Moving Through a Warming World: Traveling in the Age of Climate Change (a very privileged take)

Earlier this month I went on a whirlwhind tour of Southern Europe. I spent 2 weeks in Italy, France, and Spain. Apparently, many Americans flock to the region on holiday during this time of the year, and I am no different. Coming from moderately temped Los Angeles, climate is not something I think about too much. It’s been on my mind this year a lot, due to the uncharacteristically gloomy weather. Southern California had nearly twice the number of gray days as it had in 2022, and it took a toll on our collective wellbeing, mental health and sense of regional identity. It never rains in Southern California? The lies! 

So, needless to say, I was more than excited to see some sun. I embarked on a 2 week tour of Italy, France and Spain. Not surprisingly, each day brought temps of 85 degrees and above. I’m no stranger to heat, but you combine that heat with 60%+ humidity… and, it hits different! Humidity creates a thick blanket of moisture, a heaviness in the air that makes it even harder to move or breathe through. It’s like the heat is bearing down and creating a dome around you. It’s also soaking you in sweat, but conversely, making it harder for you to cool your body. This sounds like a horror film, but it’s’ really just the science of it all. Again, as an an Angeleno, this type of humidity was hard for me to conceive, but I felt it with every inch of my being. I struggled to cool my body down, and I felt my heart and lungs working in overdrive to keep me afloat. 

Now I should stop here and note that much of my European vacation involved walking, sight seeing ancient ruins and historical buildings, and visiting beach towns along the coast. These are obviously outdoor activities that should probably be avoided during extreme temps. However, summer is the high season for precisely this type of travel, and so this seemed normal and appropriate to me. Still, as I walked through the streets of Rome, Florence, Nice and Cannes, I had the increasing sense that I had made a dangerous choice. It’s not all in my mind. The Washington Post recently released an article about the dangers of heat.

With higher temps and high humidity, the body struggles to cool itself naturally. The heart and lungs go into overdrive. The nervous system is overly taxed. Extreme heat can cause anxiety and trigger depressive symptoms. As Americans, we feel we can conquer anything, including climate. We tell ourselves to drink water and push through. Biology lets me know that it’s’ not that simple. 

If it sounds dramatic, please know that it isn’t. The days of my vacation were the hottest days recorded in human history.

As a result of extreme temps, what was supposed to be a luxurious vacation felt like a jaunt on the amazing race. I found myself journeying through the streets of Europe looking for cool water wherever I could find it. Each trip to the next tourist destination felt perilous as I made haste, looked for shady corners or awnings while waiting for busses and trains, and slumped into whatever benches or seats I could find for temporary rest. Even the lovely beaches of the Italian and French Riveras brought some anxiety, as the sun surrounded us like a dome. I waded my way through rocky beaches for a chance to immerse my body and shock my system with cooler water. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. Relief, when I could find it, felt glorious, but there was the increasing anxiety that relief was fleeting. Who knew how hot the next destination would be? If it was outdoors, would the sun feel even stronger? If it was indoors, would they have air conditioning?  What if I ran out of water? Was the water even helping me? Every time I stepped into an elevator I found myself panicking… what if I got trapped in this hot tight box? Whenever I went down into a subway tunnel, I felt like I was suffocating in a furnace. Relief was hard to come by. Climate anxiety is real. For me, climate anxiety brought about by climate change was a distinct backdrop of the tour. They don’t show you this in brochures. 

What I’m now contending with is the reality that climate change means that I can’t just move about the globe when I want to. My literal safety will mean that I have to plan around the weather, and will have to forgo common or popular destinations in favor of safety. This seems practical and basic enough, but it’s’ more than a notion.

Climate change is unpredictable. In April 2023 I traveled to Chicago for a conference. I fully expected temperatures of 40-50 degrees, but by the middle of my trip, I found myself walking through Millennium Park at a warm 80. It was beautiful, and terrifying. The tulips and grass burnt, and I had nothing in my suitcase for this uncharacteristically hot spell. By the end of the week it was back to 32, and the whiplash of it all was disorienting. This is climate change. 

Still, as an upper middle class American, I was able to endure this whiplash because I know that it is not my daily reality. For the most part, I am able to to create and generate privileges that protect me from the drastic reality of climate change. For now. For now, I am fortunate enough to live in a home in central air conditioning (something people haven’t needed in Los Angeles until recently). I am fortunate enough to be able to afford the air conditioning bill. I am privileged enough to adapt my wardrobe to climate extremes. I work a job that doesn’t require me to be outdoors, and gives me the privilege and access to work in cool spaces. I can create a bubble where I am not too hot or too cold. And so I can forget in my daily life that things are drastically changing because frankly, they feel alright to me, most days. But science says that even this is changing. 

Either way, this veil of ignorance deteriorates when traveling. On a free day in Florence I asked my tour guide where I could go to get cool. He laughed at me and said, ‘it’s hot… what do you mean, get cool?’ I told him that in America, we can go to malls, museums and movie theaters and pay for the privilege of 65 degree air conditioning. I asked if there were any such malls nearby. He laughed and said no. I went to the Uffizi art gallery seeking a bit of refuge, but it turns out buildings that are 250 years old don’t cool so quickly. 

As a privileged American, I could not conceive of another European reality— air conditioning is not used abroad in the same way it is at home. That is to say, while public places technically have cooling systems, they don’t often use them, and they certainly don’t crank them to the arctic, 65 degree temps that Americans are used to in public spaces. The reason for this is a complicated one that revolves around energy policy and costs as well as cultural norms. But suffice it to say, it was hot everywhere, all the time. Even in hostels, air condition could be spotty, and left at temps that are much higher than I am personally used to. This hammered home the reality that a warming planet is inescapable. 

Here it must be noted that I was ignorant to the fact that air conditioning contributes to climate change. I know, I know. Duh!!! But no one in my local context seems to be talking about this very obvious reality. A quick google search of AC and climate change gave this quote from the Audubon society.

“The more we run AC, the more electricity we use; more electricity releases more greenhouse gases, heating the planet and requiring even more AC to stay cool.”

So the thing that I am relying on for my sense of comfort and well-being is one driver toward an increasingly uninhabitable planet. 

We’ve long been flirting with the idea that much of earth will soon be uninhabitable. But we must be mindful of the fact that before it becomes uninhabitable, it will become uncomfortable, unpleasant, unenjoyable. What was supposed to be a beautiful summer getaway was a reminder of this reality, a literal survival mission through extreme heat. I obviously have the privilege to not choose to enter into such climates, but there are also residents of these places who endure these realities daily. And they endure it in part due to the choices that we make at home, choices that increase greenhouse gas emissions and heat the planet. We are all interconnected in this climate change struggle, and travel provides insights into what our collective fate looks like. 

How are you dealing with the realities of an increasingly uncomfortable planet? 

A footnote about privilege 

I want to note here that climate change is about so much more than the inconveniences and discomfort of the privileged. What was brought into stark view for me is a daily reminder of the very real conditions that many people face the world over. As I consider a warming planet, I am terrified about how this impacts the most vulnerable — the unhoused who sleep on warming streets, the elderly and poor who must choose between heating, cooling and food, those who labor in fields and factories to pick and prepare food, often without shade and water breaks, construction workers and those maintaining vital infrastructure, essential workers such as truck drivers and delivery people, and a whole host of others who are made increasingly unsafe by a warming planet. Decisions in policy and practice must be designed with these people at the forefront.