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 & Death
Extreme heat kills more than half a million people every year, roughly one person a minute. It is by far the deadliest extreme weather event, killing more in the US than hurricanes, storms, and all other extreme weather events combined — and its threat is increasing as global temperatures continue to rise.
While we all face worsening heat, extreme heat is not felt equally. It disproportionately affects vulnerable communities, often those who have emitted very little of the heat-trapping gases causing this deadly threat. A new report projects that by 2050, 90% of deaths caused by rising temperatures will occur in low-and middle-income countries. Even in wealthier nations, the burden of heat is highly unequal among those with disabilities, unhoused people, and outdoor workers. Simply put, while heat is dangerous, isolation and inequality make it deadly — endangering those who are left alone or overlooked by their local and state governments.
Research suggests that most heat-related deaths are preventable through the combination of adequate cooling opportunities, comprehensive heat action plans, and improved temperature forecasts and alert systems. When exploring solutions to the increasing frequency and severity of extreme heatwaves, understand that even low to moderate heat can be deadly to especially vulnerable populations. Extended periods of abnormally warm day and nighttime temperatures create cumulative stress and can exacerbate existing health conditions and increase mortality. As a result, heat deaths often go underreported, resulting in an incomplete picture of this deadly threat.
Expert Tips
This edition’s tips come to you from Marisol Cortez and Greg Harman over at Deceleration, a nonprofit journal focused on environmental justice and growing solutions to an overheating world. Both have reported extensively on the human toll of extreme heat in Texas, and offer advice to ensure your heat reporting is in-depth and accurate.
Get to know who is at risk. Among those most vulnerable to heat are unhoused people, substance users, and people with serious mental illness, especially schizophrenia. Other groups disproportionately impacted by heat include outdoor workers, incarcerated people, and inadequately housed people — including residents of historically disinvested neighborhoods with older housing stock who either lack or can’t afford to run AC.
Develop relationships within a community before disaster strikes. Our strongest stories evolved from active relationships: Albert Garcia was an unhoused neighbor whom we worked with to find housing for over a year; he wound up back on the street during our area’s hottest summer ever — and died within three weeks. We knew that details of his death were not captured in the autopsy. Jessica Witzel was a family friend whose relatives were very open with us. During the researching and writing process, we heard anecdotal reports of other deaths that neighbors and family members had reason to believe were connected to heat. Most heat-related deaths likely will not be recorded as such, so your reporting needs to have documented authority to counter official positions.
Explore the undercount. The undercounting of heat-related deaths is a widely recognized problem in assessing the impacts of climate change. How are your local officials counting — or not counting? Learn the National Association of Medical Examiners’ best practices on documenting and certifying disaster-related deaths and review the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s death scene investigation supplement for heat and see if local officials follow these practices.
Map the heat. Buy and learn how to use air temperature gauges. Often heat advisories are based on temperature measurements at official sites outside the urban core of a city. But impervious cover (like asphalt) and lack of greenspace and shade through our downtowns and highly developed thoroughfares — conditions deeply shaped by histories of environmental racism and classism — mean temperatures experienced by those most at risk could be up to 15 degrees hotter than what is reported by local meteorologists. In other words, an official heat warning or advisory may not be in effect, but dangerous conditions are still present in the most vulnerable areas.
Stories We Like
- Channel 4 News met with families across Europe for whom heat proved to be deadly and examined the climate connection to increasing heat across the continent.
- In Phoenix, described as “America’s hottest city,” heat deaths are vastly underreported. The Guardian examined hundreds of autopsy reports to find what’s missing from these official documents
- In Pakistan, expectant mothers in the country’s poorest neighborhoods are miscarrying as intense heat, made more likely by climate change, is trapped in overcrowded, poorly ventilated homes, Fair Planet reports.
- Despite blazing temperatures, Texas has zero labor protections for heat — leaving workers, especially immigrants, exceptionally vulnerable, Inside Climate News reports.
- After the death of an incarcerated woman during California’s hottest month on record, CalMatters explores how the state is finally embarking on a plan to cool some cells — only helping a small fraction of inmates.
Resources
- Find your state’s cooling centers on the National Center for Healthy Housing website.
- Explore The Marshall Project’s in-depth guide on how to investigate dangerous heat in prisons.
- Use the CDC’s online dashboard to track daily heat-related illnesses and emergency room visits across the US.
- Check out the Lancet Countdown’s guide to heat and health, including a rundown of key heat terms, and explore their latest 2025 report on health and climate change.
Experts
- Lisa Patel, executive director, The Medical Society Consortium on Climate & Health
- Connect with heat experts from around the world through the Global Heat Health Information Network’s directory
Before We Go…
The next Locally Sourced will highlight food waste. Food waste accounts for nearly 10% of annual global greenhouse gas emissions. Have you reported on the impact of this and possible solutions? 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.
CCNow Office Hours. Are you a journalist who needs help finding the local angle to a climate story? Sign up for office hours with CCNow’s David Dickson for editorial and climate support.
Want more story ideas? Check out the Locally Sourced archive for more topics to explore, including AI data centers, coastal flooding, air transportation, and more.
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