July 25, 2024 • 24 mins
Record-breaking heat in the summer has become the new normal - and urban areas are on the frontlines. To adapt we need to develop new strategies to beat the heat when it's at its worst.
Our guest today is Dr. Adam Rosenblatt. Adam was one of the leaders of an urban heat study conducted in Jacksonville to understand which parts of the city are the most vulnerable. This information is being used to guide future urban planning decisions.
We also cover the basics of climate change. Adam is a great communicator, and I think that he does a pretty good job of explaining the science in a way that is easy to understand, but also very pragmatic. Even if you are already familiar with the science of climate change, it's worth a listen - you might pick up a few ideas that will help you in your own climate conversations with friends and family.
Get Connected:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamrosenblatt/
Helpful Links:
Interactive Heat Map of Jacksonville
Climate Perceptions by County
Clean Air Northeast Florida Greenhouse Gas Inventory
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello.
This week we're on a briefsummer break, so we're taking
the opportunity to re-air one ofour earliest episodes, summer
in the City, with Dr AdamRosenblatt.
You know the topic of urbanheat is just easier to connect
with now that it's July.
We'll be back again two weeksfrom now with a brand new
episode.
For now, enjoy the show.
(00:20):
Welcome to Sustainable NorthFlorida.
I'm your host, lorianneSantamaria.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
The great thing is that there's tons of solutions
to these heat issues.
Right, there's a lot of optionsout there for how we can tackle
this.
We just have to decide to do itand we have to put the money in
place to fund these kinds ofprojects, and luckily, the city
is starting to do that.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
With the beautiful weather we've been having
recently, it might be hard toremember, but record-breaking
heat in the summer has becomethe new normal, and urban areas
are on the front lines.
In order to adjust, we need todevelop new strategies to beat
the heat when it's at its worst.
Our guest today is Dr AdamRosenblatt.
He was one of the leaders of anurban heat study that was
(01:03):
conducted in Jacksonville tounderstand which parts of the
city are the most vulnerable.
This information is being usedto guide future urban planning
decisions.
We also covered the basics ofclimate change.
Adam's a great communicator andI think he does a pretty good
job of explaining the science ina way that's easy to understand
but also very pragmatic.
Even if you're already familiarwith the science of climate
(01:24):
change, it's worth a listen.
You might pick up a few ideasthat'll help you in your own
climate conversations withfriends and family.
Here's my discussion with DrAdam Rosenblatt.
Welcome, Adam.
We've asked you to join us onthe show to help shed light on a
topic that I think anyone whowas in Jacksonville this past
summer will understand, andthat's the record-breaking heat
that we experience.
But before we get into that,can you just introduce yourself
(01:46):
at a high level to the audienceand let them know who you are
and what you do.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I'm an assistant professor of biology at the
University of North Florida herein Jacksonville and I do
research on the effects ofclimate change on plants and
animals and the ecosystems thatwe rely on, but I also have a
long history of advocacy andactivism when it comes to
climate change legislation andeducation and outreach, trying
(02:14):
to get people to understandwhat's going on and why we need
to be concerned about theclimate differences.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Great.
Can you tell us about whatdrove you in this direction?
Is it the way that you grew up?
Is it something that youlearned later on in life?
What led you down this path?
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Well, the first time I was sort of exposed to the
idea of climate change was bychance really.
I mean, I wasn't like seekingit out or anything.
I did this summer program whenI was in high school at
Villanova University and as partof the summer program we were
put into groups and we had tolike choose sort of a project to
do, and it just so happenedthat that summer was when there
(02:51):
was a lot of conversation goingon about the Kyoto Protocol,
which was one of the earlyattempts at an international
agreement around climate change,and that is really what sparked
my interest in it.
And you know, this was likewhat.
This was 2001 or somethingright.
So climate change wasn't as bigof a talking point in the media
(03:13):
as it is today.
I mean, I'm sure I've heardabout it, but I don't think I'd
really spend a lot of timethinking about it until that
summer.
But that was the thing thatfirst got me interested in it.
And then, of course, Icontinued learning about it in
college, my first scientificresearch thinking about animal
behavior and how animals areresponding to changes in the
environment.
So it all kind of built fromthere.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Okay, so before we get into urban heat, which will
be our main topic today, can yougive us a little bit of a
background on global warming ingeneral and why temperatures are
rising on global warming, ingeneral and why temperatures are
rising.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Yeah, so temperatures are rising because of
greenhouse gas emissions, whichcome from burning fossil fuel.
They come from land-use change,like cutting down forests for
agriculture or to build housingdevelopments, but the main thing
is burning fossil fuels andthat releases carbon dioxide, it
releases methane, it releasesnitrous oxides, and all of those
(04:06):
different gases help trap heaton the planet, with carbon
dioxide being the biggestcontributor.
No-transcript.
But what we're doing is we areadding too much greenhouse gases
(04:30):
to the atmosphere too quickly,and that is increasing the
thickness of the blanket right,and so it's just trapping a lot
more heat than would otherwisehave been trapped.
And the number that I tell topeople that's always shocking is
the amount of extra energy,heat energy that's been trapped
(04:50):
on the planet since 1971 becauseof greenhouse gas emissions is
about 381 zeta joules of energy,which I realize is not anything
that anybody would understand,because nobody knows what zeta
joule is.
But if you convert that intosomething more tangible, the
equivalent of four Hiroshimasized nuclear bombs exploding
(05:16):
every second of every day since1971, and the amount of heat
that's, you know, released froma nuclear explosion, you
multiply that by four and that'sthat's how much.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Every day.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Yeah, every second of every day since 1971.
