Totally right. Plus the fact that nobody can handle the snow. Thousand of snow plows and tons of salt but drivers will crash, flights will be cancelled...
I like snow, I WANT SNOW in the streets!! We have plenty of time for "summer" time xD
Yeah.... also, the climate changed drastically in the past 20 years here. Summers were up to 35C (mostly around 30 C) and winters usually no more than -10C (mostly around 0C).
Nowadays, not one Summer passes by without a series of days with +40C (and when it's windy, it feels like a hair drier is pointed in your face) and than this cold wave, with over -20C.
It's just too much stress for a normal organism to have a stretch of more than 70C during one year... and that's why many, usually already weakened people die, just extraordinary conditions.
Thousands of people die all around the year, not just during heatwaves and cold waves. People who are used with the snowy cold conditions can cope with them pretty well, i somehow keep thinking after your post... what if ...where you live, winter like here would strike (even brits are on a panic mode over a few inches of snow...they are starting to get used to it now though)
You have pretty stable wheather where you live, so you are pretty much used to it, therefore you have no idea of what are you talking about. People tend to overreact sometimes yes, but it's not the europeans, it's the humanity. Cold could be pretty disturbing most of the time for me...car won't start, all batteries are all of a sudden empty, things(working equipment) tend to freeze and overall not to function properly and also it's pain in the arse to repair a air conditioner on the roof of a high building with this weather. So don't you me!
Also as someone said, +35 at summer and -35 at winters could cause problems to some people organism. Since human organism is homothermic we need to find some extra ways and means to survive on these conditions.
We're talking about a season of the year, not about being raped on my way home by some lunatic. If there's one thing the weather is pretty good at is punctuality - winters tend to happen at the same time pretty much every year and you can usually see it coming.
Given that most people who have died are old persons, I really cannot understand how someone who's probably gone through 50+ winters in their lifetime can feel the weather getting colder and colder and not think 'Blimey, time to put on a jumper and take the tea tray inside.'
There are dumb people everywhere, not just in europe. Think outside the box a bit. If you had the same weather, you honestly believe that in your country there wouldn't be incidents/accidents like that?
Was -6 when i left for work about 6:45 this morning, no snow at all, just very icy, from a safety point of view traction control is brilliant, but it would be nice to flick the back out from time to time if the mood takes me, impossible in this car though.
If it was as simple as that, we would all live forever
It's not about putting their jumpers on...
first of all, older people's bodies have less tolerance to extreme conditions, thus being more fragile than 20 year olds.
They usually have some chronic illness which makes it even worse (heart disease, for example, they are falling like ducks both on extreme cold or extreme hot weather, regardless of being out or at home).
Poverty - you'd be surprised to know how many people don't have enough means to provide adequate or any heating at all. There are too many homeless people and they are actually the most who die.
Remoteness - when it's snowing heavily & temperatures stay under 0 disabling the snow to melt, many villages, even whole towns became unreachable. That stops people from getting medical help when they need it, even food sometimes.
Power cuts - very common in winter time, especially at these extreme temperatures. Electrical systems get overloaded and fall down. Heavy snow on transmission lines can cause power cuts, as well. Also, those conditions then make it harder or even impossible for crews to reach and fix them.
So these are just a few reasons why people die when the weather is like this and it's mostly the combination of these factors that becomes fatal eventually.
Trust me, no one dies because he went out in a T-shirt to go to the local store, no one
Except the sort of ladies that go for a wee dive in the middle of the night with the termometers marking -30ºC, like the one the article I posted a link to commented on.
Anyway, my rant was never about how bad cold waves are or aren't. What I meant is that, in spite of all the problems that extreme cold and heat cause, I always see my european friends complaining about the temperature when it settles on a comfy mid-spring temperature.
Well, that's true... these are extraordinary conditions and everyone should take extra care, especially older or already weakened people.
That lady probably got a brasilian calendar as a Christmas gift and got mixed up
One should look for a place to swim when it's +30C and look for a warm shelter when it's -0C and not vise versa, for God's sake :doh: