Suzanne Harrington: There's a far more deadly heatwave coming to a town near you

We love a hot spell of weather - but do we ever stop to think of the implications?

Suzanne Harrington: the realities of climate change can't be framed as holiday weather anymore. Picture: Denis Scannell

I wish we’d stop calling it a heatwave. It looks like a heatwave and it feels like a heatwave, but to persist in calling it that is like calling Cerberus a dog. Yet we resemble a pub full of alcoholics in our collective denial. 

Every time the temperature breaks a new record, the media normalises it with front pages full of heatwave bingo: ‘Since records began’, ‘phew, what a scorcher’, ‘hottest day ever’, ‘it ain’t half hot, mum’.