Within the wake of the most well liked July ever documented, the urgency of addressing excessive warmth is actual. And the alarming actuality of local weather change is hitting nearer than ever to house, as Ventura County just lately ranked because the quickest warming county within the contiguous U.S., carefully trailed by Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties. With excessive warmth posing such severe threats to human well being and the atmosphere, the time to take motion is now to arrange for excessive warmth and construct resilient communities.
Final week, organizations just like the Group Environmental Council (CEC), Grey Panthers Santa Barbara Community, and Society of Fearless Grandmothers Santa Barbara got here collectively for the inaugural Excessive Warmth Discussion board to handle how seniors can put together for excessive warmth and play a extra direct function in constructing a hardy neighborhood. Greater than 100 neighborhood members confirmed as much as be taught concerning the work being achieved, and extra importantly, the work that also must occur.
Boards like this assist elevate consciousness concerning the lethal impacts of warmth and the insidious nature of warmth publicity. Excessive warmth disproportionately impacts susceptible populations just like the aged, houseless, these with severe medical situations, and people in poverty. Excessive warmth already causes extra deaths yearly than another local weather influence in California, and nationwide. And whereas our area isn’t as susceptible as others, the mix of an excessive warmth wave and energy outages may current a large-scale tragedy right here.
The potential of such a tragedy looms as an existential risk, particularly for the aged. As such, we have to create extra areas for people with out entry to air-con to chill off and likewise proceed to advocate to make electrical energy extra dependable, guaranteeing the next are prioritized: extra grid hardening, native photo voltaic and battery installations, photo voltaic microgrids at precedence community-serving amenities, bidirectional electrical car batteries, digital energy vegetation, and demand response capabilities. We should additionally enhance entry to backup batteries which are powered by photo voltaic; CEC is working to make this extra accessible and reasonably priced.
What else can we do? Search for methods to make modifications in your individual house — the Group Environmental Council’s Electrify Your Life service assists people and companies to make putting in a warmth pump (changing your furnace and add AC in a single high-efficiency unit) simpler. Help native initiatives to ascertain neighborhood Resilience Hubs that may function locations of shelter and assist throughout instances of disaster, together with warmth occasions.
Keep knowledgeable concerning the actions your elected officers are taking (or not taking) to offer options that make an actual distinction. When you want a useful resource to assist get you began, take a look at California’s Excessive Warmth Motion Plan.
Acknowledge the indicators of warmth exhaustion, particularly confusion, and create a assist community of assist to get by warmth occasions. Plan the way to keep cool at house, and map out close by cooling facilities.
As we proceed to face the complicated challenges of maximum warmth, let’s come collectively, and become involved in these teams, and with CAUSE, Mixteco Indígena Group Organizing Mission (MICOP), Visíon y Compromiso, and others who’re serving to implement needed modifications, and dealing to create a safer and extra resilient neighborhood for us all.
It’s getting scorching on the market, we have to act now.
Em Johnson is the Director of Local weather Resilience on the Group Environmental Council. David Lebell MD is a 30-year veteran in emergency drugs. Now retired, he engages with points round drugs because it pertains to social, political, and environmental considerations.
