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Speaker 1: It's the big take from Bloomberg News and I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: I'm West Cosova today. Extreme heat around the world and

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Speaker 1: why it's not just another hot day. We're talking about

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Speaker 1: heat today, and that might strike you as a bid

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Speaker 1: odd especially if you live in the northern Hemisphere. Summer

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Speaker 1: is a fading memory and winner it's coming on a

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Speaker 1: little too fast. But that's kind of the point, because

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Speaker 1: when it's not warm outside, it's easy to put out

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Speaker 1: of your mind that the Earth is getting hotter in

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Speaker 1: the winter too. And even when it is really hot outside,

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Speaker 1: like when temperature spiked in many parts of the world

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Speaker 1: this summer, we often just chalk it up to the weather.

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Speaker 1: Degrees and din Heathrow Airport recorded a record eighty nine

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Speaker 1: degrees on Sunday. Okay, I'll grant it. That's pretty hot.

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Speaker 1: Guy Johnson's probably very miserable, and that's your first word news.

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Speaker 1: That attitude is a big problem, especially in cities. Extreme

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Speaker 1: heat is now a major health threat that is sickening

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Speaker 1: and killing more and more people. This has led some

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Speaker 1: cities to do something pretty interesting. The heat's not going away,

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Speaker 1: so they've created a new job to learn how to

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Speaker 1: live with it. They're called heat officers. This was a

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Speaker 1: new one for me, so I asked the heat officers

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Speaker 1: from two US cities to come on the show and

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Speaker 1: tell us what it means to make a living battling heat.

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Speaker 1: But first I check in with my colleague Linda Poon

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Speaker 1: with Bloomberg City Lab. She covers why heat has become

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Speaker 1: top of mind in cities. So, you know, when we

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Speaker 1: think about climate change, we're bombarded with a lot of

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Speaker 1: stories about floods and hurricanes and wildfires. But one of

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Speaker 1: the things that weirdly gets overlooked on a lot of

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Speaker 1: the time is global warring means like things are actually

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Speaker 1: getting warmer, right, So extreme heat in particular is often

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Speaker 1: called the invisible killer because in the US it is

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Speaker 1: the largest killer of extreme weather. So extreme heat we

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Speaker 1: don't see it, We don't see the devastation as prominently

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Speaker 1: as hurricanes and stuff. So actually didn't know that. So

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Speaker 1: more people in the US are killed by heat by

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Speaker 1: extreme heat than by like hurricanes, wildfires and all the

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Speaker 1: other things that we associate with climate change. Yep. Extreme

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Speaker 1: heat is the deadliest form of extreme weather in the

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Speaker 1: United States, causing more deaths on average than hurricanes and floods.

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Speaker 1: Combined over the past thirty years. Just to give you

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Speaker 1: some perspective, it doesn't take very much to reach the

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Speaker 1: threshold of extreme heat depending on where you are. UM.

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Speaker 1: And if you sort of combine that with you know,

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Speaker 1: the social vulnerability of certain communities, UM, it's really easy

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Speaker 1: to have adverse health effects from heat. Not all cities

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Speaker 1: are quite prepared to adapt to it. It is this

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Speaker 1: killer that far exceeds you know, big extreme weather events

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Speaker 1: like hurricanes and floods. Cities can do something about it.

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Speaker 1: You raised it. It's the next question, what are cities

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Speaker 1: doing about this now? Because there seems to be a

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Speaker 1: whole new trend now where world leaders are trying to

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Speaker 1: do this at a very high level, but that cities

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Speaker 1: really have become the forefront of new policies, uh, to

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Speaker 1: try and figure out I guess more than just awareness,

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Speaker 1: but actually trying to mitigate heat problems. So, yeah, if

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Speaker 1: you think about where extreme heat is most dangerous, it's

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Speaker 1: gonna be cities. Right. There's just phenomenon called the urban

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Speaker 1: heat island effect where cities are you know, a certain

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Speaker 1: degree higher than places in the countryside or even in

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Speaker 1: the suburbs. So cities are really at the forefront of heat.

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Speaker 1: They're most at risk, and they also are the ones

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Speaker 1: to come up with some of the most creative solutions.

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Speaker 1: Right now, they're implementing heat strategies into their climate adaptation plans.

