The Summer That Never Was
Monday, July 22, 2024 was the hottest day ever recorded on earth, according to the European Union’s climate monitor.
In the Middle East, periods of prolonged relentless heat this summer added to the misery of the millions displaced in Gaza—crammed into makeshift plastic-covered shelters.
The CO2 emissions for the first 60 days of the Israel-Gaza conflict have been estimated as greater than the annual emissions of some of the world’s most climate vulnerable nations.
The war rages on.
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Summer is a short-lived affair in Ireland, typically amounting to a few weeks any time between late May and early August. Its arrival is hard to predict and we often get false starts. Such glorious days raise our hopes before dashing them again, departing as abruptly as they arrived. When summer finally lands, and with the forecast looking good for the longer term, we caution each other not to expect too much. If the good weather should endure, gifting us with week after week of the wished-for sun, we become a land of smiles and benevolence.
It seems a long time back to the month of May. In May, we had it all still to look forward to—the butter yellow mornings, the sun on bare shoulders, the days that stretch almost to midnight, the happy queue outside the ice-cream shop. The lake water would warm up and we would climb in off the jetty without shrieks and roars. Our favourite pub would spill out on to the market square where we would meet, by the bench or the statue, to stand in short sleeves, sipping our wine.
This year it didn’t happen like that. This year the summer never came.
We watched for it. We were patient. A week or two of bad weather in June—not unusual and we’ll take it if it means a better July. June passed with days of weak sun and a biting wind.
We thought we could joke about it, that it was safe to joke, because there was still plenty of time for our summer. July came, and with it mornings of the longed-for sun and the longed-for light. We looked out as we ate breakfast, certain that it was here at last. We stepped out to find that the blue sky had gone and the breeze blowing through our summer clothes felt bitter cold.
The water was cold and it stayed cold. We swam, cursing the grey sunless sky, the sideways wind and the mouthfuls of chop. We turned before the orange buoy wanting only to be out, to be back in towels and dry robes, to be dressed and in the car, with the heating on full belt.
By the time August came around there was a general air of desperation. The sky was a permanent uniform grey—the sun had all but abandoned us. We tried not to complain as the days slipped away from us unchanging. Some held on to hope; others shrugged and pulled on their winter jackets. The lucky ones counted down the days before escape to guaranteed sun—in Cascais, Amalfi or Cap-Ferrat.
We want to complain now as the days grow shorter and the nights grow cold but our eyes and ears are on the news. We see a journalist walking the crowded corridor of a Gazan hospital. He picks his steps between the bodies of sleeping children. Each child, he tells us, is missing an arm, a leg or an eye.
