UK should set maximum working temperature rules, advisers say

Warm day in London

” data-image-caption=”" data-large-file=”https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/london-heat.jpg?w=614″ src=”https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/london-heat.jpg?w=614″ alt=”" width=”614″ height=”347″ class=”aligncenter size-large wp-image-55255″ srcset=”https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/london-heat.jpg?w=614 614w, https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/london-heat.jpg?w=150 150w, https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/london-heat.jpg?w=300 300w, https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/london-heat.jpg?w=768 768w, https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/london-heat.jpg?w=1024 1024w, https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/london-heat.jpg 1026w” sizes=”(max-width: 614px) 100vw, 614px” />
The Climate Change Committee complains about extreme heat. Some adjustments may be suitable for a slightly warming world, but extreme heat isn’t a thing in the UK. Any heat at all usually gets media attention in our cool climate. If it happens it’s good for ice cream sales. The graph in the report tops out at an annual average (24-hour) temperature of 10°C. Folklore says the hottest summer in living memory was 1976, but the CCC reckons “the UK was built for a climate that no longer exists today”. Buildings are more likely to be in need of better insulation than of air conditioning.
– – –
The UK should introduce a maximum temperature for workplaces to protect people as heatwaves intensify due to climate change, the government’s adviser has said.

The Climate Change Committee (CCC) said that rolling out air conditioning and other cooling technologies in schools and hospitals should be one of the government’s highest priorities, reports BBC News.

It warned that increasingly extreme heatwaves, droughts and floods were threatening the British “way of life”, from sports matches to music festivals. [Talkshop comment – the usual vague alarmist waffle].

The government said it would carefully consider and respond to the committee’s advice, adding it was already investing in flood defences.

But Baroness Brown, chair of the CCC’s Adaptation Committee, criticised the “woeful” performance of successive governments in tackling the present and future threats facing the UK from climate change.

“We need to recognise that there are aspects of our British way of life which are now really under threat from climate,” she said.

“It’s not rocket science – we know what to do [… but] we haven’t yet seen a government that’s prepared to prioritise adapting to the change of climate [… and] protecting the people and the places that we love,” she added.

The CCC warned that the “UK was built for a climate that no longer exists today”, adding that it is now inarguable that climate change is reshaping our weather. [Talkshop comment – back-to-front: climate is the sum of a region’s weather].
. . .
The CCC does not suggest a maximum temperature but points to the example of Spain, where the maximum legal working temperature indoors is 27C for sedentary work and 25C for light physical work.

Baroness Brown also repeated her suggestion of changing the school year so that children would not have to sit exams during the height of summer.

Full report here.
—
Image: Warm day in London