Summer heatwave hits the UK - is London climate resilient?

0:02Hi, I'm Charlie Duffield and welcome back to the Standard Podcast. If you're new here, hit follow and give us a rating. For the latest news, head to standard.co.uk. Coming up later in the show, how TikTok influencer Addison Rae became the new cool girl of music.

0:29But first, hot weather has hit the UK, day, with temperatures as high as 31 degrees expected across parts of the country this week. This mini heatwave is expected to continue into the weekend, with high pressure from the Azores bringing clear skies and high temperatures. In London, a heatwave is triggered when a location records at least three consecutive days where the daily maximum temperature meets or exceeds 28 degrees Celsius, and such events are becoming more and more common because of climate change. Joining us now is Dr Chloe Brimacombe, a climate scientist specialising in heat waves at the Royal Meteorological Society.

1:15Chloe, what can people expect weather-wise this week? Conditions causing high heat, high temperature, maybe higher humidity, lower wind speed and also So we have very high levels of solar radiation at the moment, and this causes high heat conditions. And this is driven by high pressure moving across the UK, and this is very settled weather. And this basically drives us to have these higher temperatures and higher heat conditions. A lot of people will actually be a fan of this sunshine. So what are the risks involved with such hot weather? The reason that this is an issue in the UK is because we're not used to these higher temperatures or higher heat conditions all year round.

2:01It's quite a temperate place to live. And so this really affects how people cope during the heat if they haven't been used to these temperatures sort of historically or also like more normally during summers. and because this heat wave is occurring earlier in the season we also haven't had a chance to get used to these sort of temperatures like previously we usually see like more calls to 111 services and also you can sometimes see more lower level heat illnesses if the heat wave occurs or the high heat conditions occur earlier in the season just because we're not used to it so I know a lot of people love hot summers and we had a really bad summer in the UK last year in terms of it was really cold and wet but this is important because if you reach out to family and friends this can really help to save someone's life if they are vulnerable to heat waves but it also could make them if they cool down it can also make them feel better during these conditions I'm sure everybody would want that anyway so I think that's really important for people to understand as well is although it's lovely for some people it really is a risk to the health of others and it impacts our society and our infrastructure and how we can go about our day-to-day lives as well.

3:25Who is especially vulnerable then? People that are most vulnerable to these high heat conditions are those that can't regulate their body temperature properly and this is called thermoregulation and these are people who are pregnant also postpartum so if you're breastfeeding also the over 65s those with pre-existing medical conditions children under the age of about 11 and outdoor workers but also workers that are in sort of high intensity situations so like healthcare workers as well could be at risk of these high temperatures either call your elderly relative or the person you know is vulnerable to extreme heat or go and visit them and you should just be telling them to drink more water, even if they potentially don't feel like it, keep their fluids up.

4:14And then if they do feel really hot, they should be taking cool showers, but they can also wet their wrists and their feet. That's also been shown to cool the body down. But basically, just tell them to stay safe and drink more water. Older people don't like to think that they're vulnerable to anything. You're a concerned family member, you're a concerned friend, and you're doing it yourself as well to kind of encourage them, because we know that this definitely actually makes people more likely to stay cool during heatwaves. How is this weather linked to climate change? So what we know is that these sort of conditions are increasing in likelihood in the UK.

4:54They are occurring more frequently, they're also lasting longer, and the temperatures that we're seeing are higher. So people might remember that we reached 40 degrees Celsius in the UK in July 2022. All of these things are becoming more likely with climate change. Infrastructure in the UK, it's been called before woefully unprepared for heatwaves. And this still is true. So we've seen more effort being put into our early warning systems to inform people about heatwaves and what they need to do to cool down. But in terms of infrastructure, there's been no investment. so what we would like to see is adaptation put in place where people are most vulnerable so this might be in hospitals also in school buildings etc so there has been some work done around improving school buildings and how they're designed having natural ventilation to cool them down but we'd like to see this sort of thing rolled out across other buildings where vulnerable people are most likely to be but also sort of schemes where you could have heat pumps that also So heat houses, but there are ones that cool houses as well.

6:02So those sort of grant schemes would be great to see. But a lot of the thing is that the messaging from government and when it comes to adaptation around heat waves is that we as individuals are meant to cool ourselves down. But we know that that's not enough. We need this investment in protecting people in their houses, but also these more vulnerable people where they're likely to be as well. It's not enough just to expect us to drink water in the long term because these events are going to get more intense if we do not transition to net zero. And can you outline what's involved in the transition to net zero?

