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Massive Heat Waves Bound to Kill More People Than Covid

And there’s no silver bullet against climate change

Rui Alves
Portugal Calling
6 min readJul 19, 2022

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Public domain image onf Pixahive

Massive heatwaves. Raging wildfires. Clashing thunderstorms. Unprecedented droughts. You name it. Here in the peninsula, we’ve got it all.

People are dying out here, as the heatwave has killed over 1,000 people in Portugal and neighboring Spain.

If we do not act now, both countries are likely to become adventure tourism destinations for those seeking the Paris-Dakar thrill and enjoying harsh terrain under extreme temperatures.

The clock is ticking.

We should also expect to see fewer English tourists in the Algarve.

The British weather service has issued its first red “extreme heat” alert for parts of England due to abnormally high temperatures. Hence, English tourists will probably have plenty of sunny days back home.

Here where I live, we’re facing a drought of unprecedented scale. The situation eased slightly in the first half of 2021, but then there was a gradual increase in the drought pattern.

Portuguese climatologists all agree that these heat waves will become more frequent and extreme. The phenomenon is not new in Portugal. However, a wild combination of factors registered in…

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Portugal Calling
Portugal Calling

Published in Portugal Calling

Portugal Calling is a new publication on Medium managed by a Portuguese editorial team featuring a wide range of topics about life, language, and Portuguese culture.

Rui Alves
Rui Alves

Written by Rui Alves

Portugal native community-builder with an MA in Languages & Cultures. Linguist, published author, musician, international book awards judge and digital ronin.

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