It's a shocking number.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Can we dig a little bit further into urban heat and
why cities themselves are maybehotter than their surroundings?
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Yeah, so global warming is causing temperatures
to rise all across the globe,but what has been noticed for a
long time now this isn't, youknow, sort of new revelation is
that cities all around the globe, they are getting hotter faster
than, uh, moral areas, and thatis because of something called
the urban heat island effect,where the types of materials
(06:03):
that we use to build cities andbuild the infrastructure for
cities, they are actually verygood at trapping heat.
So asphalt, right asphalt isreally good at trapping heat.
So asphalt right Asphalt isreally good at trapping heat
from the sun, and then it reradiates that heat out into the
air.
Um, all day and night as well.
The nights are actually gettingwarmer faster than the daytime.
Is you know the types ofbuildings that we build?
(06:26):
How tall are they?
How close are they together?
How much tree coverage do youhave in, like a downtown area?
All of these decisions that aremade in terms of how we build
cities.
They contribute to how bad theurban heat on get in a given
place.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
So you were recently involved in a heat mapping study
that was conducted.
Can you tell us more about thatand the genesis of it and why a
heat mapping studies isimportant at all?
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Yeah, the federal government, through the National
Oceanic and AtmosphericAdministration.
They've had a program, I think,for maybe six or seven years
now, where they've been givingmoney to different cities around
the country to try and maptheir heat in their city and
which neighborhoods are hot,which neighborhoods are a little
bit cooler, why that's the case, and then just basically
(07:12):
helping cities gather data thatthey can use to reduce the
threat of extreme heat in theircities, and so I was the leader
of the Jacksonville version ofthis.
We applied for funding at theend of 2021, and then we got the
funding and part of the fundingcame from the city as well.
Then we carried out the studyin the summer of 2022, in June.
(07:34):
We chose a day that we knew wasgoing to be quite hot it was
June 18th and what we did was wesent out volunteers in their
cars across the city, acrossabout 400 square miles of the
city, so about half of the city,and those volunteers mounted
these temperature sensors on thesides of their cars and the
(07:55):
temperature sensors recorded thetemperature, they recorded the
humidity and they recorded thewind speed every second that
they were operational, and thesevolunteers would drive their
cars on specific routes throughdifferent neighborhoods.
We have this data on ablock-by-block basis now for
D'Acto, which is really powerfulfor planning purposes, on a
block by block basis now for forDaxingville, which is really
powerful for planning purposes.
(08:15):
But what we found is that theparts of the city that have less
tree coverage, that have moreasphalt, more commercial land,
more industrial land and morebig roadways like highways,
those parts of the city are muchhotter than neighborhoods that
are more residential and havemore tree cover than less space
dedicated to parking lots.
(08:35):
So, like the hottest part ofthe city, one of the hottest
parts of the city was downtown,right around City Hall, which
you know shouldn't really be asurprise to anybody Whereas
cooler parts of the city werelike further south, on the south
side, you know, in San Marcoand in San Jose, and getting out
toward the beaches a little bit.
But there were pockets of heatin various various places around
(08:56):
the city and just to give you asense of the temperature
differential, you know theminimum temperature that we were
we were recording was about 95degrees on that day and the
maximum temperature was about115.
So that just shows.
It shows what difference theurban heat island effect can
make.
You know that's a 20 degreeFahrenheit difference in
(09:18):
temperature, which can, you know, be the difference between life
and death during the middle ofan extreme heat wave.
The reason we wanted to collectthis data and give the city more
of an insight into whichneighborhoods are facing extreme
heat risk is because it's ahuge public health disaster
waiting to happen.
Are facing extreme heat risk isbecause it's a huge public
health disaster waiting tohappen.
Heat is already the number onecause of death for people
attributable to weather events.
(09:38):
You know, a lot of people mightthink that more people die
during hurricanes, or die duringtornadoes or a flood or you
know, whatever it might be, butactually the number one killer
of people is heat, and so if wehave these parts of the city
that are extremely hot, it'sgoing to contribute to people's
heat stress, it can lead to heatstroke, lead to emergency room
(10:00):
visits and it can lead to deathtragically.
So our goal in collecting someof this data was to give the
city the information that itneeded to hopefully make changes
.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Given that now we have this data of what parts of
the city are more affected byheat than others and we're prone
to do these higher heat levelsthan others, what are the things
that we can do with urbandesign?
I guess I'd like to understandboth the technical perspective,
which you talked to a little bit, some of those things but then
also from a policy perspective,what are the things that we can
try to push our city councilmembers or our mayor's office
(10:33):
towards doing in order toimprove the situation going
forward?
Speaker 2 (10:36):
The great thing is that there's tons of solutions
to these heat issues.
Right, there's a lot of optionsout there for how we can tackle
this.
We just have to decide to do itand we have to put the money in
place to fund these kinds ofprojects, and luckily the city
is starting to do that.
But so on the technical side ofthings, the one that people
(10:58):
point to most often, is plantingtrees.
Planting more trees is going toprovide more shade and it's
also going to help cool the air,because trees naturally cool
the air throughevapotranspiration, which is the
fancy word for them pullingwater out of the ground and then
allowing it to release throughtheir leaves.
But the key point on that, youknow, people think, okay, we
have to plant trees and so let'sjust plant as many trees as we
can.
It's a little more complicatedthan that, because you have to
plant the right trees in theright places, right Like here in
(11:19):
Jacksonville, you know, fordecades there's been a push to
plant lots of palm trees becausethey look nice.
