Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio, Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff Lauren Vogelbaum. Here. The cities around the world
Speaker 1: are appointing Chief Heat Officers to respond to the public
Speaker 1: health impact of climate change in cities like Miami and
Speaker 1: Phoenix in the US, Athens, Greece, and Freetown, Sierra Leone.
Speaker 1: These Chief Heat Officers investigate potential short and long term
Speaker 1: heat mitigation efforts as they study ways to reduce risks
Speaker 1: of global warming and other changes ranging from psychological stress
Speaker 1: to premature death. According to the World Health Organization, extreme
Speaker 1: temperature events are increasing in frequency, duration, and magnitude in
Speaker 1: recent years. The number of people impacted by heat waves
Speaker 1: has risen into the hundreds of millions, with some populations
Speaker 1: being disproportionately affected because of where they live or how
Speaker 1: much they earn. The emergence of a Chief Heat Officer
Speaker 1: position in these cities largely stems from an initiative of
Speaker 1: the Adrian Arsched Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center and similarly minded
Speaker 1: foundation boards. The position, which these foundations not coincidentally help fund,
Speaker 1: is designed to help local policymakers develop tools and strategies
Speaker 1: to ease the burden of climate change. Especially when it
Speaker 1: befalls the world's most vulnerable populations. As we've discussed before
Speaker 1: on this show, excessive heat can cause exhaustion, confusion, or
Speaker 1: even heart attacks, and can exacerbate existing health conditions such
Speaker 1: as cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. And it's most likely to
Speaker 1: impact people who do physical labor outdoors or who don't
Speaker 1: have access to air conditioning at work or at home.
Speaker 1: One Jane Gilbert, who had previously served local government in
Speaker 1: a consulting capacity, was appointed as Miami's first Heat Officer
Speaker 1: in early serving both the Municipality of Miami in Miami
Speaker 1: Dade County, it falls to her to usher local leadership,
Speaker 1: both public and private through impending environmental changes. Gilbert, like
Speaker 1: her colleagues around the world, is expected to create a
Speaker 1: joint public and private task force that would identify existing
Speaker 1: vulnerabilities and future risks, and then create a plan to
Speaker 1: address these risks through government departments and the community at large.
Speaker 1: Climate change is an issue plaguing governments everywhere, even municipal
Speaker 1: governments in relatively insulated cities like Beverly Hills. Because of
Speaker 1: climate change concerns, that city recently decided to take a
Speaker 1: fresh look at its sustainability initiatives for the article. This
Speaker 1: episode is based on How Stuff Work. Spoke by email
Speaker 1: with Windy Nystrom, a Beverly Hills City commissioner and co
Speaker 1: chair of the city's Community Advisory Committee Climate Action and
Speaker 1: Adaption Plan. A Nicetroom who earned a master's degree in geology,
Speaker 1: Earth sciences and geochemistry, works as an environment, mental and
Speaker 1: pollution risk management expert in the City of Beverly Hills,
Speaker 1: like many municipalities, is considering policy lead initiatives to environmental
Speaker 1: damage in small and large ways. Nice From said, we
Speaker 1: recently passed a plastic utensil ordinance where plastic cutlery is
Speaker 1: no longer provided in takeaway meals unless specifically requested. It
Speaker 1: is a small step, but we are progressing, and we're
Speaker 1: currently working with the Clean Power Alliance to take Beverly
Speaker 1: Hills from renewable energy to ad It'll take time and
Speaker 1: require a bit of public outreach, communication and education, but
Speaker 1: we're making steady progress. As historic heat roasts the Western
Speaker 1: United States and other areas, it's claiming lives. Between the
Speaker 1: years of twenty about twelve thousand people died prematurely from
Speaker 1: heat exposure every year in the United States. By the
Speaker 1: time we usher in a new century, heat exposed is
Speaker 1: expected to claim a hundred and ten thousand lives each year. Here.
Speaker 1: To complicate matters, it's likely that heat exposure will unequally
Speaker 1: affect people according to income. A study published in the
Speaker 1: journal Nature in May reported that a person whose income
Speaker 1: is below the poverty line experiences more heat exposure than
Speaker 1: a person who can afford to live in a spacious
Speaker 1: neighborhood with grass and tree cover. Gilbert, Miami's heat resiliency officer,
Speaker 1: told Time magazine in it can be thirty degrees fahrenheit
Speaker 1: or sixteen celsius cooler outside under tree cover than in
Speaker 1: an open pavement area, but trees also sequester carbon absorbed
Speaker 1: stormwater and have mental health benefits. An area with densely
Speaker 1: located buildings, parking lots, and roads is essentially an urban
Speaker 1: heat island because these construction materials absorb and retain heat.
Speaker 1: In US cities, black and Hispanic citizens are more likely
Speaker 1: to live in an urban heat island. This disparity and
Speaker 1: the unequal distribution of risk is known as heat equity,
Speaker 1: and in many places, including Miami and Miami Dade County,
Speaker 1: it's becoming undeniably prevalent. As Gilbert told Time, her role
Speaker 1: is to identify and address those inequities while marshaling municipal
Speaker 1: and county governments through new policies and initiatives. For example,
Speaker 1: along with planting trees and educating at risk populations about
Speaker 1: their rights during a heat crisis, Gilbert will help local
Speaker 1: leaders take a long view on actions that could reduce
Speaker 1: reliance on air conditioning, then the greenhouse gas emissions that
Speaker 1: go with it. It's a role that's expected to become
Speaker 1: increasingly necessary in coming years. Today's episode is based on
Speaker 1: the article Miami and other cities installed cheap heat officers
Speaker 1: to combat climate change on hous to works dot com,
Speaker 1: written by Laurel dam The brain Stuff is production by
Speaker 1: Heart Radio in partnership with how stuffworks dot Com, and
Speaker 1: it's produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts my Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.