The Director of the Department of Environmental Planning and Protection recently commented on the high temperatures being experienced globally.
Dr. Rhianna Neely-Murphy said, “the boiling temperature of water is 100 degrees Celsius and I think for the last thirty days or so you’ve had a relative heat index in the triple digits. And so with respect to that we can look at it and say we are all boiling out here. And that would have certain implications on for us. That has implications for our health, for human health and how we interact with our environment. The heat advisories, do not go outside between certain hours, so this has an impact on how we relate to our environment. It has an impact on our energy use because a lot of us are spending much more time inside. You need to use electricity more. You have your A/Cs burning more often so all of these have more implications. The more A/C you burn the more fossil fuel you use especially in The Bahamas. So it is a cyclical effect because the more burning of the fossil fuel the more climate change impact you will tend to have. So we have to find a way to break our cycle.”
Dr. Neely- Murphy also spoke on the impact to people who experience allergies. “For those people who have allergies, instead of your allergy season beginning in May or June your allergy season can begin as early as March because it is that warm now. And those triggers would have been given to the plants to start producing pollen so that their reproduction cycle can come. You see bees out earlier pollinating and so all of this will have an impact of those that are impacted by allergies.”