They, you know, give kind of anexotic feel to the city and
they're easy to maintain,relatively speaking.
But palm trees provide almostno shade.
They provide almost no coolingeffect through
(11:40):
evapotranspiration.
They are pretty useless in thatregard.
So, you know, it's not likeplanting a bunch of palm trees
is going to help.
We need bigger you know broadercanopy trees, oats, maples, you
know things that are going toprovide more shade coverage, and
so we need those kinds of treesand we need them to be
maintained properly.
They have to be cared for, atleast specifically while they're
(12:03):
young saplings, and they needthe right amount of water and
they need the right amount ofspace.
So you have to do it in aspecific way to have the biggest
success from that.
Beyond tree planting, there's abunch of things we can do in
terms of landscape design.
Across the city.
There are rain gardens, thereare bioswales.
These are ways that you canspecifically landscape part of
(12:26):
the city so that they help totrap more rainwater and
stormwater and they act as sortof wetlands, right, and wetlands
are very good at cooling downthe surrounding environment
because there's, you know, abunch of standing water there.
So that's that's on thetechnical side of things, on the
policy side of things that youwere mentioning the big push
(12:48):
there, and it's not like a sexything to talk about, right, like
not like something peoplereally like to, to focus on um,
because it is kind of nittygritty down in the weeds work.
But we need to update land useregulations.
We need to update zoningregulations in the city, for
example, st Johnstown Center.
When the developers built StJohnstown Center, I'm imagining
(13:10):
because I'm not an expert on thezoning regulations that were in
place at the time, but I'mimagining that there was no real
requirement that the developershave a certain percentage of
town center dedicated to greenspace.
So updating zoning regulationsto say, hey, if you're going to
do a housing subdivision, ifyou're going to do another place
like a St John's town centersomewhere in northeast Florida,
(13:32):
you have to have a certainamount of land dedicated to tree
coverage, dedicated to parks,dedicated to green space, like
that has to be required, right,and that would force developers
to make more urban heat friendlydecisions.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
I'd like to to pivot from talking about design and
what we can do to minimize urbanheat in the future to talking
about population health, and sowe have to live with this for a
certain period of time.
So what are the things that wecan do in order to protect our
population, especially given thefact that there is such a big
difference between certainneighborhoods in the heat that
they're going to experience?
(14:08):
It seems to me, from looking atthe map, that those
neighborhoods that have a higherexposure to heat are also
potentially more vulnerable.
Can you explain that a littlebit?
Speaker 2 (14:17):
yeah, you're exactly right.
The city needs to put moreresources in towards and into
helping people deal with thecurrent amount of heat and also
the future heat that the city isgoing to be experiencing.
We obviously want to be puttingfunding towards ameliorating
the heat through all of thegreen infrastructure thing I was
just just mentioning, but atthe same time there has to be
funding for helping people todeal with the here and now
(14:37):
threat that they're facing, andheat is certainly one of them.
So there's kind of two aspectsto this.
There's an education aspect andthen there's an infrastructure
aspect.
The education aspect is justeducating people across the city
about heat threats.
Most people don't think aboutheat as something they need to
be worried about, especially inFlorida, because everybody knows
(14:57):
that Florida is a hot placeright, it's always been a hot
plate but people frequentlydon't realize how dangerous
extreme heat can be and howquickly it can lead to really
bad tragedies.
The city actually has a systemof putting out these heat alerts
.
There's a free service thatpeople can sign up for, and if
you sign up for it, you gettexts to your phone.
The city will send out, youknow, alerts that say hey, today
(15:19):
is an extreme heat day, pleasetake the necessary precaution.
So we need to get more peoplesigned up for services like that
so they're aware of which daysare the most threatening to them
.
And then we need to educatepeople about how to keep
themselves safe during theseevents, which means finding
places that have reliable airconditioning, drinking lots of
water, not working or playingsports or spending a lot of time
(15:41):
outside for a long period oftime on these days, maybe going
to a public pool or going to asplash pad with your kids or
something to help everybody walk.
So there's an educational aspectto it.
And then the infrastructureaspect is making sure that all
the things I just mentioned areavailable in the neighborhoods
that need it most.
Right, we saw it this pastsummer Anybody who was paying
attention to the news.
(16:01):
You know the city has a systemof public pools, but about half
of the public pools were not inoperation because they needed
repairs and the city had notdedicated enough funding in past
years to prepare these pools sothat they were functional.
And so we were in the middle ofthis massive heat wave and
there were certain neighborhoodsthat didn't have access to a
public pool that should havebeen available.
(16:22):
So that's the kind ofinfrastructure that I'm talking
about.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
I think we've covered urban heat pretty well.
I'd like to zoom back out nowand talk about carbon dioxide
levels in general.
So if CO2 levels in ouratmosphere are the main cause of
rising temperatures, what arethe things that we can be doing
to address it?
Speaker 2 (16:40):
There's a lot of things that we can do to address
it, but the thing that wereally need is we need to change
the system that we are allliving within right.
The economic system that wehave built as a global human
society over the past 250 yearsis a system that is dependent on
fossil fuels, and we need totransition away from that system
(17:03):
.
And the way that we can do that?
Individuals can't make thathappen right Like through their
own daily actions, but if wework together as groups to make
sure that our leaders, ourpolitical leaders, are focused
on that, then they can changethe system right.
So the number one thing thatanybody can do to help with the
(17:24):
climate problem is to educateyourself about which politicians
are serious about the front-endclimate change and which
politicians are not seriousabout it, and then vote for
those people who are serious.
