Europe heat study shrugs at 50,000 deaths, panics over one fern
The scientists who linked climate change to most of this summer's deaths in Europe briefed reporters on a plant.
The fern in our hallway died on Wednesday, even though we had given it water nineteen times since June and the soil was still damp. The implications are, frankly, terrifying.
Europe's summer heat helped kill more than 50,000 people, our study found, and climate change sat behind nearly two-thirds of those deaths. I delivered that finding in the flat voice I use for a late train, because someone had asked and I answer what I am asked.
The lab manager kept her eyes on the pot and turned it once in the sun, as if a new angle might bring the fern back. Nobody reached for a notebook.
We can reprint a paper. We cannot reprint that fern.
