• About
  • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Contact
Celebrating our 1,000th edition. The climate news you need
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  FEATURED
BREAKING: 40% of Fossil Fuels Now Under Development Must Stay in the Ground May 17, 2022
Rocky Mountain Glaciers ‘Past Tipping Point’, with Some Expected to Vanish by 2030 May 17, 2022
UK Activists Block Russian Oil Tanker From Docking in Essex May 17, 2022
EXCLUSIVE: Bid to Revive Doomed Nova Scotia LNG Project Collides with Germany’s Net-Zero Plans May 16, 2022
3,800 Residents Ordered to Evacuate after Flooding in Hay River, NWT May 16, 2022
Next
Prev
Home Demand & Distribution Cities & Communities

‘Loud and Clear’ Alarm Bells Over Extreme Heat in New Climate Adaptation Report

April 20, 2022
Reading time: 3 minutes
Primary Author: Gaye Taylor

‘Loud and Clear’ Alarm Bells Over Extreme Heat in New Climate Adaptation Report

pxfuel

19
SHARES
 

Thousands of Canada’s most vulnerable citizens each year risk suffering and death by extreme heat over the next few decades without collective action to protect them, says a new report from the University of Waterloo’s Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation.

The research identifies small towns and cities in southern B.C.—especially the Okanagan—the southern half of the prairie provinces, and the vast metropolitan areas that run from Windsor to Montreal as “red zones” that will be hardest hit by extreme heat events, with more than 17 million city dwellers at risk.

“Canadian alarm bells should be ringing loud and clear in relation to extreme heat,” states the report. “While flood and fire may be Canada’s most costly natural disasters, extreme heat is the ‘silent killer’.”

Annual loss of life could “surpass the 595 heat-related fatalities reported by British Columbia’s coroner in 2021, and 86 lives lost in Quebec in 2018,” if policy-makers and the public fail to address the problem, says an Intact Centre press release. These fatalities will be predominantly amongst the elderly, the poor, the disabled, and the homeless, according to the report.

“Warming and more intense extreme heat will be present for decades to come,” said study co-author Joanna Eyquem, the centre’s managing director of climate-resilient infrastructure. “If an extreme heat event coincided with an extended electricity outage—with no fans or air conditioning running—loss of life could easily jump to the thousands.”

Urging Canadians to recognize their individual responsibility to reduce their own risks, plus the “opportunity to help protect others more vulnerable than themselves,” the report outlines 35 practical actions to help cope with rising temperatures.

These include designing and retrofitting buildings to promote passive cooling, expanding green spaces in urban areas, and regularly checking in on the community’s most vulnerable.

Casting extreme heat as “an equality issue” that puts marginalized or racialized communities at higher risk, study co-author Blair Feltmate warned that “if we don’t prepare for extreme heat, those who are vulnerable may die.”

The report urges decision-makers to help accelerate heat preparedness by such measures as building heat resilience into home inspections and appraisals.

Cities across the world face a similar threat and they are preparing for it, reports CBC News. Last year, Eleni Myrivili was named Athens’ heat officer, in a European first. Appointed to help her city deal with rising temperatures, Myrivili described at a TED conference in Vancouver, B.C., how people died from heat stress as temperatures in the city reached an unlivable 45°C in the summer of 2021.

“These are temperatures our bodies aren’t made for,” said Myrivili, and “cranking up the air conditioning is just not going to cut it.” She advocated a paradigm shift in the way cities are currently designed, with steel and concrete roads and buildings that absorb heat, adding that a return to ancient but proven ways to keep buildings cool—like whitewashing buildings annually and using aqueducts—should be in the cards for Athens.

