There is no doubt that extreme heat has made national headlines this year, not just in California or even the United States, but around the world. And although the Golden State has had a respite, this will not last, since according to experts, this condition is here to stay, so it is urgent to advance resilience against extreme heat and actions to mitigate the impacts.
During a media session, organized by Ethnic Media Services, the director of Governor Gavin Newsom's Office of Planning and Research Extreme Heat and Community Resilience Program, Braden Kay, pointed out that it is really important to understand that: the heat, the death, the illnesses from the impacts of extreme heat, not only occur in the headlines of the days that they are happening, these health impacts are happening throughout the entire summer?.
Even, he said, we are starting to see heat-related impacts occurring in the winter.
"What we know overall is that climate change is making extreme heat more frequent, more severe and longer lasting."
In that sense, Kay specified that summer heat waves can be dangerous, especially for young children, the elderly, people with chronic illnesses and disabilities, outdoor workers, the homeless and pregnant women.
"We have to understand that extreme heat is something that is happening not only in the summer, but throughout the summer, spring and fall, and it affects California communities not only on those hot days," he said.
?I think one of the challenges of climate change is that it is not just change. It's chaos. And what chaos means is that it's not a linear path that every summer is going to get hotter. "It's going to be very unpredictable in terms of the type of weather we have and when we have it," he added.
Braden Kay stressed that ?Climate change doesn't just mean climate change, it means ascending chaos, which means unpredictable change, which means sometimes it's going to get colder and sometimes it's going to get hotter. What we know about what the future holds is that it will only get hotter. It's not necessarily going to be windier every summer, getting hotter, but the general trend is that it's getting hotter and hotter.
Given this, he specified, it is important to fight against misinformation, because although some will think that climate change is no longer a problem because it has been a cooler summer, that will not be the case, which is why he called for more precise information to be found in the National Meteorological Services and other resources such as state agencies, including the California Department of Public Health.
For San Joaquin County Public Health Services Officer Dr. Maggie Park, as the weather becomes more unpredictable, so do its impacts.
San Joaquin County is a mix of urban and rural areas with a population of about 750,000 people. 88 percent of the territory is rural, but only 8 percent of the population lives in these rural areas.
14.5 percent of its residents live in poverty. The county's public health department is located in Stockton, and every year as summer approaches, emergency preparedness and communications teams disseminate common summer safety messages.
?Public health is prevention. "And heat-related illnesses and deaths are preventable, so we give a lot of education and a lot of practical advice," Park said.
While there are obvious messages like: stay air conditioned, wear protective clothing, stay hydrated, Park said it's important to repeat them over and over again.
The Central Valley is already known for being hot, he explained, but this year has seen record temperatures. People had already felt the hottest first July on record, when Stockton hit 109 degrees.
"Public health is prevention, but also health equity," and, he said, low-income neighborhoods and communities with larger Afro-descendant, Hispanic and Asian populations experience significantly more urban heat than wealthier and predominantly white neighborhoods.
This, he noted, is because poor and minority groups live in areas with more buildings, more concrete, higher population density, less vegetation, fewer trees and fewer surfaces that absorb heat.
So, ?even within the same city, the heat burden is not distributed equally. We do everything we can to enter those communities and reach those who are most at risk in them, such as the elderly, people with chronic illnesses or disabilities, pregnant women, babies and young children.
He added that San Joaquin County's homeless population faced unique challenges during heat strokes. According to a 2022 point count, there are 2,319 homeless people in the county, 1,355 of them homeless.
?We know that these people really don't want to leave their tents and all their belongings to go to a cooling center. It doesn't really work for them. The staff comes out to teach them. And we go into their spaces to give them valuable lessons on how to store food correctly. How to avoid storing dairy products and eggs and the correct elimination of raw foods?, he said.
Added to this are tasks such as frozen water bottles and mobile shower units. However, he said, language barriers are a challenge.
In the San Joaquin Valley there are many people who work in agriculture, and many of them are immigrants, so they depend on their community partners to provide them with information and make sure they do not work extra hours in the heat, drink a lot of water and wear protective clothing.
?But getting them materials and education translated into their indigenous languages is a constant challenge. And not only is the language important, but also the message we convey to the public, which must be clear? he added.
Dr. Ines Ruiz Houston, vice president of the League of United Latin American Citizens Council 2060 in Stockton, California, assured that public health must be worked with the public community, since they are key to successful strategies.
In that sense, he said that correct messaging in multiple languages is necessary through social networks, door-to-door communication, special events, and using public health services.
"Troops on the ground are the most effective method," Ruiz-Huston said. “Families are afraid to run air conditioning because of the cost of electricity or power outages,” he said.
In this regard, he explained that it is also essential who you reach when it comes to keeping a community safe: ?The brochures are not enough. What is it? Find the conversationalists who represent your neighborhood. Is the person who knows everything about the community the first to tell everyone what is happening?
Patrizia Hironimus, executive director at the Butte Environmental Council, said the particular challenges in her county, which has large populations of both wildfire survivors and college students, with the extreme heat campaign, have centered around a socioeconomic lens of equity, trying to bring a climate awareness that students can use in their rented apartments or their shared housing.
The expert added that the best way to reach wildfire survivors displaced from resilience resources like air conditioning has been through resources like food pantries and farmers markets.
?The majority of extreme heat that affects the majority of our population is in the area of food sovereignty. I think we're in a border county here in Butte, so it's hard enough to get fresh vegetables and fruits to the burn scar area. We have a mobile market, through the Butte County Local Food Network, and will some of this extreme heat exacerbate our already strained food distribution routes?
"So, going forward, I think our disaster preparedness summits need to plan for the food distribution element of how this weather is affecting our patterns of getting food to people," he explained.
Susan Henderson, executive director for the Disability Rights Education and Advocacy Fund, highlighted that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that approximately one in four people in the United States suffers from diabetes. USA has some type of disability.
A large part of that number are older people, he noted, so almost all of us age with disabilities. ?When we create access for disabled people, we also create access for older people and, frankly, for everyone.?
Henderson explained that disabilities can be invisible and dynamic. However, they have intersecting functional needs, while there are attitudinal barriers towards older people without disabilities and also towards those with disabilities.
But what are some of the challenges that disabled people face in extreme heat? Safe, accessible and air-conditioned homes, he highlighted.
To this they added accessible transportation when it is necessary to get from their homes to cooling centers or health centers along with their mobility devices.
?For people with disabilities, electricity and power supply are essential. And especially in times of extreme heat and wildfires and other natural disasters, because many of us depend on medical devices and air conditioning that need energy to keep us well and alive,” Henderson highlighted.
Finally, the experts agreed that it is necessary to create true awareness about the effects of climate change and the repercussions that there will be if we do not pay attention to actions that help protect people. Given this, they said, it is necessary to change the perspective and mentality to take care of the community in the face of climate disasters.
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