In a World of Constant Heatwaves, Heatproofing is Urgently Needed to Ensure Inequality Does not Expand

Get your hands dirty in the field; only then will you see the true value of work and how to put theories into practice. Such advice is often freely dispensed to newcomers in many different professions. At first sight, its vague wisdom is innocuous enough: who can argue against getting out there, putting what one learned from books and classes into action, and seeing the physical results to improve further? The trial and error may be all the more exciting when the hands-on work means getting out of stuffy offices, going into the streets, and helping customers who are most in need.

But as a historical record of a heatwave marches across the European continent, getting one's hands dirty in the field can no longer just be thought of as a method of professional development. Having worked to set up retail shops for farmers in Tanzanian villages, I know that practical work in some professions cannot escape toiling under the blazing sun. When the thermometer blows past 40 degrees Celsius amidst relentless humidity, breaking a sweat is no longer just a matter of pride in getting out of the office. It can be lethal to one's health.

In the European case, the hands-on workers cannot simply limp back to offices and expect relief from the heat. With historical buildings still not modified enough for air-conditioning installations, the inside can be just as hot, if not more so, than the outside. The bigshots in modern skyscrapers of the financial districts can stare at the misery outside from the comfort of their chilled glass offices, but for many millions more, the office and the homes they head back to offer little relief. With no proper way to recover from heat exhaustion, energy-consuming work, even if not hands-on, becomes inefficient.

The result is a visible inequality defined by heat. Those with chill offices and homes can continue concentrating, their output unaffected by the external temperature. For everyone else, languishing in the heat means they can no longer justify the wages they received before the heatwave. Add to that the financial losses from taking extra days off and even being hospitalized to recover from the heat, and we see a society in which the most hands-on professionals end up poorer than ever relative to everyone else, financially and physically.

The victim is not merely the wisdom of growing professionally through hands-on work. It is a society that pities and eventually ridicules everyone who has no choice but to do so. As heatwaves become the norm and belated investments in heatproofing buildings finally reach scale, those who are left behind are those without the financial and professional means to make those investments. Menial workers, socially marginalized as immigrants who are clueless about the mainstream cultural values of their host societies and reside in crime-ridden ghettos, will get even less sympathy for failing to adapt.

Volunteerism, particularly in America, used to bridge the gap. Plenty believed in helping out at soup kitchens, neighborhood cleanups, and educational initiatives in low-income communities. But if lethal heat becomes more common, no amount of do-good intentions can overcome the instinctual needs of the Good Samaritans to escape into their air-conditioned homes and villages. As community service becomes less feasible and popular in the heat, the travails of the have-nots will become ever-more abstract and difficult for others to relate.

Environmentalists rightly blame air-conditioning for increased energy use that indirectly contributes to global warming. But this argument should not be the reason people refuse to install more air-conditioning in their own homes and offices, but also as a public service for every building where occupants do not have the financial means to do so themselves. Because for the marginal energy consumption incurred, we get back not just the health of every individual, but their dignity as members of society who can still function properly in the heat.

The professional value of hands-on work lies in the ability to be outdoors, seeing places and people that the average office worker would never interact with. That interaction is the building block of mutual understanding that underpins social unity. If a heat-induced inequality stops these interactions, then the inequality becomes not just infrastructural and financial, but mental and psychological. People do not help those they cannot sympathize with, and sympathy cannot come without firsthand understanding. If a few air conditioners can stop this detrimental spiral, why not install them?