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Europe's Record Heatwave Kills 25,000, Dries Rivers, Shuts Nuclear Plant, Exposes Submerged Warships (www.cbc.ca) 124

"The European Union's Copernicus climate monitoring service confirmed Monday that June and July were the hottest on record in western Europe," .according to a report from the CBC. "The period saw an estimated 25,000 heat-related deaths."

CNN has before-and-after photos of Europe's dried rivers, calling it "a crisis so dire it can be seen from space" River levels are so low that commercial ships have had to reduce their loads by as much as 80% to avoid running aground. It's disrupting supply chains and making shipping more expensive.
Other effects of Europe's drying rivers
  • A bridge built in the year 39 AD by the Roman emperor Caligula "is usually entirely underwater," reports CNN, but this year full blocks of the ancient structure are visible, giving archaeologists a rare opportunity to study it." The reports adds that drying Tiber has also now also revealed formerly submerged e-bikes, scooters, refrigerators and a car."

Europe's Record Heatwave Kills 25,000, Dries Rivers, Shuts Nuclear Plant, Exposes Submerged Warships

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  • Smoking doesnt cause cancer, so global warming isnt real.
    Its just the earth trying to get rid of a virus. Keep glug glug that vroom vroom, the earth will do the rest.
  • by Qbertino ( 265505 ) <moiraNO@SPAMmodparlor.com> on Saturday August 15, 2026 @01:21PM (#66290166)

    Disclaimer: European here.

    4th epic heatwave this year in Germany right now. I'm currently in Karlsruhe and it's 37 degrees Celsius outside (too lazy to convert to bananas or whatever you guys use). Got an SUV rental and it's AC couldn't keep up this noon. Concrete on the Autobahn cracked open in the last heatwave and they had to close down to repair it. Right now NRW is seeing it's largest forest fire since ever.

    I was up north on the island of Fehmarn at the start of the week. Summer was bearable there although I did get sunburn. Anything south of Bremen though has unbearable heat at noon. Not fun. The Rhine is at an all time low, you can almost wade through it ( this has never happened ) and Hungary is having an energy crisis because they had to shut down both of their fission plants because the didn't have enough cooling water. France is closing in an the same problem once again too.

    Climate change is hitting us like a fist this year. Not fun.

    • 37C is 98.6 F ...body temperature. A hot day, but not out of the normal range for most of the USA in the summer.

      • by Viol8 ( 599362 ) on Saturday August 15, 2026 @03:43PM (#66290402) Homepage

        Germany is on the same latitude as as newfoundland idiot. 37C is NOT normal.

        • by hjf ( 703092 )

          Germany is on the same latitude as as newfoundland idiot. 37C is NOT normal.

          That's not how climate works. Madrid is at the same latitude as New York City and New York has blizzards and regular snow. Madrid doesn't.

          • Latitude is not the only factor. Geography and topology also matter. Although, understanding that requires a high school level of science literacy and as the other guy pointed out, this is a US website after all.

        • Germany is on the same latitude as as newfoundland idiot. 37C is NOT normal.

          Mother "Normal" Nature, stands at the ready to shove those goalposts right up the ass of humanity.

          * a magnitude 4.2 rumbles from the ocean deep *

          (That, was a fart. As a reminder.)

          There are those who mitigate their weather risks, and those who land on American shores for a football match only to discover the modern mitigation marvel known as air conditioning.

          Don't even know what more to say when an air-conditioned yellow school bus could trigger manic laughter followed by profuse rage-sweating among certa

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        That's why it is so dangerous.

        When ambient temperature equals of exceeds body temperature, your body can no longer radiate heat. The only way to shed it is via sweating, which risks dehydration. When it's also very humid, you can't even sweat it off, and you die.
        That's assuming you are healthy, it's worse if you aren't.

