather conditions are only going to get worse, will only get more extreme and that our children’s children will have it an awful lot worse than we do with a relatively warm few weeks one summer every five years. They could have it all the time, constantly, and would blame us as a generation. Can we deny our part? No I don’t think we can but at least we can try to rectify the situation before it gets any worse. Even better is to instil in our children an attitude to look after the planet.

Things like recycling, reducing use of items which we just discard so easily, really questioning companies that don’t do their bit for the environment. I believe it’s on all of us to take care of our planet, and if we don’t we are destroying it for future generations. At what point will we actually make a concerted effort to change? I don’t believe that having a president in charge of America that denies global warming will help the situation in any way shape or form. Being a leading country of the world and to have them deny global warming will do immeasurable damage to anything the rest of the world tries to do. We also have to think about China. How are the biggest contributors to pollution in the world going to change? What can the leaders of each country do to help China improve their pollution situation? If we just sit back it will be too late.

Apologies reader, I really gone off on one just now but leaving the planet in its best possible condition for my son and grandchildren and their children is incredibly important to me as I’m sure it is for you. It’s not something we can just put off. It’s not something we can just say “the government will improve this” or “we’ll be told what to do”. Yes the governments of the world have a responsibility to educate but it’s our responsibility to listen and act to leave the planet better than we found it. Yes we will be told what we could do that will help, but it’s all of us take part in that too. We need to use all that information as best we can and then at least when it comes to future generations we can say we did the best we could.

Summary

Firstly, I ranted there. The floodgates opened. I actually dictated this post on my phone and so I quite literally did rant and rave whilst walking around. I truly let off some steam but quite focused (and polite!).

Yes this weather is fantastic we should all enjoy ourselves in it and really enjoy some special family time. However let’s just make sure we are conscious of what the implications of such a warm weather on babies, on animals, and also actually think about what this means for future. This isn’t a one off. This will happen more more frequently. The question is do we want it to, and be much more extreme for our children, and if not, what can you do about it?