India’s Boiling Point

Millions in the country are confronting a terrifying reality: ,

When sweat can’t evaporate, heat kills.

Ten out of the country’s 15 hottest years on record were in the last decade and a half; 

in 2024, New Delhi experienced daytime temperatures higher than 40C for an entire month. 

With humidity, the air can feel as much as 10 degrees hotter. 

Even in a nation that’s made huge strides in modernizing its economy, such temperatures can overwhelm railways and electrical grids, hampering exports and idling factories.

They can also cause severe illness or death. 

In the opening scenes of The Ministry for the Future, Kim Stanley Robinson’s dystopian novel,

https://www.akademibokhandeln.se/bok/ministry-for-the-future/9780356508863

India is hit with the most severe heat wave in its history. 

The electric grid fails, taps run dry, and criminal gangs hunt for air conditioners. A desperate crowd seeks refuge in a lake, where the water proves fatally hot. Across the country, 20 million people die.

Robinson’s fictional scenario was built on a real scientific principle. When the air is both hot and humid enough, sweat can’t evaporate, and therefore the body can’t cool. 

Boomberg 25 augusti 2025

https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2025-india-extreme-heat/?srnd=homepage-europe