Published on February 21, 2023
The scientific paper published in the June 2021 issue of the journal Nature Climate Change was alarming. Between 1991 and 2018, the peer-reviewed study reported, more than one-third of deaths from heat exposure were linked to global warming. Hundreds of news outlets covered the findings. The message was clear: climate change is here, and it’s already killing people.
To account for adaptation, the researchers used a statistical technique that compares the behavior of people with similar incomes but who live in places with different climates. It helps answer questions like: how much would it cost Seattle to learn to handle heat waves the way Houston does now?
Kristie Ebi, an epidemiologist at the Center for Health and the Global Environment who was not involved in the research, has spent a lot of time thinking about questions like that. “All heat related deaths are preventable, and so we should be preventing every death we can from the heat,” Ebi said. “There’s lots of mechanisms to do so.”
When Seattle endured a record-breaking heat wave last summer, the county’s Regional Homeless Authority opened indoor cooling spaces, and the city’s public utility agency had already filled the reservoirs to prepare for higher water usage. Across the city, air conditioners are selling fast.
Continue reading at The Washington Post.
Originally written by Harry Stevens for The Washington Post.