Salisbury visitors talk summer, heatwave and climate change

With temperatures remaining in the high 20s, the recent spike in heat has led to many people escaping to the parks and rivers of Salisbury to enjoy the sun and try and keep cool.

The Journal went to Queen Elizabeth Gardens yesterday, July 12, to ask people what they thought of the heatwave and how they cope.

A sign of climate change?

Leandre Engelbrecht and Vaughn Powell were in Salisbury visiting Nakita Milne, who lives and works here.

From South Africa, they all firmly believe that climate change is affecting temperatures. 

Nakita said: “This is more humid than back home. It is early summer too, it shouldn’t be this hot, it has changed so quickly from really cold a month or two ago.”

Nakita Milne, Leandra Engelbrecht and Vaughn Powell (Image: Annette J Beveridge, Newsquest)

Vaughn said: “We get hot days like this in South Africa, but generally, this is hot, and is 100 per cent because of climate change. We have seen the changes at home with extreme highs and extreme lows.”            

Leandre said: “It was snowing in the south of our country, and it doesn’t ever snow there.”

Vaughn added: “To stay cool, put your feet in water, or dip a towel or sarong in water and wrap it around you.”

Greenhouse gases enter the atmosphere forming a blanket around the planet and the heat from the sun is trapped so temperatures rise.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has stated that humans are the cause of 40 per cent of CO2 emissions through air travel, driving, and energy usage in the home.

Sara Meidlinger was with her daughter Sarah MacMillan in a shady part of the park. 

She said: “We have been coping alright. We have been careful and have gone to places where there are water and trees and we have kept out of the sun.”

Adapting to the heat

Another resident enjoying the sun, Steve Curtis, said: “I don’t mind the hot weather, I am half-Maltese but in Britain, we are not really used to it.

Steve Curtis

“I think it is best to stay indoors or stay in the shade if people can and keep hydrated. It is a different kind of heat here than abroad.

“At night, wear something light, wear a cold t-shirt, I know some people soak a t-shirt and wear that, or, put a cold towel in front of the fan and open a window.

“This could be climate change, there must be something in it. When I was younger, you could tell the seasons, but now, it’s different.”

Married couple John and Kate Clark are visiting Salisbury on holiday and admitted the weather was tiring and that they had asked for a fan in the hotel room.

Kate said: “We manage but we make sure to drink plenty of water. I don’t know if it is to do with climate change.

“We have heatwaves, they happen, I’m a bit sceptical.”

Business and temperature changes

Steve Romain of Bob’s Ices, stationed at Queen Elizabeth Gardens, said: “This is a family business and I have been doing this for 25 years. It is definitely getting warmer and more unpredictable.

“We have had a pattern of bad Augusts, and this affects us here in the park. We hope this year, the hot weather will go all the way through. 

“This last week, especially at the weekend, business picked up. For the best trade, we could do with this weather in a week’s time when the schools break up. If it’s 40 degrees, it will be too much.”

The amber weather warning indicates a possible risk to life or of serious illness, and is in place from midnight on Saturday, July 16, until midnight on Sunday, July 17. 

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