On my morning walk in the woods these machines are sometimes annoying, but with a shift in attitude it’s possible for them to turn them into a subject of interest. Now I wait for them.

We saw two films this year:  A brighter tomorrow, of Nanni Moretti, and Banel & Adama, of Ramata-Toulaye Sy.  

Both are very good.  It was the festival’s 40th year, and I guess we have been going to it for most of those years, and usually seeing more films.  I used to pick them really carefully, but nowadays we just choose a couple according to whim or time that we are available.  

There’s still a festival atmosphere, despite the huge demonstrations.  Thousands of people had also walked up to Jerusalem earlier, in the heat of the day in the hope of preserving a semblance of democracy in this deeply divided country.

After the film, we passed through a contingent of demonstrators outside the PM’s house, on our way to Pizzeria Flora, where they have what must be the world’s finest vegan pizza.

The demonstration there passed peacefully. Just in case, a little out of sight on a side street there was a group of mounted cops, so that sitting there at the restaurant, with the demo going on and the men on horses in waiting, I felt like I was in that scene from Dr. Zhivago.

Daytime temperatures for the coming days are forecast to get up to 36 – 37° C, a bit on the warm side even for here. But as temperatures are on the rise everywhere, maybe this is not so exceptional.

In the daytime, the air-conditioner goes on, usually by at least lunchtime, and stays on till the evening.  When I go for a walk, or do any physical activity outdoors, I make sure that it’s before 09:00 or after 18:00.  Then it’s fine. Evenings are also cooler, so we normally manage to sleep just with a fan.

Actually, the heat part of climate change doesn’t have me worried so much.  The air-conditioner becomes an addiction, it’s true, but I’ve managed to spend many a summer in south India, where it both hot and humid, without any A/C at all.  There, it’s the ceiling fan that feels like a necessity – it’s just awful when the power goes off!  

The fact is we can adapt; and probably will need to do so.

Adaptation might mean adopting some of the life-style habits and other wise choices made by southern peoples.

In many parts of the global south, during the hot hours, people will just find a shady part of the street, stretch out and enjoy an afternoon nap in situ.   Southern Europeans seem sometimes to be skipping the siesta these days, due to the pressures of work, a modern lifestyle and, maybe, just the luxury of A/C.

In South India, buses and houses dispense with the idea of glass windows. Traditional keet (straw) walls allow the least breeze to pass through.

In Palestine, where there is more of a winter, older houses have thick stone walls, high ceilings and are often cooled by a cistern in the cellar, where rainwater is collected.  Those houses remain cool even on the hottest days.  In addition, the houses and streets of old villages would be arranged in such a way as to maximize shade.

We may not be able to build like that today, but we don’t need to: we are much more knowledgeable about matters like insulation. We just need to put our knowledge into practice and not build, for example, houses with heat absorbing red tile roofs, like this one (what was I thinking?).