Here comes summer--and probably heat waves that could prove deadly to many Americans, just as we’re hoping to emerge from a pandemic.
Heat is already the most dangerous type of severe-weather event, by one estimate killing some 12,000 Americans each year. And climate change is making heat waves more frequent and severe.
In addition to deaths, extreme heat events cause a wide range of other health problems, such as rashes, cramps, heat exhaustion, and heat stroke, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Extreme heat can also make existing medical conditions worse, the agency says.
As if that weren’t enough of a concern, The New York Times’ Christopher Flavelle recently reported that heat waves and power failures are becoming a one-two punch that “poses a severe threat that major American cities are not prepared for.”
He cited new research, published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, finding that “power failures have increased by more than 60 percent since 2015, even as climate change has made heat waves worse.”
The researchers used computer models to study Detroit, Atlanta, and Phoenix and, Flavelle wrote, “estimated that a combined blackout and heat wave would expose at least two-thirds of residents in those cities to heat exhaustion or heat stroke.
“And although each of the cities in the study has dedicated public cooling centers for people who need relief from the heat, those centers could accommodate no more than 2 percent of a given city’s population, the authors found, leaving an overwhelming majority of residents in danger.”
The lead author, Brian Stone Jr., told Flavelle, “A widespread blackout during an intense heat wave may be the deadliest climate-related event we can imagine.” Unfortunately, Stone considers such a scenario “increasingly likely.” He is a professor at the School of City & Regional Planning at the Georgia Institute of Technology. His team included eight other researchers — from Georgia Tech, Arizona State, the University of Michigan, and the University of Guelph in Ontario.
The changing climate also seems to be making power failures more common. From 2015 to 2020, the number of blackouts annually in the United States doubled, Stone said. And those blackouts were more likely to occur during the summer, suggesting they were being driven in part by high temperatures, which increase demand on the electrical grid as people turn up their air conditioners.
Because both heat waves and blackouts are becoming more frequent, “the probability of a concurrent heat wave and blackout event is very likely rising as well,” Dr. Stone told The Times.
The numbers developed by Stone’s team were sobering. In Atlanta, more than 350,000 people, or about 70 percent of residents, would be exposed to indoor temperatures of at least 89.6 degrees, the level at which the National Weather Service’s heat classification index says heat exhaustion and heat stroke are possible.
In Detroit, more than 450,000, or about 68 percent, would be exposed to that indoor temperature. In Phoenix, where a vast majority of residents rely on air conditioning, the entire population would be at risk. That’s almost 1.7 million people.
Not surprisingly, the threat is greatest for the lowest-income households, who are 20 percent less likely to have central air conditioning than the highest-income households.
Other U.S. cities face similar health threats. “We find that millions are at risk,” said Stone. “Not years in the future, but this summer.”
Among the places where there is nervousness is California. That state, which has been hit with drought, heat, and wildfires, has become all too familiar with power outages. Politico’s Colby Bermel reported that California “is at risk of not having enough electricity this summer to weather an extreme heat wave, which could lead to rolling blackouts like those experienced last August, energy officials said May 4.”
The proliferation of such problems has driven up the percentage of Americans who want Congress to take action. But too few politicians are responding. Most economists say that the quickest solution--and it’s only a partial solution--is to enact a carbon tax. A new study by Resources for the Future reached the same conclusion. We need to push members of Congress to take that action as soon as possible.