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Speaker 1: One of the things that you write about is how

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Speaker 1: cities are trying to raise awareness by changing the way

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Speaker 1: they talk about heat so that people realize, wait a minute,

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Speaker 1: this isn't just a hot day, this is a problem. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So there's a lot of call to name heat because,

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Speaker 1: like I said, he is invisible. So if we don't

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Speaker 1: name it, we don't necessarily recognize it as you know,

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Speaker 1: an extreme weather event. So on the one hand, there

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Speaker 1: is this initiative to at least to even name the heat.

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Speaker 1: But then uh, cities like aspen Um and Civil Spain,

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Speaker 1: they're piloting this idea where you like you said, you

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Speaker 1: categorize heat um category one, two three, and it's sort

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Speaker 1: of being piloted by the Atlantic castles um are Rock

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Speaker 1: Rockefeller Foundation so quick Aside Year. The Arst Rockefeller Foundation

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Speaker 1: Resilience Center is a climate nonprofit that's named after its

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Speaker 1: founding donors, philanthropists Adrian Art and the Rockefeller Foundation. The

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Speaker 1: center held a press conference to discuss this new initiative

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Speaker 1: back in July, and we have a clip here of

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Speaker 1: Dr Larry Kulkstein, the guy leading the team behind this

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Speaker 1: ranking system. They are less meteorologically oriented and more oriented

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Speaker 1: towards the impacts of the heat. Even a category one

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Speaker 1: is dangerous in many cities. Category ones kill a number

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Speaker 1: of people, they just don't kill as many as category three.

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Speaker 1: So it is important to know that a level one

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Speaker 1: you do certain things, the level two you do those

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Speaker 1: things and more. At a level three you do the

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Speaker 1: maximum number of interventions or activities to make sure that

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Speaker 1: people are safe, that the information is conveyed to the population,

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Speaker 1: and that the urban area has designed a system to

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Speaker 1: account for the fact that people are going to get

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Speaker 1: ill and die in any of the three categories. So

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Speaker 1: they are experimenting, they're working with city officials to really

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Speaker 1: find the right categorization. It's not one size fits all

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Speaker 1: sort of categorization, right. It depends on the city itself,

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Speaker 1: same rules, but different system for every city because each

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Speaker 1: city has different weather, has different demographics, has a different

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Speaker 1: urban structure, so the response to heat is different in

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Speaker 1: every city. UM So it stands to be seen if

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Speaker 1: this will catch onto other cities. One thing that I

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Speaker 1: found really interesting was UM if we think about in

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Speaker 1: the US, a lot of delivery workers work in the

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Speaker 1: sweltering heat, and there's this huge call for UPS drivers,

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Speaker 1: USPS drivers, Amazon drivers UM for them to be protected

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Speaker 1: because the best initiatives of these companies have come up

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Speaker 1: with is to tell the drivers to stay hydrated. Problem solved, right,

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Speaker 1: So it's a matter of maybe changing up the trucks

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Speaker 1: that they drive so that it can provide better air

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Speaker 1: conditioning but also not be a detriment to the earth.

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Speaker 1: So it's thinking about the transportation vehicle and you know

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Speaker 1: what policies UM can be set so that workers aren't

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Speaker 1: outside and like the holliest time during the day. You're

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Speaker 1: describing what cities are doing now to try to in

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Speaker 1: some way get this under control or at least minimize

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Speaker 1: the effect. How is it different the way cities look

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Speaker 1: at heat now build policies around heat now versus the

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Speaker 1: way they did, say just ten years ago. It's a

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Speaker 1: lot about thinking about heat not as an afterthought, but

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Speaker 1: thinking about how different policies would increase or decrease sort

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Speaker 1: of the heat exposure of people. If we think about

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Speaker 1: where to put buildings. He has to be the forefront

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Speaker 1: everything about you know, lot of cities nowadays are looking

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Speaker 1: at you know, if putting up a new building destroys trees,

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Speaker 1: what needs to be done so that development does not

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Speaker 1: um make things worse? Yes, right, So they're trying to

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Speaker 1: be more forward thinking. Um So a lot of this

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Speaker 1: is about just coordinating. At least in the US, a

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Speaker 1: lot of the departments are siloed, so it's about bringing

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Speaker 1: all them together to the table and thinking, hey, if

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Speaker 1: you do this will increasing impact of heat. How can

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Speaker 1: we change it so that we're thinking about heat as

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Speaker 1: the main consequence of whatever policy you implement. So thanks

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Speaker 1: to Linda, we've now heard about some of the problems

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Speaker 1: extreme heat causes. When we come back, I talked to

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Speaker 1: two people whose job it is to fix it. This

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Speaker 1: year's You and Climate Change conferences happening. While global leaders

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Speaker 1: argue what or how to slow the warming of the planet,

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Speaker 1: communities are left to deal with a failure to make

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Speaker 1: that happen. There's nothing a city can do to lower

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Speaker 1: the Earth's thermostat, so instead, a small but growing number

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Speaker 1: of local officials are searching for ways to make living

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Speaker 1: with the reality of extreme heat more bearable and less deadly.

