How Do Heat Officers Work?

Cities around the world are appointing Heat Officers to identify dangers and help protect citizens from rising temperatures. Learn how these officials work in this episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/climate-weather/atmospheric/chief-heat-officers-news.htm

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio, Hey
brain Stuff Lauren Vogelbaum. Here. The cities around the world
are appointing Chief Heat Officers to respond to the public
health impact of climate change in cities like Miami and
Phoenix in the US, Athens, Greece, and Freetown, Sierra Leone.

(00:25):
These Chief Heat Officers investigate potential short and long term
heat mitigation efforts as they study ways to reduce risks
of global warming and other changes ranging from psychological stress
to premature death. According to the World Health Organization, extreme
temperature events are increasing in frequency, duration, and magnitude in

(00:48):
recent years. The number of people impacted by heat waves
has risen into the hundreds of millions, with some populations
being disproportionately affected because of where they live or how
much they earn. The emergence of a Chief Heat Officer
position in these cities largely stems from an initiative of
the Adrian Arsched Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center and similarly minded

(01:09):
foundation boards. The position, which these foundations not coincidentally help fund,
is designed to help local policymakers develop tools and strategies
to ease the burden of climate change. Especially when it
befalls the world's most vulnerable populations. As we've discussed before
on this show, excessive heat can cause exhaustion, confusion, or

(01:32):
even heart attacks, and can exacerbate existing health conditions such
as cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. And it's most likely to
impact people who do physical labor outdoors or who don't
have access to air conditioning at work or at home.
One Jane Gilbert, who had previously served local government in
a consulting capacity, was appointed as Miami's first Heat Officer

(01:56):
in early serving both the Municipality of Miami in Miami
Dade County, it falls to her to usher local leadership,
both public and private through impending environmental changes. Gilbert, like
her colleagues around the world, is expected to create a
joint public and private task force that would identify existing

(02:16):
vulnerabilities and future risks, and then create a plan to
address these risks through government departments and the community at large.
Climate change is an issue plaguing governments everywhere, even municipal
governments in relatively insulated cities like Beverly Hills. Because of
climate change concerns, that city recently decided to take a

(02:38):
fresh look at its sustainability initiatives for the article. This
episode is based on How Stuff Work. Spoke by email
with Windy Nystrom, a Beverly Hills City commissioner and co
chair of the city's Community Advisory Committee Climate Action and
Adaption Plan. A Nicetroom who earned a master's degree in geology,
Earth sciences and geochemistry, works as an environment, mental and

(03:00):
pollution risk management expert in the City of Beverly Hills,
like many municipalities, is considering policy lead initiatives to environmental
damage in small and large ways. Nice From said, we
recently passed a plastic utensil ordinance where plastic cutlery is
no longer provided in takeaway meals unless specifically requested. It

(03:23):
is a small step, but we are progressing, and we're
currently working with the Clean Power Alliance to take Beverly
Hills from renewable energy to ad It'll take time and
require a bit of public outreach, communication and education, but
we're making steady progress. As historic heat roasts the Western

(03:44):
United States and other areas, it's claiming lives. Between the
years of twenty about twelve thousand people died prematurely from
heat exposure every year in the United States. By the
time we usher in a new century, heat exposed is
expected to claim a hundred and ten thousand lives each year. Here.

(04:05):
To complicate matters, it's likely that heat exposure will unequally
affect people according to income. A study published in the
journal Nature in May reported that a person whose income
is below the poverty line experiences more heat exposure than
a person who can afford to live in a spacious
neighborhood with grass and tree cover. Gilbert, Miami's heat resiliency officer,

(04:29):
told Time magazine in it can be thirty degrees fahrenheit
or sixteen celsius cooler outside under tree cover than in
an open pavement area, but trees also sequester carbon absorbed
stormwater and have mental health benefits. An area with densely
located buildings, parking lots, and roads is essentially an urban

(04:50):
heat island because these construction materials absorb and retain heat.
In US cities, black and Hispanic citizens are more likely
to live in an urban heat island. This disparity and
the unequal distribution of risk is known as heat equity,
and in many places, including Miami and Miami Dade County,

(05:13):
it's becoming undeniably prevalent. As Gilbert told Time, her role
is to identify and address those inequities while marshaling municipal
and county governments through new policies and initiatives. For example,
along with planting trees and educating at risk populations about
their rights during a heat crisis, Gilbert will help local

(05:34):
leaders take a long view on actions that could reduce
reliance on air conditioning, then the greenhouse gas emissions that
go with it. It's a role that's expected to become
increasingly necessary in coming years. Today's episode is based on
the article Miami and other cities installed cheap heat officers

(05:56):
to combat climate change on hous to works dot com,
written by Laurel dam The brain Stuff is production by
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