The weather in 1976, like the football ten years before, lingers in our national memory. But already on some measures this year is worse. Back then, the heat was drier and the nights cooler. We have already had six days above 35C, for the first time ever, and more warm nights in a single week than in the entirety of 1976. A recent study by British university researchers suggested that during eleven hot days in June, the weather in England and Wales was responsible for 2,200 deaths. Rather than a summer lull, my hospital is dealing with the sort of surge we normally see in winter. The same is true nationwide.
Those of us not hospitalised by the heat will be noticing the sheer quantity of perspiration of which we’re capable. Sweating, like much that makes us human, isn’t unique to us, but it is unmatched – and it is what allowed our other qualities to develop.
Sweating when you have fur is like getting wet while wearing cotton, making for a poor way of controlling your temperature. In extreme conditions, we can sweat litres per hour. We can do that because we’re functionally nude. Quite why we lost our fur is unclear. Perhaps our distant ancestors, as the forests of Africa’s Rift Valley thinned, and they took to the savannah and to their hind legs, only needed fur on those bits of their upright bodies most exposed to the sun – the tops of their heads.