And just to give you an exampleof it, you know we had the most
landmark, consequential,largest climate change
(17:45):
legislation ever that ourcountry passed which just passed
in 2021, and that's theInflation Reduction Act.
It put hundreds of billions ofdollars towards enhancing solar
energy production and alsoimplementation wind energy,
geothermal energy all of thesethings that we need to be
transitioning to, to get off offossil fuels.
We now have a lot more moneyavailable from the federal
(18:08):
government to make it easier tomake that transition, so voting
is the number one thing thatpeople can do to help the
situation.
The second most important thingis to talk to other people about
what's going on.
We don't really talk aboutclimate change enough as an
issue.
We need to be talking to ourfriends and our family about
what's going on, because a lotof people just don't have the
information and they don'tunderstand really what's going
(18:28):
on, or they feel like they areignorant about what's going on
and so they don't want to, sortof like, stake out a viewpoint
on it.
Right, but the more we can talkabout it publicly, the more
people will feel comfortablethinking about it and trying to
take action on it.
And then the last thing isindividual choices.
There are hundreds ofindividual choices we can make
in our daily lives that canbenefit the environment, benefit
(18:52):
the climate change situation.
I'll just mention the mostimportant one Eating less meat
is important, especially eatingless red meat.
The reason for that is thatcows and the cattle industry are
shockingly big contributors tocarbon dioxide emissions.
For a variety of reasons that Iwon't get into.
That's a big one, and then theother one is more obvious and
(19:13):
it's driving less right Livingin a neighborhood that you can
walk to places or take publictransportation.
That goes a long way towardsreducing our own personal
responsibility for greenhousegas.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
Yeah, I think it's so important to understand the
different options that you havein order to reduce your own
personal carbon footprint,because reality is you're not
going to be able to do all ofthem.
You might be living in aneighborhood that really just
isn't walkable, but maybe I cando something else that makes a
difference.
So there's not one specificprescription.
That's right for everybody.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Yeah, and Jacksonville is a great example
of that because, you know, Imean I would love to drive less,
but I live in Jacksonville andJacksonville is a driving city.
It's a driving culture.
It's been built for the past ahundred years, right, and it's
not any of our fault.
That's just the way that it's,that it's happened over time and
hopefully that's going tochange in the future to a more
public transportation dominatedcity.
But that's going to take, youknow, decades to sort of put
(20:07):
them into practice.
So the other thing I alwaysremind people of is don't get
angry at yourself and don't beatyourself up about not being
able to make every singlelifestyle change that you would
like to make.
Sometimes it's just notpossible.
So the driving thing for meisn't something that I can
really do at the moment, basedon where I live, where I go to
school, where I work.
It's not something I can reallydecrease, unfortunately, but
(20:29):
what I can do, and what I havedone, is I've changed my diet so
that I'm not eating as muchmeat.
I do composting in my backyardso that my vegetable and fruit
scraps aren't ending up inlandfills and creating methane
emissions.
You know, there's a lot ofdifferent little things that we
can all do, and you have to pickand choose the ones that are
right for you at this currenttime.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
You mentioned the importance of talking about
climate change.
I've lived in several otherparts of the country
(21:20):
no-transcript.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
They have an entire sort of institute that tracks
public opinion about climatechange and they've been doing it
for many years.
They break it down on a zipcode by zip code basis, so you
can really get sort of granulardata on that.
But the majority of the countrythe majority of people in the
country are concerned aboutclimate change, recognize it as
(21:45):
a threat.
Thing that's interesting isthat people recognize it as a
threat, but less than a majorityof the country views it as a
personal threat to them.
The majority of people inFlorida do think that it is
impacting them and that makessense, because Florida is a
place where we get infected byhurricanes.
We get flooding more than maybesome other parts of the country
(22:06):
.
So the majority of people inFlorida understand that we are
being impacted right now byclimate change, but not the
majority of the country feelsthat way.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
That's interesting.
I didn't know that aboutFlorida.
I didn't realize that mostpeople in Florida actually
believe it's affecting them.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Yeah, and so the places that's true of is Florida
, and Louisiana has that as wellbecause of all the hurricanes
they've faced over the years.
I believe California because ofthe wildfire situation.
So I'm hopeful that thatconversation is becoming easier
to have.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
It does feel like it's rapidly changing.
I do notice a differencebetween now and even just one or
two years.
Like you said, adam, have younoticed a difference in
perception based on generation,I guess?
I'm asking either if you areaware of any data that says that
, or even anecdotally withstudents that you interact with
at UNF.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Yeah, both of those things I mean there's definitely
anecdotally.
I teach college students everysingle day and we have, you know
, all of my classes.
We talk about climate changebecause it's impacting
ecological systems, which iswhat I'm a professor of, and the
conversations that we have arethat students are concerned
about it, they understand thethreat.
And then I ask them well, areyou having conversations with
(23:17):
you know, your friends and yourfamily about these issues?
Because I talked to them abouthow talking about it more is
important.
And they say yeah, a lot ofthem say yeah, I, you know, I've
talked about this with myparents before, but my parents
kind of laugh it off and saythat it's not something they
really want to think about or beworried about, and they're not
even sure they're real right.
So there's definitely, justfrom an anecdotal standpoint,
there's definitely agenerational divide there and
(23:40):
the data bear that out as well.
I should say.
I mean, beyond my just personalanecdotal experience, there is
data that shows that the youngergenerations of voters in this
country are much more concernedabout climate change.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Thank you very much, Adam.
I appreciate your time.
