Let's Stop Talking About Heat Domes. Instead, Let's Do Something About Them.
by b|e strategy
The dominant topic of every small talk and quaint conversation in between jumps through tree-lined shade and, if you’re among the fortunate, into air-conditioned spaces is the heat. As most of us have noticed, suffering under oppressive temperatures in the aptly-termed “heat dome,” it is awful hot and dry throughout much of the United States. As ABC News reports …
More than 60 million Americans from coast to coast are under heat alerts as the life-threatening heat dome continues for the second week.
The Northeast, Southeast and West all saw daily record temperatures shattered this weekend, including 98 degrees in Philadelphia; 100 degrees in Greenville, Mississippi; and 108 degrees in Merced, California.
This weekend, Washington, D.C., and Baltimore hit 100 degrees for the first time in June in 12 years.
On Monday, the dangerous heat is impacting the Southeast, the Deep South and the West. Temperatures are forecast to soar to 96 degrees in Atlanta; 94 degrees in New Orleans and Nashville, Tennessee; 100 degrees in Little Rock, Arkansas; 99 degrees in Oklahoma City; 98 in Dallas; 109 in Phoenix; 97 in Salt Lake City; and a blistering 110 in Las Vegas and Palm Springs, California.
The problem is not so much the heat (since, with climate crisis bearing down on us, we should expect much more of it as we allow more fossil fuel use) - it’s the way we address it, or don’t address it. As dangerous as it is, the public habit is to treat it as just another weather event that is outside of our control. Meteorologists, reporting on these events, add to that laissez-faire approach by not acknowledging or mentioning climate crisis. Local and state elected officials and policymakers absolve themselves of any responsibility by resorting to a hands-thrown-in-the-air model of non-leadership, with governments simply issuing “Code Red” alerts and heat advisories and advice on how much water to consume throughout the day and what to do in the event of a heat stroke.
But this is all after the fact: we’re already in the throes of the heat and the climate crisis is here to stay. That leads to a level of unnecessary public demoralization and detachment. Which is why we need a new heat strategy …