Welcome to Locally Sourced, a biweekly Covering Climate Now newsletter for journalists working to localize the climate story. Share this newsletter with colleagues and journalism students interested in localizing the climate story.
Story Spark: Heat Action Plans
Extreme heat is responsible for more deaths than any other weather event — killing more people most years than hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes combined. In the US, more than 21,000 Americans have died from heat since 1999 with emergency departments seeing nearly 65,000 people suffering from heat related illnesses every summer.
As dangerous heat, driven by fossil fuel pollution, becomes more common and intense, cities across the world look to address these rising health impacts through heat action plans (HAPs). These municipal documents often contain strategies which include monitoring forecasts, rapidly communicating heat alerts, establishing cooling shelters, distributing water, and creating energy assistance programs.
While these measures are a strong step forward to minimize heat risks to vulnerable populations who are disproportionately impacted by heatwaves, analysis of over 50 cities’ heat action plans found that many are insufficient and are “lagging behind the problem.” A common criticism among these plans in the US and abroad is that they often focus on how to react to current heatwaves but don’t properly address long-term mitigation strategies. In other words, many plans respond to heat as a short-lived “disaster,” while glossing over more difficult actions such as mapping urban heat islands and creating a plan for “shaded infrastructure.”
Stories We Like
- Yale Climate Connections highlights different strategies local governments can undertake to protect their residents as federal climate action stalls in the US.
- After record-breaking heat killed more than 30 people in King County, Wash., local officials unveiled a multi-phase heat plan that addresses these climate disasters which will only become more frequent, Seattle Times reports.
- Experts find that India’s heat action plans don’t properly identify caste and income vulnerabilities, Behan Box reports.
- Drawing on feedback from climate experts, architects, and urban planners, Grist imagines how a hypothetical “model metropolis” would handle extreme heat, while reducing carbon emissions.
- During a summer heatwave, Fresnoland asks local California officials, “What are you doing about this deadly heat?”
- In Phoenix, Inside Climate News explores how a new program, funded from the Inflation Reduction Act, may provide sustainable shade for future summers in the nation’s hottest major city.
Helpful Links
Resources
- Examine urban heat hot spots across 65 US cities through Climate Central’s interactive data and maps.
- Read the latest Arsht-Rock report, which addresses the social and economic effects of extreme heat on communities across the world and explores how cities are addressing it.
Experts
- V. Kelly Turner, director, NOAA/NIHHIS Center for Heat Resilient Communities
- Josiah Kephart, assistant professor, Drexel University Urban Health Collaborative
- Jane Gilbert, chief heat officer, Miami-Dade County
Before We Go…
The next Locally Sourced will highlight cooling systems. Have you reported about the rising demand for air conditioning or how AC, while being a life-saving solution to handle increasing heat, also contributes to climate change? Send them to us at local[at]coveringclimatenow[dot]org. We’d love to consider them for the next edition of Locally Sourced and our media trainings and social platforms.
The Climate Station is a free-of-cost training program from CCNow that equips local TV station newsrooms in the US, including journalists, producers, and meteorologists, to cover climate news more effectively. For inquiries, please email Elena González at elena[at]coveringclimatenow[dot]org. Or apply here.
Want more story ideas? Check out the Locally Sourced archive for more topics to explore, including resilient agriculture, emergency alerts, climate anxiety, and more.
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