The Apple occasion goes to be a scorching one

Tech reporters are descending on Cupertino, California, in the present day for Apple’s product launch occasion, the place they’re anticipating a primary have a look at new iPhones and Apple Watches. They’ll even be scorching — actually scorching. There’s a suffocating heatwave throughout the entire state, together with within the Bay Area, the place temperatures hit all-time highs.

These types of maximum warmth occasions have gotten extra widespread due to local weather change. The odds of record-breaking heatwaves are far better now than they have been just a few many years in the past. They’ll be even increased within the subsequent few many years. They’re dangerous, notably for the aged, the very younger, and folks with well being circumstances like hypertension or bronchial asthma. They’re much more harmful once they’re paired with ageing energy grids like California’s that wrestle beneath the demand for air con, risking blackouts that depart individuals caught within the warmth.

There’s a sure dissonance to 2 of the largest items of stories popping out of California in the present day being a brand new Apple Watch and a historic, life-threatening heatwave. Many tech corporations occur to make their houses in Silicon Valley, part of the nation in danger from larger fires, larger droughts, and larger floods because the local weather continues to alter.

Apple and different corporations have made commitments to preventing local weather change, and Apple says the Cupertino campus the place in the present day’s occasion takes place is powered by renewable energy. But tech corporations, together with Apple, are lagging behind on their guarantees to chop greenhouse fuel emissions, in line with the 2022 version of the Corporate Climate Responsibility Monitor.

California appears to have averted the worst-case situation on this present heatwave — the strained grid held, and the state avoided large-scale blackouts. The warmth is beginning to subside. But temperatures are nonetheless above regular in the present day, and so they’ll be felt by everybody at Apple’s occasion. It’s unimaginable to disregard. It’s the backdrop to every thing now, particularly shiny new issues: a continuing state of local weather emergency.