Dr James Hospedales

jameshospedales@earth­medic.org

Each year, the sun blazes hot­ter and the air feels in­creas­ing­ly heavy with hu­mid­i­ty, un­mis­tak­able signs of a warm­ing Caribbean telling us cli­mate change is here, shap­ing our fes­ti­vals, sports, health, and com­mu­ni­ties. Nowhere is this more ap­par­ent than in our beloved T&T Car­ni­val.

Car­ni­val is an ex­pres­sion of joy, iden­ti­ty, re­silience and so­cial com­men­tary. But as tem­per­a­tures rise and ex­treme weath­er events be­come com­mon­er, the health risks mas­quer­aders face de­mand at­ten­tion. Don­ning our cos­tumes dur­ing Feb­ru­ary’s or March’s heat, we must ask two ques­tions: how does a chang­ing cli­mate af­fect Car­ni­val, our bod­ies and our fu­ture?

And how can Car­ni­val’s spir­it be har­nessed to ed­u­cate, en­gage and em­pow­er peo­ple?

Health risks dur­ing mas­quer­ade

Heat, hu­mid­i­ty and phys­i­cal ex­er­tion dur­ing Car­ni­val cre­ate a “heat stress” en­vi­ron­ment, mak­ing it dif­fi­cult for hu­man bod­ies to reg­u­late tem­per­a­ture. Hours in cos­tume, lengthy routes, and lim­it­ed shade or hy­dra­tion sig­nif­i­cant­ly in­crease the risk of:

• Heat ex­haus­tion and heat­stroke, life-threat­en­ing con­di­tions that can es­ca­late rapid­ly with­out cool­ing mea­sures and med­ical care.

• De­hy­dra­tion, es­pe­cial­ly if con­sum­ing al­co­hol or not drink­ing enough flu­ids.

• Car­dio­vas­cu­lar strain, no­tably af­fect­ing peo­ple with con­di­tions like hy­per­ten­sion, di­a­betes, or heart dis­ease.

• Res­pi­ra­to­ry stress, wors­ened by air pol­lu­tion, dust, and the weight of cos­tumes, which can make breath­ing hard­er.

Car­ni­val in­cludes el­ders re­turn­ing an­nu­al­ly to chil­dren cel­e­brat­ing Kid­die’s Car­ni­val. Old­er adults with chron­ic con­di­tions face re­al health risks in ris­ing heat. A col­lapse doesn’t feel like Car­ni­val—it feels like a siren and a hos­pi­tal bed!

Chil­dren spend­ing long hours in the sun will in­her­it this cul­tur­al and cli­mate lega­cy. Our pre­pared­ness must match the risk—with shad­ed rest zones, hy­dra­tion tents, and child-fo­cused safe­ty mes­sag­ing.

Cli­mate change— a Car­ni­val is­sue

Car­ni­val isn’t just two days—it’s a months-long sea­son, with hun­dreds of out­door events, in­clud­ing fetes, band launch­es, stick-fight­ing and J’Ou­vert.

Such events, of­ten on hot as­phalt or crowd­ed stages, mul­ti­ply ex­po­sure to ex­treme heat and weath­er. Cli­mate pro­jec­tions for the Caribbean show high­er heat in­dices and more fre­quent ex­treme weath­er—all of which can dis­rupt events and over­whelm emer­gency ser­vices, putting thou­sands at risk.

De­spite these threats, Car­ni­val mustn’t lose its soul. In­stead, it must adapt and lead—as it al­ways has—as a ve­hi­cle for com­mu­ni­ty em­pow­er­ment and change.

Car­ni­val cre­ativ­i­ty a cli­mate mes­sen­ger

As a for­mer mas play­er in the 80s and 90s, who al­so built cos­tumes, the mas­quer­ade is sto­ry­telling in mo­tion. The mas’ world­view is rich with metaphor, hu­mour and vi­su­als—ide­al for com­mu­ni­cat­ing com­plex is­sues like cli­mate change in cul­tur­al­ly ap­pro­pri­ate ways.

