'I've never been more embarrassed to be British than during this heatwave'

'I've never been more embarrassed to be British than during this heatwave' This heatwave might be about to end, but there are more coming, and we are totally unprepared to deal with them, or make sacrifices to secure a better future The UK is literally melting, and it's only poised to get worse. The current heatwave might be about to thankfully draw to a close - but we aren't ready for the next one, or the one after that, or the one after that. The climate crisis is not exactly a surprise: public figures like David Attenborough and King Charles have been warning the public for decades what was coming down the pipeline, and scientists have been sounding the alarm for even longer. We've had years to get ready for this moment, yet our infrastructure, homes, and mindsets are all seriously lagging behind where we need to be. It's embarrassing. HS2 won't be completed until we're all long dead, the cause of which will be 'boiled to death in an unbelievably well insulated home designed to trap any and all heat.' The next person who tells me "lovely weather" is getting an earful. We've got to keep suffering through this because people want to tell ChatGPT their problems rather than just buying a diary? Heaven help us. Ironically, some of the most climate-aware people I know are also the ones flying dozens of times a year - the hypocrisy is as breathtaking as the humidity right now. YouGov polling shows that only 15 percent of Brits believe the environment to be one of the top issues facing the country - the economy got the top spot, with immigration a close second. Well, guess what? There will be a lot more as the globe heats up and people are forcibly displaced from their homes through flooding, extreme temperatures and droughts? That's right - climate refugees. So for those who are concerned about immigration, they might want to start grilling their MPs about climate policy. Do you know what will also get more expensive if we remain frozen in place, with our heads in the sand? Pretty much everything. The UK has very little food storage capacity at any given time, and we only produce about 60 percent of it ourselves. Every single time there is a climate shock, our food supply becomes more precarious. We need to strengthen our food security, as Professor Tim Lang told the Mirror earlier this year when food inflation skyrocketed amid the closure of the Strait of Hormuz: "Some countries are stockpiling to protect their consumers. The UK isn't. Our food system is vulnerable." When it comes to dealing with extreme heat, something has to be done. Our homes and buildings are not designed for this - with many schools forced to close over the last few days - and installing air conditioning is likely out of reach for most people. Air-to-Air heat pumps would work as both heating systems and air conditioners, helping moderate the temperatures in our homes year-round, bringing down emissions and prices. But they're expensive to install, and don't work well with the most common radiators found in UK homes, which means that more often than not you'll find if a home does have a heat pump, it's an Air-to-Water system - but even then it's only around one percent of Brits who have one. More grants need to be offered to help Brits get these into their homes and deviate away from gas systems. So far, few have managed to really get across just how connected all the major issues facing our country are to each other, and crucially the climate crisis. Electrifying our power sources rather than relying on gas, which is vulnerable to global shocks like the Iran war, would massively decrease prices across the board for families who are struggling to balance the books. We are not separate from nature, we are part of it, and as this crisis grows more extreme, we will suffer just as much as the rest of the planet. To be clear, few people love the UK more than I do. I would never live anywhere else, unless someone forcibly drags me off this beautiful island. Much to my friends' chagrin I'll often bellow: "This is the greatest city in the world!" whilst walking literally anywhere round London. Going on holiday abroad is not a regular occurrence - for me, the best part of leaving the UK is always coming back. Look, we've made some decent headway, carbon emissions are 50 percent lower than they were in 1990, and the government has set goals for 2030 that are both "feasible and ambitious" according to the Climate Change Committee. But the fact is that our preparedness is woeful for the realities of the climate crisis. We've been enduring record-breaking temperatures this June, and heatwaves like this one are forecast to become more and more common. It's easy to lament that there is nothing the individual can do in the face of greedy billionaires, trillionaires and the mysterious 'market forces' that run our lives (Here's a secret, market forces seem to suspiciously always react exactly how the most conservative middle-aged rich guy you can imagine would do). But societies and communities are nothing more than groups of individuals working together, so what you do, who you vote for, and what you demand of the people you elect, do matter. Even small actions accumulate, and we shouldn't give up in the face of fear or hopelessness: we deserve a better future, and so do the generations to come.