Traditional Summer Cultures from Around the World Risk Being Killed off by Climate Change

It was a traditional sight in front of the local community center. Several pairs of mothers and their young daughters were walking from the nearby parking lot, dressed in the summer kimono of different colors highlighted with graceful floral patterns. They were perhaps heading into a classroom that would show the young daughters how to properly dress and undress in these traditional Japanese dresses, no longer used in daily life but still a common sight in summer festivals like firework watching, night prayers at Shinto shrines, and just any traditional summer outings for traditional holidays.

But this class was taking place at 2 pm, perhaps the hottest hour of the hottest time of the year. While on paper the greater Tokyo region has only clocked in at little more than 30 degrees Celcius, humidity has easily topped over 70%, making those standing outside, even in the shade, feel suffocated by their inability to get rid of body heat by sweating. The toll on the body must be worse for the kimono-clad women, who are forced to keep on their long-sleeved garments tied closely to their bodies with thick, not-easy-to-breathe cloth bands. 

It was probably not always so physically taxing to wear these summer kimonos. Speaking to an older generation of Japanese people, they mention childhoods when an open window and some fans were sufficient to get them through the summer. Not that everyone had access to modern air conditioning back in those days, but it is clear from the words of the elderly that over the past decades, Japan's climate has clearly changed for the hotter. What was considered just the right amount of coverage for the summer kimono has become way too much for the modern climate. 

When people speak of the greatest damage from climate change, they mention rising sea levels, declines in agricultural productivity, bands of inhabitable geographies, and all the associated economic costs. There is no doubt that those are the most obvious ones, mostly easily put in numerical financial terms. But perhaps, just as important is the intangible damages climate change can do to traditional culture. Some parts of traditional culture like summer kimono, appropriate for a cooler climate, are no longer feasible and thus actively preservable in a hotter future.

Such cultural damage is certainly not limited to fashion or Japan. Traditional architectural styles of stone, earth, and bricks, perfected over centuries and preserved until today, are no longer such a good idea in hot summers. Cuisines that emphasized ingredients that warm the body against the cold elements no longer make much sense when those partaking in them live in places where they need not worry about the cold. And worst of all, human settlements that have been inhabited for centuries may now lie in geographies that are too hot or too prone to climate change-related natural disasters.

Of course, this is not to say that the past has always remained constant, and cultures were preserved unchanged until recently. Climate change has happened before and human culture has adapted continually to changing natural conditions. Surely, human culture will adapt again to the current set of changing climates, shedding those that are no longer sensible and taking up new ones that allow people to live more comfortably and conveniently in a new era of higher summer temperatures. Summer kimonos, for one, will become shorter-sleeved and use thinner materials over time.

But the loss of certain cultural idiosyncracies today through adaptation to changing climates would be more devastating to national identity than they are in the past. The emergence of global means of disseminating popular culture through mass and social media outlets means that a loss of a certain cultural uniqueness will not be replaced by a locally created alternative but a pure foreign import that has no ties to local history or land. And with the ever quicker pace of climate change, the losses of cultural elements will speed up to a point that they cannot all be replaced in time.

As Japanese and global summers become hotter and hotter, we may see summer traditions of all cultures replaced with a globalized standardized one that emphasizes the simplicity of cooling down no matter what. Bikinis, water parks, public fountains, mist machines, and other means of getting people to stay active in hot summers will dominate landscapes everywhere in the world, transcending all national and cultural boundaries. People will be glad to cool off in public, but the sacrifices will be the disappearances of historical summer enjoyments from around the world.