RAGHAV GADGIL
World Earth Day arrives each year on April 22, when Indians are under the lid of heat. In 2024, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) confirmed that the global mean near-surface temperature was 1.55 ± 0.13°C above the 1850-1900 average. This makes 2024 the warmest year in the 175-year observational record.
Panjim touched 37°C in April which ‘felt like’ 40°C due to high humidity of 77%. There was uproar over the beginning of the academic year of schools in Goa due to heat wave warnings by IMD. Night‑time is no longer a refuge. IMD shows minimum temperatures running 1.6–3°C above normal across Konkan, Goa and parts of Gujarat, while pockets of North India sit a full 5°C hotter than their usual lows. Since the records of 1901, the minimum temperatures experienced in October 2024 in India have been the highest. Globally, NOAA has charted a steady climb in average minimum temperatures over the past decades, a trend that accelerates the moment Greenhouse gases pile higher. Earth isn’t just angry at noon; it mutters through the night.
Heat, unlike many hazards, touches every life. The heat indoors impedes attention span as the sweat glands constantly nudge the brain to regulate temperature. We feel exhausted. The overhead tank in our homes has started supplying warm water than usual. Higher heat results in the increased use of air conditioners and fans, drawing their electric power from fossil fuels. Last May’s heat wave, India logged its highest national electricity demand. Physics compounds the problem: resistance in transmission wires rises with temperature.
In Goa, coastal humidity turns a 35°C afternoon into a sauna and a warm night. The DHS has issued advisories urging residents to avoid outdoor work from 11am to 3pm and sip water every half‑hour. A 2023 paper published in Nature found that days with the weakest winds recorded the strongest urban-heat-island readings which means wind keeps the heat distributed in the cities in a process known as ‘heat advection’. A study in Urban Climate in 2022 says the urban heat advection (UHA) is a meteorological process that modulates the air temperature. This seems to have aggravated the heat crises in Goa.
The IPCC report says warming is “unequivocally” our fault. Earth’s natural buffers—oceans, soils, forests—are groaning. India’s per capita CO2 emission is 2.1 tonnes as compared with the USA (14.3T) and China (8.4T). If the penetration of ACs in Indian homes (5%) marches toward the likes of the USA (~90%), imagine the impact.
Then come the ripple effects that no forecast captures. More heat pushes families toward weekend escapes to water parks, waterfalls and distant hill resorts. Each outing adds kilograms of CO2 exhaust. Tyre friction heats the asphalt, already shimmering like stove coils. Picnickers brim with fizzy drinks (invisible exhaust), and portable tandoors puff charcoal smoke. Hotter days provoke extra showers; multiply just one additional bath per person by India’s half population, and you tap aquifers that monsoon rains increasingly fail to replenish. Small indulgences, cloned by millions, become climate compound interest.
Each weekend, picture 10 extra leisure seekers across thousands of towns across India. Adage “Small steps lead to big ones” holds true.
So, is Earth turning up the heat to scold us? The planet sets the exam; we keep failing the tests. Keep ignoring the syllabus, and we might discover that we have been barred from living on this planet.