        It's also why in Europe you usually can't be made to work in an environment about around 32C, and even that is borderline.The laws vary but generally that is around the point where doing anyt

    • This is a love tap, fists will be thrown later. One thing can and should be done, we need to start adding aerosols into the atmosphere, the higher the better. Adding Na compounds to jet fuels would introduce just enough aerosols in order to start reflecting a tiny amount more of solar radiation than what makes it to the surface of the planet. 1-2% reflection is all we need to start reducing the temperatures. Of-course we will have to keep doing it until we figure out a more permanent solution.

      • Just spraying water vapor would be fine. No need to start resorting to the types of plans that would make chemtrail conspiracy theorists' heads explode.

  • as a long term plan for some of the population. This catastrophe won't go away in years, it will take decades even if we drastically curtail C02 emissions

    O'neill cylinders should be part of the long term plan.
    See the following for an animation of how the O'Neill cyclinders might operate and how they look inside.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2d_0l5ycRM

    If course we're probably looking at 100 years from now to implement an O'neil cylinder set such as this.

    And the bigger issue to solve is who stays and who

    • by XXongo ( 3986865 )

      as a long term plan for some of the population. This catastrophe won't go away in years, it will take decades even if we drastically curtail C02 emissions. O'neill cylinders should be part of the long term plan.

      O'Neill settlements, of course, must be run with zero fossil fuels supplying energy, and with all manufacturing completely closed cycle: no atmosphere, rivers, or landfills to exhaust waste into. And the ecology likewise a closed system.

      Once you have solved the problem of the closed-ecology of an orbital O'Neill settlement, you need only implement that approach on the Earth.

      So, YES! Let's push forward with O'Neill space settlements! Because we need that technology for Earth.

  • This reminds me of the intro to Geostorm

  • More data centers. Data centers all the way down.
  • I live in the greater Koblenz area in Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany. The Rhein was as shallow as 27cm at one point. The crazy tankers were trying to navigate this so the local government shutdown boat traffic. We rely heavily on river traffic. So, this coupled with the antics in Hormuz have me paying over €2 a litre of gas; that's $10 a gallon for you all in the US complaining about $4 a gallon.
  • It gets warmer and windier. E-verybody knew that in advance. No complaining.
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by XXongo ( 3986865 )
      Indeed, the ice age ended finally... about 7000 years ago.

      And the entirety of human history has risen during the inter-glacial. We've built a civilization well adapted to the climate as it currently is.

      So, why would we went to change it?

      • Indeed, the ice age ended finally... about 7000 years ago.

        And the entirety of human history has risen during the inter-glacial. We've built a civilization well adapted to the climate as it currently is.

        * Glances over at an air-conditioned planet full of introverts advised to stay indoors to avoid their human skin burned to the dumb degree from being exposed to a bit too much Reality on a planet practically burning with desire to kill meatsacks with climate alone *

        Turn air-conditioning off, and tens of millions die every year. That's not adaptation. That's severe dependence on a tool now needed for survival on a planet holding zero fucks for humanity.

  • Cold kills more people than heat
    • An AC posted above about waiting for this inevitable type of comment posted by idiots and here it is!

  • by techno-vampire ( 666512 ) on Saturday August 15, 2026 @04:26PM (#66290480) Homepage
    From what I can see from reading TFA, Europe has not one, but two problems, both climate related. One, of course, is the heat. The other, that nobody here is talking about, is a massive drought. I'll bet that we're reading about crop failures and famines later this year.
    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Massive drought and wildfires, leading to flooding when it does start raining this week and the ground can't absorb it.

      We may have to start looking at desalination, like Middle Eastern countries. Certainly we need to get much better at storing water from the winter. The UK is particularly bad for that, because we sold off publicly owned water utilities and they didn't bother investing in storage, they just paid out massive dividends for shareholders. Decades later and we are being hit by climate change too.

  • https://www.pv-magazine.com/2026/08/10/when-the-rivers-stop-flowing-europes-drought-summer-measured/

    This is Germany 1933, it's about to get a lot worse and we should all really vote for a non crazy government that will accelerate decarb. There's no alt.

"Don't try to outweird me, three-eyes. I get stranger things than you free with my breakfast cereal." - Zaphod Beeblebrox in "Hithiker's Guide to the Galaxy"

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