This has been a greatconversation.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Yeah, thanks for having me, Lorianne.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Thank you for tuning into this episode.
The Sustainable North Floridapodcast is brought to you by the
Jacksonville Climate Coalition,whose mission is to work
collectively to propel equitableand proactive solutions that
address the cause and effects ofclimate change through advocacy
, education and communityinvolvement.
To learn more, follow us onsocial media or check out our
(24:18):
website at wwwjaxclimateorg.
Hello.
This week we're on a briefsummer break, so we're taking
the opportunity to re-air one ofour earliest episodes, summer
in the City, with Dr AdamRosenblatt.
You know the topic of urbanheat is just easier to connect
with now that it's July.
We'll be back again two weeksfrom now with a brand new
episode.
For now, enjoy the show.
(00:20):
Welcome to Sustainable NorthFlorida.
I'm your host, lorianneSantamaria.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
The great thing is that there's tons of solutions
to these heat issues.
Right, there's a lot of optionsout there for how we can tackle
this.
We just have to decide to do itand we have to put the money in
place to fund these kinds ofprojects, and luckily, the city
is starting to do that.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
With the beautiful weather we've been having
recently, it might be hard toremember, but record-breaking
heat in the summer has becomethe new normal, and urban areas
are on the front lines.
In order to adjust, we need todevelop new strategies to beat
the heat when it's at its worst.
Our guest today is Dr AdamRosenblatt.
He was one of the leaders of anurban heat study that was
(01:03):
conducted in Jacksonville tounderstand which parts of the
city are the most vulnerable.
This information is being usedto guide future urban planning
decisions.
We also covered the basics ofclimate change.
Adam's a great communicator andI think he does a pretty good
job of explaining the science ina way that's easy to understand
but also very pragmatic.
Even if you're already familiarwith the science of climate
(01:24):
change, it's worth a listen.
You might pick up a few ideasthat'll help you in your own
climate conversations withfriends and family.
Here's my discussion with DrAdam Rosenblatt.
Welcome, Adam.
We've asked you to join us onthe show to help shed light on a
topic that I think anyone whowas in Jacksonville this past
summer will understand, andthat's the record-breaking heat
that we experience.
But before we get into that,can you just introduce yourself
(01:46):
at a high level to the audienceand let them know who you are
and what you do.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I'm an assistant professor of biology at the
University of North Florida herein Jacksonville and I do
research on the effects ofclimate change on plants and
animals and the ecosystems thatwe rely on, but I also have a
long history of advocacy andactivism when it comes to
climate change legislation andeducation and outreach, trying
(02:14):
to get people to understandwhat's going on and why we need
to be concerned about theclimate differences.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Great.
Can you tell us about whatdrove you in this direction?
Is it the way that you grew up?
Is it something that youlearned later on in life?
What led you down this path?
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Well, the first time I was sort of exposed to the
idea of climate change was bychance really.
I mean, I wasn't like seekingit out or anything.
I did this summer program whenI was in high school at
Villanova University and as partof the summer program we were
put into groups and we had tolike choose sort of a project to
do, and it just so happenedthat that summer was when there
(02:51):
was a lot of conversation goingon about the Kyoto Protocol,
which was one of the earlyattempts at an international
agreement around climate change,and that is really what sparked
my interest in it.
And you know, this was likewhat.
This was 2001 or somethingright.
So climate change wasn't as bigof a talking point in the media
(03:13):
as it is today.
I mean, I'm sure I've heardabout it, but I don't think I'd
really spend a lot of timethinking about it until that
summer.
But that was the thing thatfirst got me interested in it.
And then, of course, Icontinued learning about it in
college, my first scientificresearch thinking about animal
behavior and how animals areresponding to changes in the
environment.
So it all kind of built fromthere.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Okay, so before we get into urban heat, which will
be our main topic today, can yougive us a little bit of a
background on global warming ingeneral and why temperatures are
rising on global warming, ingeneral and why temperatures are
rising.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Yeah, so temperatures are rising because of
greenhouse gas emissions, whichcome from burning fossil fuel.
They come from land-use change,like cutting down forests for
agriculture or to build housingdevelopments, but the main thing
is burning fossil fuels andthat releases carbon dioxide, it
releases methane, it releasesnitrous oxides, and all of those
(04:06):
different gases help trap heaton the planet, with carbon
dioxide being the biggestcontributor.
No-transcript.
But what we're doing is we areadding too much greenhouse gases
(04:30):
to the atmosphere too quickly,and that is increasing the
thickness of the blanket right,and so it's just trapping a lot
more heat than would otherwisehave been trapped.
And the number that I tell topeople that's always shocking is
the amount of extra energy,heat energy that's been trapped
(04:50):
on the planet since 1971 becauseof greenhouse gas emissions is
about 381 zeta joules of energy,which I realize is not anything
that anybody would understand,because nobody knows what zeta
joule is.
But if you convert that intosomething more tangible, the
equivalent of four Hiroshimasized nuclear bombs exploding
(05:16):
every second of every day since1971, and the amount of heat
that's, you know, released froma nuclear explosion, you
multiply that by four and that'sthat's how much.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Every day.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Yeah, every second of every day since 1971.
It's a shocking number.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Can we dig a little bit further into urban heat and
why cities themselves are maybehotter than their surroundings?
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Yeah, so global warming is causing temperatures
to rise all across the globe,but what has been noticed for a
long time now this isn't, youknow, sort of new revelation is
that cities all around the globe, they are getting hotter faster
than, uh, moral areas, and thatis because of something called
the urban heat island effect,where the types of materials
(06:03):
that we use to build cities andbuild the infrastructure for
cities, they are actually verygood at trapping heat.