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Speaker 1: I am really pleased today to have the chief east

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Speaker 1: officers for two major American cities here with us. We

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Speaker 1: have Jane Gilbert, the Chief Heat Officer for Miami Dade County,

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Speaker 1: and Marches Sura, the Chief Heat Officer and Climate Emergency

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Speaker 1: Mobilization Director for the City of Los Angeles. I gotta say, Martha,

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Speaker 1: you have really got Jane beat on the title department.

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Speaker 1: She can have my title any day. I agree. Well,

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Speaker 1: thank you so much for being here. Let me just

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Speaker 1: ask the question. It is a chief Heat officer. So

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Speaker 1: I was the first, and it was only a little

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Speaker 1: over a year ago, right, and and I think there's

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Speaker 1: going to be another one announced this month. So um, Really,

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Speaker 1: we're looking at how is heat impacting people in their homes,

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Speaker 1: at their workplaces, as they're going to and from work,

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Speaker 1: as they're playing and recreating outside, and what can we

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Speaker 1: do to both mitigate urban heat islands and help people

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Speaker 1: to manage the inevitable extreme heat. Let me just talk

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Speaker 1: you just right there. That's really good explanation. But tell

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Speaker 1: me what an urban heat island is. Basically, an urban

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Speaker 1: heat island is found in inner cities where there's a

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Speaker 1: lot of concrete, where there's a lot of buildings, there's

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Speaker 1: a lack of trees and shade. And then what it

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Speaker 1: does is the heat exacerbates the pollution in the area.

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Speaker 1: So instead of just having your everyday pollution, this air

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Speaker 1: pollution stagnates, and the stagnation of that pollution causes more

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Speaker 1: public health impacts, increases people's utility bills, increases company's utility

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Speaker 1: bills because these buildings are hotter as a result of

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Speaker 1: the urban heat island. The long term effect with extended

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Speaker 1: heat waves is that people's bodies don't recover as quickly

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Speaker 1: over a period of three days. You know, if you

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Speaker 1: don't have the chance to cool down, that's when heat

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Speaker 1: related deaths really go up. You describe the problem, but

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Speaker 1: what is it that you usually do. You are sort

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Speaker 1: of tasked with just making sure it doesn't get worse.

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Speaker 1: I think the first thing is to understand who's most

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Speaker 1: at risk. We're all at risk to extreme heat, but

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Speaker 1: there's some of us that are more exposed and more

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Speaker 1: sensitive to extreme heat. We looked at where the highest

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Speaker 1: number of emergency room visits and hospitalizations related to extreme

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Speaker 1: heat are and looked at the geographic and demographic characteristics

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Speaker 1: of those zip codes and and now understand not surprisingly

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Speaker 1: that people, very low income people, outdoor workers, and areas

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Speaker 1: with very high land surface temperatures are where we see

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Speaker 1: the most severe heat related illnesses. It's important to understand

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Speaker 1: really what's the full scope of the problem and under

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Speaker 1: what conditions are people dying. And what we learned is

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Speaker 1: is that the majority of heat related deaths is actually

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Speaker 1: under our current emergency advisory threshold for extreme heat here

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Speaker 1: in Miami dates, so that needs to be shifted, and

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Speaker 1: we're working with the National Weather Service. We need to

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Speaker 1: focus our tree planting in those areas with the lowest

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Speaker 1: tree canopy and the highest poverty rates. So you said

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Speaker 1: a lot about how so much of this disproportionately affects

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Speaker 1: lower income is and is really kind of part of

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Speaker 1: a lot of historical neglect. If you live in an

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Speaker 1: air conditioned home and can afford your utility costs and

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Speaker 1: drive in an air conditioned car and work in an

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Speaker 1: air conditioned environment, it's fine. But there are people who

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Speaker 1: are unhoused. There are people who can't afford their air

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Speaker 1: conditioning or their window unit breaks out, and they can't

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Speaker 1: afford to replace it. I spoke to a woman last

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Speaker 1: weekend who had that, and for three months this summer

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Speaker 1: she was without a c that's life or death situation.

