Cities across the U.S. are preparing for what could be a sweltering summer, enacting rules to protect people during heat waves and experimenting with new ways to communicate the risks of extreme temperatures.
Efforts to implement strong heat protections in the region show just how far-reaching the effects of climate change are, said Jamie Pang, an environmental health program director for the nonprofit Oregon Environmental Council.
"As you increase the average temperature in any given region, it makes it that much more likely that you're going to cross the threshold to conditions that we could consider extreme," she added. Baughman McLeod calls heat a"silent killer" because symptoms of heat-related illness can go unnoticed until it's too late. And though forecasts can give people advance warning of coming heat waves, it's often difficult to convey risks that can't be seen, she said.
A pilot program to gauge the effectiveness of these communication strategies will be underway this summer in Seville, Spain, and Athens, Greece, as well as in Los Angeles and Miami in the U.S. More recently, Rivas said she has seen firsthand how extreme heat has impacted people in her community. "What happened in the Pacific Northwest made it real," Rivas said,"It could happen in California. And it already is."
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