So asphalt, right asphalt isreally good at trapping heat.
So asphalt right Asphalt isreally good at trapping heat
from the sun, and then it reradiates that heat out into the
air.
Um, all day and night as well.
The nights are actually gettingwarmer faster than the daytime.
Is you know the types ofbuildings that we build?
(06:26):
How tall are they?
How close are they together?
How much tree coverage do youhave in, like a downtown area?
All of these decisions that aremade in terms of how we build
cities.
They contribute to how bad theurban heat on get in a given
place.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
So you were recently involved in a heat mapping study
that was conducted.
Can you tell us more about thatand the genesis of it and why a
heat mapping studies isimportant at all?
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Yeah, the federal government, through the National
Oceanic and AtmosphericAdministration.
They've had a program, I think,for maybe six or seven years
now, where they've been givingmoney to different cities around
the country to try and maptheir heat in their city and
which neighborhoods are hot,which neighborhoods are a little
bit cooler, why that's the case, and then just basically
(07:12):
helping cities gather data thatthey can use to reduce the
threat of extreme heat in theircities, and so I was the leader
of the Jacksonville version ofthis.
We applied for funding at theend of 2021, and then we got the
funding and part of the fundingcame from the city as well.
Then we carried out the studyin the summer of 2022, in June.
(07:34):
We chose a day that we knew wasgoing to be quite hot it was
June 18th and what we did was wesent out volunteers in their
cars across the city, acrossabout 400 square miles of the
city, so about half of the city,and those volunteers mounted
these temperature sensors on thesides of their cars and the
(07:55):
temperature sensors recorded thetemperature, they recorded the
humidity and they recorded thewind speed every second that
they were operational, and thesevolunteers would drive their
cars on specific routes throughdifferent neighborhoods.
We have this data on ablock-by-block basis now for
D'Acto, which is really powerfulfor planning purposes, on a
block by block basis now for forDaxingville, which is really
powerful for planning purposes.
(08:15):
But what we found is that theparts of the city that have less
tree coverage, that have moreasphalt, more commercial land,
more industrial land and morebig roadways like highways,
those parts of the city are muchhotter than neighborhoods that
are more residential and havemore tree cover than less space
dedicated to parking lots.
(08:35):
So, like the hottest part ofthe city, one of the hottest
parts of the city was downtown,right around City Hall, which
you know shouldn't really be asurprise to anybody Whereas
cooler parts of the city werelike further south, on the south
side, you know, in San Marcoand in San Jose, and getting out
toward the beaches a little bit.
But there were pockets of heatin various various places around
(08:56):
the city and just to give you asense of the temperature
differential, you know theminimum temperature that we were
we were recording was about 95degrees on that day and the
maximum temperature was about115.
So that just shows.
It shows what difference theurban heat island effect can
make.
You know that's a 20 degreeFahrenheit difference in
(09:18):
temperature, which can, you know, be the difference between life
and death during the middle ofan extreme heat wave.
The reason we wanted to collectthis data and give the city more
of an insight into whichneighborhoods are facing extreme
heat risk is because it's ahuge public health disaster
waiting to happen.
Are facing extreme heat risk isbecause it's a huge public
health disaster waiting tohappen.
Heat is already the number onecause of death for people
attributable to weather events.
(09:38):
You know, a lot of people mightthink that more people die
during hurricanes, or die duringtornadoes or a flood or you
know, whatever it might be, butactually the number one killer
of people is heat, and so if wehave these parts of the city
that are extremely hot, it'sgoing to contribute to people's
heat stress, it can lead to heatstroke, lead to emergency room
(10:00):
visits and it can lead to deathtragically.
So our goal in collecting someof this data was to give the
city the information that itneeded to hopefully make changes
.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Given that now we have this data of what parts of
the city are more affected byheat than others and we're prone
to do these higher heat levelsthan others, what are the things
that we can do with urbandesign?
I guess I'd like to understandboth the technical perspective,
which you talked to a little bit, some of those things but then
also from a policy perspective,what are the things that we can
try to push our city councilmembers or our mayor's office
(10:33):
towards doing in order toimprove the situation going
forward?
Speaker 2 (10:36):
The great thing is that there's tons of solutions
to these heat issues.
Right, there's a lot of optionsout there for how we can tackle
this.
We just have to decide to do itand we have to put the money in
place to fund these kinds ofprojects, and luckily the city
is starting to do that.
But so on the technical side ofthings, the one that people
(10:58):
point to most often, is plantingtrees.
Planting more trees is going toprovide more shade and it's
also going to help cool the air,because trees naturally cool
the air throughevapotranspiration, which is the
fancy word for them pullingwater out of the ground and then
allowing it to release throughtheir leaves.
But the key point on that, youknow, people think, okay, we
have to plant trees and so let'sjust plant as many trees as we
can.
It's a little more complicatedthan that, because you have to
plant the right trees in theright places, right Like here in
(11:19):
Jacksonville, you know, fordecades there's been a push to
plant lots of palm trees becausethey look nice.
They, you know, give kind of anexotic feel to the city and
they're easy to maintain,relatively speaking.
But palm trees provide almostno shade.
They provide almost no coolingeffect through
(11:40):
evapotranspiration.
They are pretty useless in thatregard.
So, you know, it's not likeplanting a bunch of palm trees
is going to help.
We need bigger you know broadercanopy trees, oats, maples, you
know things that are going toprovide more shade coverage, and
so we need those kinds of treesand we need them to be
maintained properly.