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Speaker 1: We have three hundred thousand people who work outside every day.

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Speaker 1: They're exposed to this day in and day out. So

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Speaker 1: it takes sometimes for people to be made aware that

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Speaker 1: while they may not be feeling the heat, so to speak,

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Speaker 1: their neighbors and essential workers are I completely agree with

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Speaker 1: what Change said, and I'll only add that where you

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Speaker 1: have the greatest pollution burden, particularly in Los Angeles, you

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Speaker 1: have the greatest number of pre existing health conditions like asthma, COPD,

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Speaker 1: kidney disease, heart disease, diabetes. So when you take their

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Speaker 1: health into consideration, and the pollution burden consideration, and the

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Speaker 1: lack of infrastructure because of historical disinvestments, you realize that

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Speaker 1: we really need to overhaul how we look at that

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Speaker 1: built environment from a system's perspective. We want to make

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Speaker 1: sure that we use no less than forty of those

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Speaker 1: infrastructure investments and climate investments in these communities that have

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Speaker 1: born the burden, and in l A we call them

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Speaker 1: sacrifice zones and frontline communities, and they have been living

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Speaker 1: a climate emergency much longer than the rest of us.

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Speaker 1: We're actually taking information and advice and wisdom from communities,

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Speaker 1: and we just delivered a report to the Climate Emergency

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Speaker 1: Mobilization Mission on how the residents want to decarbonize Los Angeles,

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Speaker 1: and that's going to advise the Council on our decarbonization

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Speaker 1: policy about how we will reduce our greenhouse gas emissions

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Speaker 1: in Los Angeles by reducing the emissions from buildings. But

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Speaker 1: we have to make sure it's equitable, that it's safe,

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Speaker 1: that tenants aren't being displaced, and that the rent for

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Speaker 1: tenants isn't increasing as a result of our intent to

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Speaker 1: make them healthier communities. So it sounds like in ordered

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Speaker 1: for any of this to work, you're going to get

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Speaker 1: to have a lot of buy in from not just

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Speaker 1: politicians and business leaders, but from the communities themselves. Who

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Speaker 1: are the stakeholders, who are the people you're trying to

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Speaker 1: persuade in to bring along. Yeah, we can't do this alone.

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Speaker 1: Even I'm working across county departments, but I have thirty

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Speaker 1: four municipalities within Miami Dade County. We have a state

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Speaker 1: Department of Health, we have a National Weather Service, all

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Speaker 1: of them need to be activated towards addressing this problem.

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Speaker 1: I guess want the challenges you may phase, especially in

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Speaker 1: Los Angeles and Miami, is you know, like you said,

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Speaker 1: it's hot there, and so people are like, yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: a little hotter today, must be a heat wave, and

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Speaker 1: they don't necessarily associate that with climate. Are you having

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Speaker 1: a hard time getting people to understand the difference between

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Speaker 1: those two I think the critical thing is to use data. Right,

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Speaker 1: We've had over seventy more days on average with a

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Speaker 1: heat index over ninety than we did in the nineteen sixties,

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Speaker 1: and we're expected to have traumatic increases in even more

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Speaker 1: dangerously high heat days heat and exist of a hundred

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Speaker 1: and a hundred and five. So we're supposed to have

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Speaker 1: fifty more days a year with a heat index over

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Speaker 1: a hundred by mid century. That's well over a month

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Speaker 1: and a half more days with that excessive high heat.

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Speaker 1: It's that kind of data that helps people understand the difference.

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Speaker 1: I agree we need to though simplify that. Basically, we

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Speaker 1: have six times the number of heat waves, six times

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Speaker 1: from from wind. That's that's from the early two thousand's

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Speaker 1: six times greater number of heat waves greater number of

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Speaker 1: heat waves in Los Angeles, and they're longer. They're not

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Speaker 1: one day, they're not two days. Last time it was

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Speaker 1: almost two weeks. Are heat wave lasted for two weeks.