“We really, really need to build resilience,” she said.



in Buildings, Canada, Cities & Communities, Ending Emissions, Finance & Investment, Health & Safety, Heat & Temperature, UK & Europe

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

Mounting Drought Risk Confronts London, Other World Cities
Drought, Famine & Wildfires

Mounting Drought Risk Confronts London, Other World Cities

May 19, 2022
74
85,000-Hectare Fort Mac Wildfire Expected to Grow for Days
Drought, Famine & Wildfires

Six Traumatic Years After ‘The Beast’, Fort McMurray Remains Loyal to Big Oil

May 19, 2022
34
‘New New Math’ Means Keeping Even More Fossils in the Ground: McKibben
International Security & War

U.S. Can’t Drill Its Way to Energy Security, Jenkins Warns

May 19, 2022
33

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

BREAKING: 40% of Fossil Fuels Now Under Development Must Stay in the Ground

May 18, 2022
408
Mounting Drought Risk Confronts London, Other World Cities

Mounting Drought Risk Confronts London, Other World Cities

May 19, 2022
74
Lack of Consent Drives Indigenous Opposition to Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mining Plan

Lack of Consent Drives Indigenous Opposition to Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mining Plan

May 17, 2022
205
Wildfire

U.S. Utilities Warn of Hazards, Rolling Blackouts as Heat Waves Increase Demand

May 12, 2022
315
Fossils Fret as McKenna Sends Mammoth LNG Project to Cabinet Review

EXCLUSIVE: Bid to Revive Doomed Nova Scotia LNG Project Collides with Germany’s Net-Zero Plans

May 16, 2022
461
Floating Tidal Project Linked to Nova Scotia Grid in Canadian First

Floating Tidal Project Linked to Nova Scotia Grid in Canadian First

May 17, 2022
151

Recent Posts

85,000-Hectare Fort Mac Wildfire Expected to Grow for Days

Six Traumatic Years After ‘The Beast’, Fort McMurray Remains Loyal to Big Oil

May 19, 2022
34
‘New New Math’ Means Keeping Even More Fossils in the Ground: McKibben

U.S. Can’t Drill Its Way to Energy Security, Jenkins Warns

May 19, 2022
33
Ontario Contemplates ‘Ultra-Low Carbon’ Super-Agency

Ontario’s New Highway 413 Would Boost Emissions, Bake In ‘Auto-Dependent Sprawl’

May 19, 2022
33
Newfoundland Offers Suncor $175 Million to Restart Terra Nova Offshore Oilfield

Newfoundland Opens New Round of Offshore Oil Bidding

May 19, 2022
25
Farmers’ Mental Health Strained by Climate-Driven Weather Extremes

Farmers’ Mental Health Strained by Climate-Driven Weather Extremes

May 19, 2022
25
Calgary Company to Supply 180 MWh of Battery Capacity to Alberta Grid

Calgary Company to Supply 180 MWh of Battery Capacity to Alberta Grid

May 19, 2022
30
Next Post
It’s A Bird! It’s A Helicopter! It’s a Flying Battery! as Zero-Emission Cargo Plane Takes Off

It’s A Bird! It’s A Helicopter! It’s a Flying Battery! as Zero-Emission Cargo Plane Takes Off

The Energy Mix

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Navigate Site

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}

2022 ONTARIO GENERAL ELECTION

KEEP UP WITH ONTARIO’S CLIMATE CHANGE ELECTION

election-checkmark
Get Election Notifications

2022 ONTARIO GENERAL ELECTION

KEEP UP WITH ONTARIO’S CLIMATE CHANGE ELECTION

election-checkmark
Get Election Notifications
The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

2022 ONTARIO GENERAL ELECTION

KEEP UP WITH ONTARIO’S CLIMATE CHANGE ELECTION

election-checkmark
Get Election Notifications

2022 ONTARIO GENERAL ELECTION

KEEP UP WITH ONTARIO’S CLIMATE CHANGE ELECTION

election-checkmark
Get Election Notifications
The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

2022 Ontario General Election

Keep up with Ontario’s Climate Change Election

election-checkmark
GET THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOST

2022 Ontario General Election

Keep up with Ontario’s Climate Change Election

election-checkmark
GET THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOST
The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

2022 Ontario General Election

Keep up with Ontario’s Climate Change Election

election-checkmark
GET THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOST

2022 Ontario General Election

Keep up with Ontario’s Climate Change Election

election-checkmark
GET THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOST
The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Are you sure want to unlock this post?
Unlock left : 0
Are you sure want to cancel subscription?