It was 5:30 am in Kuwait City when Abdullah Husain, 36, left his apartment to walk his dog. The sun had not yet risen, but the day was so hot and the air was so steamy that it covered his body in a hot film, making his clothes cling to his skin.
In the summer, he says, he has to get the dogs out early, before the asphalt gets so hot it can burn their paws.
“Everything after sunrise is hell,” he said.
Abdullah, assistant professor of environmental science at the University of Kuwait, lives a very different life from Kadhim in Basra. But both men’s days were shaped by unshakable heat.
Basra and Kuwait City are only 80 miles apart and often enjoy similar weather, with summer temperatures rising to triple digits for weeks on end.
But in other ways, they are different worlds.
Both places produce oil, but in Kuwait it has created great wealth and provides people with a high standard of living.
This wide economic gap has never been clearer when it comes to how well people can protect themselves against the heat, the growing divide between rich and poor that is playing out globally.
Abdullah makes breakfast in his apartment as cold as 68 degrees. Kadhim’s mother toiled in a kitchen that was almost twice that temperature.
Abdullah drives an air-conditioned car to work on wide highways. Kadhim commutes to work on the streets full of rapidly rotting garbage.
Abdullah teaches at a heavily air-conditioned university. Even working at night, Kadhim couldn’t escape his hot world.
Kuwait’s oil wealth allows it to protect its people from the heat — but those protections also come at a heavy cost, affecting culture and lifestyle.
So life has moved in the house.
People don’t just shop at the mall, they walk around to exercise. Zoo animals live in air-conditioned cages. Children play indoors, rarely touching trees, grass or dirt.
Many Kuwaitis never step outside longer than it takes to walk to their car. The rest of their lives are air-conditioned: where they sleep, exercise, work, and socialize.
That affects their health. Despite plenty of sunshine, many Kuwaitis are deficient in vitamin D, the vitamin the body uses sunlight to produce. Many people are also overweight.
By the end of the century, Basra, Kuwait City and many other cities will most likely have more dangerously hot days each year. How much depends on what humans do in the meantime.
Even if humans reduce their carbon emissions significantly, by 2100, Kuwait City and Basra will experience months of 103 higher temperatures and humidity, according to a forecast by researchers at Harvard University. degrees Celsius, much higher than a decade ago. .
Higher Emissions, More Dangerous Days in 2100
Today, Basra experiences about 60 Dangerous hot days each year.
By 2100, Basra will see almost six months dangerous heat according to the most likely scenario.
Today, Basra experiences about 60 Dangerous hot days each year.
By 2100, Basra will see almost six months dangerous heat according to the most likely scenario.
Higher Emissions, More Dangerous Days in 2100
Today, Basra experiences about 60 Dangerous hot days each year.
By 2100, Basra will see almost six months dangerous heat according to the most likely scenario.
Today, Basra experiences about 60 Dangerous hot days each year.
By 2100, Basra will see almost six months dangerous heat according to the most likely scenario.
Estimates of the long-term future are imprecise, but scientists agree that the situation will get worse — and potentially catastrophic if emissions are left unchecked. In that case, Miami, for example, could experience dangerous heat for nearly half a year.
Source: Murdock and Lucas Vargas Zeppetello, Harvard University
Source: Murdock and Lucas Vargas Zeppetello, Harvard University
Abdullah, the professor, said most Kuwaitis don’t think about the relationship between burning fossil fuels and heat.
“People complain about it, but it’s not what drives them to act or change behaviour,” he said. “They use it for sunbathing or going to the beach, but if it gets too hot, they stay at home in the air conditioner.”
And since atmospheric emissions don’t respect borders, Kuwait City and Basra will continue to get hotter no matter what they do, unless major emitters like the United States and China change course.
Now, Abdullah, like many Kuwaitis, spends his days moving between air-conditioned bags.
The apartment he lives in with two dogs and two cats is filled with plants that will quickly wither outside.
He works out in a posh gym with exposed pipes, a juice bar, and glass walls that reveal the desolation outside. In one direction, a lap pool was empty because it was too hot. On another golf course, the grass was also empty. Elsewhere, an empty tennis court, grilled in the sun.
Abdullah spent 13 years as a student in Oregon, and recalls all the people who spent time outside walking, fishing, and enjoying nature. Kuwait is a place more against environmentalists, he said. He worries that in isolating themselves from the heat, the people of Kuwait have lost contact with the natural world.
“No one really cares what’s outside their door,” he said. “And when it doesn’t affect their thought process, it doesn’t even matter. They don’t see it.”
While the Kuwaitis with the means can protect themselves from the heat, their way of life depends on a certain caste system.
Much of the work needed to keep society functioning is done by low-paid foreign workers from India, Bangladesh, Egypt and elsewhere. These include gardeners, herders, plumbers, construction workers, airport baggage handlers, air conditioning repairmen, medical staff, ice cream vendors and garbage collector.
He carried a piece of cardboard to sit on and three bottles of frozen water that he kept next to his body to try to stay cool. It doesn’t really work.
“I came home completely finished,” he said.
