Summer memories burn

Despite the incredible political developments in the United States and the start of the Paris Olympic Games, the most important news this week was that the two hottest days in history were recorded. In fact, the previous Sunday and Monday may not even be the hottest days in history, but the hottest since the start of the last ice age some 120,000 years ago. To understand the scale of this, humans began farming just 12,000 years ago. In the last couple of centuries, since the start of the Industrial Age in 1760, human activity has caused a build-up of pollutants which led to the overheating of the planet, or at least contributed towards this.

Till recently, the issue was chiefly the concern of scientists, politicians and activists, who were aware of the dangers and sought ways to contain the damage. These efforts culminated in the Paris Agreement of 2015, in which 196...