Imag­ine:

• Cli­mate he­roes, ecosys­tem de­fend­ers, and weath­er war­riors themed bands—a mas where chil­dren can cel­e­brate and lead.

• Char­ac­ters like “Heat Stroke War­riors” or “De­hy­dra­tion Di­vas,” por­tray­ing the con­se­quences of ig­nor­ing signs of heat stress.

• Bands de­signed around threat­ened ecosys­tems: coral reefs, coastal man­groves, and flood-rav­aged land­scapes.

• Moko jumbies il­lus­trat­ing that hous­es built on stilts/columns bet­ter sur­vive floods.

These are cre­ative, “edu­tain­ment” ex­pres­sions that can spark con­ver­sa­tion.

Shift­ing the nar­ra­tive

Car­ni­val thrives on du­al­i­ties: joy and strug­gle, satire and se­ri­ous­ness. In this spir­it, cli­mate com­mu­ni­ca­tion through Car­ni­val needn’t be gloomy. It can be out­raged at the world’s warm­ing, while op­ti­mistic in our ca­pac­i­ty to act.

By em­bed­ding cli­mate ed­u­ca­tion with­in cos­tumes, jin­gles and Car­ni­val so­cial me­dia cam­paigns, we make the is­sue per­son­al, im­me­di­ate and re­lat­able. The cre­ativ­i­ty that brought us “Sa­van­nah Dream” and “J’Ou­vert Fan­ta­sia” can make cli­mate lit­er­a­cy vi­ral.

Prac­ti­cal tips for mas­quer­aders

Car­ni­val is fun, but safe­ty comes first:

1. Be­gin drink­ing wa­ter well be­fore step­ping out. Car­ry a re­fill­able bot­tle. Go easy on the al­co­hol.

2. Light­weight, breath­able fab­rics help the body stay cool.

3. Plan in­ter­mit­tent breaks in shad­ed ar­eas. Avoid pro­longed ex­po­sure dur­ing peak sun hours.

4. Know the warn­ing signs of heat stress: headache, dizzi­ness, nau­sea, weak­ness.

5. Look out for one an­oth­er, es­pe­cial­ly old­er par­tic­i­pants and those with known health con­di­tions.

Re-think­ing tim­ing and sup­port ser­vices

With cli­mate pat­terns shift­ing, it’s worth re­con­sid­er­ing the tra­di­tion­al tim­ing of mas events. Could ear­ly-morn­ing or evening mas routes re­duce heat ex­po­sure with­out di­min­ish­ing the ex­pe­ri­ence? Bands al­ready of­fer cool zones and mist­ing tents. What else can be done?

Like­wise,rapid-re­sponse med­ical tents at reg­u­lar in­ter­vals, clear sig­nage and first-aid vol­un­teers trained in heat-re­lat­ed emer­gen­cies can make the dif­fer­ence be­tween fun and tragedy.

Co­or­di­nat­ed part­ner­ships be­tween the Min­istry of Health, TTPS, NGOs and band­lead­ers can al­so el­e­vate health safe­ty. Port-of-Spain has an op­por­tu­ni­ty to lead the Caribbean by de­vel­op­ing an ur­ban heat plan that ex­plic­it­ly in­cludes Car­ni­val.

Car­ni­val: the cli­mate cham­pi­on

Car­ni­val is more than a fes­ti­val; it’s so­ci­etal mir­ror, il­lu­mi­nat­ing se­ri­ous is­sues and turn­ing mes­sages in­to move­ment. If cli­mate change is re­shap­ing our world, it will re­shape how we cel­e­brate. By in­te­grat­ing cli­mate aware­ness and the rhythm of mas, T&T can lead the re­gion in cel­e­brat­ing cul­ture and cli­mate re­silience.

Let this Car­ni­val be cel­e­brat­ed with joy and with wis­dom: pro­tect­ing our bod­ies, com­mu­ni­ties, and our plan­et.

The fore­go­ing is a week­ly col­umn by Earth­Medic and Earth­Nurse NGO to help read­ers un­der­stand and ad­dress the cli­mate and health cri­sis.