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Speaker 1: So when you make people understand or help people understand

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Speaker 1: that their bodies can't recover because it's an extended heat

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Speaker 1: wave if they leave live in these urban heat islands,

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Speaker 1: and that's what's causing these exacerbated deaths and hospitalizations. When

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Speaker 1: you connect it to their health and to their livelihood

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Speaker 1: and their well being, I think that really helps us

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Speaker 1: convey the message. Right, So Los Angeles is trying to

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Speaker 1: use that as a way by which we talk to

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Speaker 1: people through our heat Really for Los Angeles campaign, we

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Speaker 1: absolutely need to make sure people really understand the risks

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Speaker 1: associated with extreme heat and how they can better manage.

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Speaker 1: So we you know, in Miami, we don't have extreme

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Speaker 1: heat waves like you might have more on the West Coast.

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Speaker 1: We have chronic high heat. We have five months with

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Speaker 1: just about every day with the heat index over ninety degrees.

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Speaker 1: So we declare May one through October thirty one a

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Speaker 1: heat season, and the mayor charged me with raising public

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Speaker 1: awareness on the level that we already do now for

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Speaker 1: hurricane preparedness, radio, television, p s as, billboards and bus

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Speaker 1: shelter ads in the targeted zip codes that I mentioned earlier,

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Speaker 1: all in English, Spanish, Haitian creole. And listen to our

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Speaker 1: stakeholders with lived experience about where get their information. When

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Speaker 1: we come back to my conversation with the heat officers continues,

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Speaker 1: you had mentioned that it's had a lot of the

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Speaker 1: time where you are, but for you and for your

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Speaker 1: colleagues in other places where you know there are more seasons, UM,

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Speaker 1: do you find it's harder to do your jowin it's

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Speaker 1: cold outside? We just work on the infrastructure, then, you know,

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Speaker 1: because we're not only working on communications, we're working on policy.

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Speaker 1: I don't work alone or in a silo. The main

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Speaker 1: goal of my office is to unsilo the city UM

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Speaker 1: in terms of making partnerships with the Emergency Management Department,

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Speaker 1: the Public Works Department, the Department of Water and Power.

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Speaker 1: And while we're not out there conveying and communicating, we're

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Speaker 1: in here building policies and grants for bringing more funds

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Speaker 1: to create the infrastructure that we need to protect us

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Speaker 1: and to get a small climate adopted. Martin California passed

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Speaker 1: a law that says that you are going to start

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Speaker 1: naming and ranking heat waves similar to the way hurricanes

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Speaker 1: are named. Um, what does this has of that? What

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Speaker 1: does that actually do well? I think the goal of

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Speaker 1: to help convey and communicate how severe the heat wave

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Speaker 1: will be to everyday people without getting too technical, Like

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Speaker 1: you know, we just had herricane Fiona here, it could

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Speaker 1: be heat wave Fiona, and we know when there's a

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Speaker 1: Cat three hurricane coming up, we know what we need

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Speaker 1: to do, the supplies we need to put in place,

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Speaker 1: the evacuation plans we need to put in place. We

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Speaker 1: know that you don't expect someone to go out and

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Speaker 1: deliver a pizza during that time, But do you expect

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Speaker 1: someone to deliver that pizza during a heat wave? Yes,

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Speaker 1: and that could put them under risk. So I think

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Speaker 1: that's the idea where a heat wave is. It gives

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Speaker 1: people clear understanding of what actions you need to take

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Speaker 1: under these more extreme conditions. And now I think the

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Speaker 1: challenges making the leap and letting people know that extreme

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Speaker 1: heat is our primary climate hazard. Yes, while sea level

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Speaker 1: rise storm served hurricanes as a risk, actually extreme heat

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Speaker 1: is the number one cause of death there are more

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Speaker 1: heat officers. We're talking about small numbers overall, but more

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Speaker 1: heat officers overseas. Then in the US, do you coordinate

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Speaker 1: with him a lot of do you share tips? I

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Speaker 1: had a chance to talk to a Lenny Malvelli from Athens, Greece,

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Speaker 1: and she simplified the process for me. When you speak

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Speaker 1: from the heart, and which she did, and when you

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Speaker 1: speak with passion about the work that you're doing and

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Speaker 1: you simplify it, I think that's the best way to

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Speaker 1: convey what you're trying to say. But also influll change.

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Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being here and taking so

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Speaker 1: much time. This is just fascinating. Thank you so much

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Speaker 1: for having us. Thanks for listening to us here at

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Speaker 1: The Big Take. It's the daily podcast from Bloomberg and

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Speaker 1: newsletter at Bloomberg dot com slash Big Take, and we'd

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Speaker 1: producer of The Big Take is Vicky Burgalina Our senior

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