6:42So this means that we reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. So these are gases like carbon dioxide, but also methane, which is produced by the agriculture sector, to zero and then beyond, basically, because we know that these gases are causing a rise in temperatures, which is then causing a rise in the likelihood of extreme weather events such as heat waves. And then because we haven't done that quick enough in the past, we now also need investment in adaptation, like retrofitting buildings so that they are cooler in the summer, as well as keeping us warm in the winter now. Let's go to a break.

7:26Coming up in part two, from internet personality to music superstar, it's Addison Rae's Time to Shine. We'll see you back here in just a moment.

7:46Welcome back. The rebrand of Addison Rae has impressed both fans and critics alike as she positions herself as one of pop's finest up-and-coming stars. Last week, the New York Times wrote that TikTok made Addison Rae famous, music made her cool. Joining us now is The Standards' commissioning editor and culture writer Vicky Jessup. Vicky, for people who aren't aware, who is Addison Rae? Addison Rae is a TikTok influencer turned music artist. She was born in 2000 in Louisiana. She started out her career as a dancer. But anyway, she shot to fame in 2019 when she joined TikTok and became very quickly one of their most successful influencers ever.

8:34She did lip syncing videos. I think even today she's maybe like the fifth most followed person on the app. She has 88 million followers. And recently she has pivoted to becoming a pop star, I would say. This isn't her first brand pivot. She's, you know, she's tried her hand in acting. She's been on Spotify. But this seems to be the career pivot that has stuck and that she's really kind of seems to be committing to. Tell me more about her debut album. So her debut album is called Addison and it came out last week. It's quite sugary, it's quite sweet, it's very impersonal, it's very easy to listen to.

9:10The reviews have been broadly positive and it's interesting, she's been dropping singles from it for almost a year now. So Diet Pepsi came out in August and then she released Aquamarine and Fame is a Gun a bit more recently. And basically just building up the hype and kind of establishing her sound as pop music filtered through the lens of the Instagram internet age. The music industry is notoriously difficult to break into. Does she owe her success to having such a huge social media following already? Yes, it gave her a leg up. She's got a very good eye for marketing herself. I think she said before that she's felt like she needs to work doubly hard to get people to take her seriously as an artist or as anything other than an influencer.

9:49And she did try and launch her music career earlier in 2021. This debut single came out. It's called Obsessed. It was received very negatively. It basically just massively flopped. So she has had one go at this before. And I think this time what's different is that she's been quite tactical with who she collaborates with. She collaborated with Charlie XCX for Charlie's remix of Von Dutch. That helped put her in the spotlight. Charlie has this aura of cool. And yeah, just knowing what people want to talk about online. She wore kind of a Bjork style swan dress to the VMAs. I think when she came on stage to sing with Charlie at Coachella, she wore a seafood dress with the name of her upcoming album and its release date.

10:28emblazoned on her pants underneath. So people were taking photos and obviously they were talking about that. The fame helps, but she also seems to be an extremely savvy marketing person. So who are her musical influences? She's taken great lengths to paint herself as part of a longer musical lineage. Her songs reference lots of artists. I think in one she sings DJ play Madonna, wanna roll one with Lana, get high with Gaga. you know she's referencing these these big musical acts and music videos reference people like Madonna, Debbie Harry, Judy Garland. Clearly she's putting her flag in the sands and making her case for being considered in the same league as them.

11:08She sounds quite similar to maybe like Britney Spears, Gaga, again Lana and Madonna but I think filtered through the lens of the modern internet age is built for people with short attention spans. I guess made for TikTok which makes sense considering where she's come from. And finally do you have anything else to add? I think she's done a very good job in positioning herself as the next it girl of pop. She's only released one album and yet she's done it so effectively. There's already this massive buzz building around her, partially due to the music is good, but partially due to just the people that she's worked with and her eye for a good collab.

11:42And it remains to be seen how she'll consolidate that and if the hype is real, I suppose, or if it will kind of fade away slowly.

11:55And that's The Standard. For all the latest news, head to standard.co.uk. If you'd like to get in touch, please do drop us a line at podcasts at standard.co.uk. We'll be back here tomorrow at 4pm. We'll see you then.