DURING SPELLS OF heat like the one we’re experiencing right now, there is a specific complaint that is commonly levelled at media organisations. 

It happens when a headline about record-breaking heat, or weeks without rain, is accompanied by a photo of a melting 99 or throngs of revellers taking to the beach. People don’t like it because they believe it masks the real story, which is not ‘Oh good, the sun is out, let’s all take our tops off’ but rather ‘Oh dear, the world is ending (let’s all take our tops off)’. 

In a rare move for this column, I will say one brief thing in defence of the mainstream media, which is that, in fairness, when it’s hot, people do be eating ice creams. They do be heading to the beach. It’s not like those photos don’t reflect very real phenomena. People enjoy the heat! That’s the god’s honest truth. Beaches and beer gardens don’t stay empty because we’re all so worried about the catastrophe inherent in the sunshine, though most of us very much are. 

However, this week we have once and for all been presented with the kind of images that should be used when the next heatwaves crash down upon us, and crash they most certainly will. These images are coming out of Slievenamon, Co Tipperary, where a wildfire has been raging since Monday and continues to burn, with only some hope emerging that it will be extinguished in the coming days.. When one watches the firefighters work tirelessly to put out the blaze, it’s hard not to feel mournful. All of that water that could have been used to keep our data centres cool… Wasted.

While it is true that most of us do enjoy the various novelties afforded........

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