They have to be cared for, atleast specifically while they're
(12:03):
young saplings, and they needthe right amount of water and
they need the right amount ofspace.
So you have to do it in aspecific way to have the biggest
success from that.
Beyond tree planting, there's abunch of things we can do in
terms of landscape design.
Across the city.
There are rain gardens, thereare bioswales.
These are ways that you canspecifically landscape part of
(12:26):
the city so that they help totrap more rainwater and
stormwater and they act as sortof wetlands, right, and wetlands
are very good at cooling downthe surrounding environment
because there's, you know, abunch of standing water there.
So that's that's on thetechnical side of things, on the
policy side of things that youwere mentioning the big push
(12:48):
there, and it's not like a sexything to talk about, right, like
not like something peoplereally like to, to focus on um,
because it is kind of nittygritty down in the weeds work.
But we need to update land useregulations.
We need to update zoningregulations in the city, for
example, st Johnstown Center.
When the developers built StJohnstown Center, I'm imagining
(13:10):
because I'm not an expert on thezoning regulations that were in
place at the time, but I'mimagining that there was no real
requirement that the developershave a certain percentage of
town center dedicated to greenspace.
So updating zoning regulationsto say, hey, if you're going to
do a housing subdivision, ifyou're going to do another place
like a St John's town centersomewhere in northeast Florida,
(13:32):
you have to have a certainamount of land dedicated to tree
coverage, dedicated to parks,dedicated to green space, like
that has to be required, right,and that would force developers
to make more urban heat friendlydecisions.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
I'd like to to pivot from talking about design and
what we can do to minimize urbanheat in the future to talking
about population health, and sowe have to live with this for a
certain period of time.
So what are the things that wecan do in order to protect our
population, especially given thefact that there is such a big
difference between certainneighborhoods in the heat that
they're going to experience?
(14:08):
It seems to me, from looking atthe map, that those
neighborhoods that have a higherexposure to heat are also
potentially more vulnerable.
Can you explain that a littlebit?
Speaker 2 (14:17):
yeah, you're exactly right.
The city needs to put moreresources in towards and into
helping people deal with thecurrent amount of heat and also
the future heat that the city isgoing to be experiencing.
We obviously want to be puttingfunding towards ameliorating
the heat through all of thegreen infrastructure thing I was
just just mentioning, but atthe same time there has to be
funding for helping people todeal with the here and now
(14:37):
threat that they're facing, andheat is certainly one of them.
So there's kind of two aspectsto this.
There's an education aspect andthen there's an infrastructure
aspect.
The education aspect is justeducating people across the city
about heat threats.
Most people don't think aboutheat as something they need to
be worried about, especially inFlorida, because everybody knows
(14:57):
that Florida is a hot placeright, it's always been a hot
plate but people frequentlydon't realize how dangerous
extreme heat can be and howquickly it can lead to really
bad tragedies.
The city actually has a systemof putting out these heat alerts
.
There's a free service thatpeople can sign up for, and if
you sign up for it, you gettexts to your phone.
The city will send out, youknow, alerts that say hey, today
(15:19):
is an extreme heat day, pleasetake the necessary precaution.
So we need to get more peoplesigned up for services like that
so they're aware of which daysare the most threatening to them
.
And then we need to educatepeople about how to keep
themselves safe during theseevents, which means finding
places that have reliable airconditioning, drinking lots of
water, not working or playingsports or spending a lot of time
(15:41):
outside for a long period oftime on these days, maybe going
to a public pool or going to asplash pad with your kids or
something to help everybody walk.
So there's an educational aspectto it.
And then the infrastructureaspect is making sure that all
the things I just mentioned areavailable in the neighborhoods
that need it most.
Right, we saw it this pastsummer Anybody who was paying
attention to the news.
(16:01):
You know the city has a systemof public pools, but about half
of the public pools were not inoperation because they needed
repairs and the city had notdedicated enough funding in past
years to prepare these pools sothat they were functional.
And so we were in the middle ofthis massive heat wave and
there were certain neighborhoodsthat didn't have access to a
public pool that should havebeen available.
(16:22):
So that's the kind ofinfrastructure that I'm talking
about.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
I think we've covered urban heat pretty well.
I'd like to zoom back out nowand talk about carbon dioxide
levels in general.
So if CO2 levels in ouratmosphere are the main cause of
rising temperatures, what arethe things that we can be doing
to address it?
Speaker 2 (16:40):
There's a lot of things that we can do to address
it, but the thing that wereally need is we need to change
the system that we are allliving within right.
The economic system that wehave built as a global human
society over the past 250 yearsis a system that is dependent on
fossil fuels, and we need totransition away from that system
(17:03):
.
And the way that we can do that?
Individuals can't make thathappen right Like through their
own daily actions, but if wework together as groups to make
sure that our leaders, ourpolitical leaders, are focused
on that, then they can changethe system right.
So the number one thing thatanybody can do to help with the
(17:24):
climate problem is to educateyourself about which politicians
are serious about the front-endclimate change and which
politicians are not seriousabout it, and then vote for
those people who are serious.
And just to give you an exampleof it, you know we had the most
landmark, consequential,largest climate change
(17:45):
legislation ever that ourcountry passed which just passed
in 2021, and that's theInflation Reduction Act.
It put hundreds of billions ofdollars towards enhancing solar
energy production and alsoimplementation wind energy,
geothermal energy all of thesethings that we need to be
transitioning to, to get off offossil fuels.
