Do you feel geographically safe?

It's gettin' hot in here 🎶

Hot days in Europe this week. Photo by Richard Vanlerberghe on Unsplash

As I watch, from afar, how Europe is enduring yet another record-breaking heat wave I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of geographic comfortability. This is the concept that the geography around you is naturally comfortable for human beings. Of course, on a personal level that comfortability scale changes. Some people genuinely prefer the hot heat like we see in desert locations. Others prefer constant damp and cool days. But generally, humans as a species do best on the cooler side. From what I’ve read, somewhere around 20°C (or 68°F in freedom units).

Suffice it to say, the heat hitting Paris or London this past week has been well above that. Which has actually broadened my thought process to something similar, but also fundamentally different and scarier to think about: geographic safety. It’s similar to geographic comfortability, but with a more sinister twist. It’s the idea that, depending on the likelihood of a geographic event (heat wave, hurricane, sea level rise, flooding, wild fire, and so on), you feel inherently safe or unsafe where you live.