With modern solutions such as air-con aggravating the problem, ancient heat-management techniques can offer answers.
On this year’s hajj, the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, an estimated 1,300 people died in heat that surpassed 51C – more than half way to water’s boiling point, a toxic level that cooks human cells, thickens blood and cuts off oxygen to the brain. Extreme heat in New Delhi has killed more than 100 people in the last three months alone, probably a vast undercount. It is now considered unsafe to work outside at all in Doha, a factor behind the deaths of an estimated 6,500 migrant workers in the 10 years after Qatar won the right to host the World Cup.
Cities are not just where the rapid heating of our planet is highest, owing to the concentrating effect of concrete and asphalt and the relative lack of natural cooling factors such as lakes, soil or shade. They are also where our increasingly urban species will have to face it. So the architects, planners and politicians who serve those cities are seeking ways to either reduce or mitigate that heat, such as the qanat cool water beneath the streets of Seville.
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