We now have a lot more moneyavailable from the federal
(18:08):
government to make it easier tomake that transition, so voting
is the number one thing thatpeople can do to help the
situation.
The second most important thingis to talk to other people about
what's going on.
We don't really talk aboutclimate change enough as an
issue.
We need to be talking to ourfriends and our family about
what's going on, because a lotof people just don't have the
information and they don'tunderstand really what's going
(18:28):
on, or they feel like they areignorant about what's going on
and so they don't want to, sortof like, stake out a viewpoint
on it.
Right, but the more we can talkabout it publicly, the more
people will feel comfortablethinking about it and trying to
take action on it.
And then the last thing isindividual choices.
There are hundreds ofindividual choices we can make
in our daily lives that canbenefit the environment, benefit
(18:52):
the climate change situation.
I'll just mention the mostimportant one Eating less meat
is important, especially eatingless red meat.
The reason for that is thatcows and the cattle industry are
shockingly big contributors tocarbon dioxide emissions.
For a variety of reasons that Iwon't get into.
That's a big one, and then theother one is more obvious and
(19:13):
it's driving less right Livingin a neighborhood that you can
walk to places or take publictransportation.
That goes a long way towardsreducing our own personal
responsibility for greenhousegas.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
Yeah, I think it's so important to understand the
different options that you havein order to reduce your own
personal carbon footprint,because reality is you're not
going to be able to do all ofthem.
You might be living in aneighborhood that really just
isn't walkable, but maybe I cando something else that makes a
difference.
So there's not one specificprescription.
That's right for everybody.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Yeah, and Jacksonville is a great example
of that because, you know, Imean I would love to drive less,
but I live in Jacksonville andJacksonville is a driving city.
It's a driving culture.
It's been built for the past ahundred years, right, and it's
not any of our fault.
That's just the way that it's,that it's happened over time and
hopefully that's going tochange in the future to a more
public transportation dominatedcity.
But that's going to take, youknow, decades to sort of put
(20:07):
them into practice.
So the other thing I alwaysremind people of is don't get
angry at yourself and don't beatyourself up about not being
able to make every singlelifestyle change that you would
like to make.
Sometimes it's just notpossible.
So the driving thing for meisn't something that I can
really do at the moment, basedon where I live, where I go to
school, where I work.
It's not something I can reallydecrease, unfortunately, but
(20:29):
what I can do, and what I havedone, is I've changed my diet so
that I'm not eating as muchmeat.
I do composting in my backyardso that my vegetable and fruit
scraps aren't ending up inlandfills and creating methane
emissions.
You know, there's a lot ofdifferent little things that we
can all do, and you have to pickand choose the ones that are
right for you at this currenttime.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
You mentioned the importance of talking about
climate change.
I've lived in several otherparts of the country
(21:20):
no-transcript.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
They have an entire sort of institute that tracks
public opinion about climatechange and they've been doing it
for many years.
They break it down on a zipcode by zip code basis, so you
can really get sort of granulardata on that.
But the majority of the countrythe majority of people in the
country are concerned aboutclimate change, recognize it as
(21:45):
a threat.
Thing that's interesting isthat people recognize it as a
threat, but less than a majorityof the country views it as a
personal threat to them.
The majority of people inFlorida do think that it is
impacting them and that makessense, because Florida is a
place where we get infected byhurricanes.
We get flooding more than maybesome other parts of the country
(22:06):
.
So the majority of people inFlorida understand that we are
being impacted right now byclimate change, but not the
majority of the country feelsthat way.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
That's interesting.
I didn't know that aboutFlorida.
I didn't realize that mostpeople in Florida actually
believe it's affecting them.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Yeah, and so the places that's true of is Florida
, and Louisiana has that as wellbecause of all the hurricanes
they've faced over the years.
I believe California because ofthe wildfire situation.
So I'm hopeful that thatconversation is becoming easier
to have.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
It does feel like it's rapidly changing.
I do notice a differencebetween now and even just one or
two years.
Like you said, adam, have younoticed a difference in
perception based on generation,I guess?
I'm asking either if you areaware of any data that says that
, or even anecdotally withstudents that you interact with
at UNF.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Yeah, both of those things I mean there's definitely
anecdotally.
I teach college students everysingle day and we have, you know
, all of my classes.
We talk about climate changebecause it's impacting
ecological systems, which iswhat I'm a professor of, and the
conversations that we have arethat students are concerned
about it, they understand thethreat.
And then I ask them well, areyou having conversations with
(23:17):
you know, your friends and yourfamily about these issues?
Because I talked to them abouthow talking about it more is
important.
And they say yeah, a lot ofthem say yeah, I, you know, I've
talked about this with myparents before, but my parents
kind of laugh it off and saythat it's not something they
really want to think about or beworried about, and they're not
even sure they're real right.
So there's definitely, justfrom an anecdotal standpoint,
there's definitely agenerational divide there and
(23:40):
the data bear that out as well.
I should say.
I mean, beyond my just personalanecdotal experience, there is
data that shows that the youngergenerations of voters in this
country are much more concernedabout climate change.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Thank you very much, Adam.
I appreciate your time.
This has been a greatconversation.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Yeah, thanks for having me, Lorianne.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Thank you for tuning into this episode.
The Sustainable North Floridapodcast is brought to you by the
Jacksonville Climate Coalition,whose mission is to work
collectively to propel equitableand proactive solutions that
address the cause and effects ofclimate change through advocacy
, education and communityinvolvement.
To learn more, follow us onsocial media or check out our
(24:18):
website at wwwjaxclimateorg.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com