5 Tips from Your Friendly Neighborhood Heat Health Organizer
How to Beat the Heat by Creating Cool Communities: Guide for Climate Leaders
Heat is the #1 killer of all extreme weather—and every heatwave in the world is now made stronger and more likely to happen because of fossil-fueled climate disruption.
But knowledge is power in community multiplies.
So as we change systems to mitigate climate impacts, by sharing the collective solutions to the disparate effects of extreme heat, we can adapt at the same time, repairing and fortifying resilient communities.
Last year, my local county coordinated our community in a citizen-scientist extreme heat mapping project— part of a federal initiative partnering with NOAA. You can see if NOAA’s mapped the urban heat island impact in your city here, plus, you can see the Montgomery County, MD results here.
But in this blog, I’m rounding up the best of the best tips from what I’ve learned about surviving and helping folks thrive through extreme heat— to give you the power to create cool communities.
5 Best Heat Health Neighborhood Organizer Tips for Climate Leaders to Beat the Heat & Create Cool Communities
1. Know Who Is Impacted by Extreme Heat First and Worst
Not everyone is hurt equally by extreme heat; as with every climate impact, extreme heat falls along race-class-caste maps of an already steeply-unequal society.
“Those most vulnerable to extreme heat are the elderly, very young children, infirm, poor, and socially isolated people, and those who are pregnant are at particular risk during heat waves” according to the EPA— highlighting outdoor workers and city dwellers, too, are at “a higher risk of heat waves because urban areas are warmer than surrounding non-urban areas due to the heat island effect.” They don’t mention the unique unjust threat incarcerated populations face from being unable to remedy extreme heat, but I will.
From the US Environmental Protection Agency:
"Urban heat islands" occur when cities replace natural land cover with dense concentrations of pavement, buildings, and other surfaces that absorb and retain heat. This effect increases energy costs (e.g., for air conditioning), air pollution levels, and heat-related illness and mortality
All of this is correct, yet omits a crucial fact: the critical impact historically racist government policy has had in marginalizing predominantly communities of color into urban heat islands. Systemic racist practices and policies, such as Redlining— the practice in the 1930s of officials systemically denying home loans to eligible applicants based on race, drew the neighborhood fault-lines of our era. Segregating already-underserved areas in cities where it’s burning 10-20°F hotter than average, due to historic racist neglect, strangling these areas in concrete, a lack of greenery, and brittle-to-no-community infrastructure. As such, collective solutions, including demanding reparations, is a critical component of beating any heat and creating truly cool communities for all.
If this is news to you, I want the systemic racism embedded in these systems to be your biggest takeaway. It was the main insight I got volunteering as part of the heat mapping project— and one of the most visually striking when you review essentially any and all of the areas mapped with more extreme heat: these fall exactly along historically redlined places, heat haunting our poorest neighbors because of the United States’ racist legacy. Compounded by continued fossil-fueled disruption.
You can take a look to see what the heat island intensity score ranks for your area, and personalize a custom graphic to share with this cool climate tool from Climate Central.
2. Try These New & Share Your Favorite Cooling Hacks
Here’s an list of tips to keep yourself cool through fossil-fueled heatwaves so that you can keep onward helping advocate for and protect others:
Avoid going out during the hottest/sunniest hours— the central hours of the day, when sun's directly overhead, and radiation is at its strongest. (Here’s a poem inspired by this idea, laying low til dawn/dusk hours)
Stay hydrated, and drink plenty of water throughout the day.
Take a cool shower
Wear lightweight and light-colored clothing.
Avoid overexerting yourself outdoors.
Avoid dehydrating drinks, such as coffee and/or alcohol.
Seek, and stay in, air-conditioned environments if you’re able.
Here’s an affordable and energy efficient air conditioning hack: DIY Swamp Cooler
If you’re unable to maintain a cool space, check with your local community services if there are designated Cooling Centers, which can be at libraries, senior shelters, pools, splash parks, and more (more on this concept below— in Tip #3)
But also, let’s serious: the only sustainable way of combating extreme heat is to address inequality itself.
Here’s even more from NPR: 11 more tips on how to stay cool without an A/C, recommended by NPR's readers
What tips have you found help individually beat the heat? Let me know in the comments!
3. Find Sustainable Solutions, Organize Locally, & Advocate in Community
The specific set of solutions to advocate for support to fortify your community in the face of fossil-fueled heatwaves will differ from place to place— and here’s a whole database of heat solutions to pull from to make that part easy. I‘ll spotlight one of my favorites, Cooling Centers, and encourage you to search for examples of similar solutions to solve for surviving extreme heat in your area.
Community Cooling Centers
Cooling Centers (also “Cooling Shelters”) are safe publicly accessible spaces to gain respite, typically with A/C and/or water features, to cool-down in periods of extreme heat.
You can see the map of cooling centers designated by the DC government below— and how this includes not only indoor air conditioned spaces, but also other types of shelter and environments to aid our most vulnerable; libraries, spray parks, pools, and recreation centers included. I encourage you search for your local community’s cooling center resources, and if none exist, organize to advocate for places for vulnerable and underserved to survive extreme heat.
For a little joy, here’s a vibe: I’ve found too many sweaty It’s Getting Hot in Here Summer climate playlists when all I want in this weather are chill vibes. So, here’s a pop/indie mix to stay cool facing rising heat with reminders of community cooling & climate solutions: Cooling Centers for Summers
While You’re at it: Change Your Systems
Stopping the pollution pouring into our neighbors lungs and exacerbating extreme weather like fossil-fueled heatwaves is paramount— and by prioritizing decarbonization and fortifying communities most vulnerable, we can solve for historic inequities. There will be more ways we’ll change than we can yet imagine, such as:
Pursuing energy efficiency initiatives to reduce demand on the electricity grid, especially coordinating this ramp during heat waves.
Workplace heat stress standards— especially for outdoor workers
Installing cool and green roofs and cool pavement
Planting trees to provide shade and to cool the air through evapotranspiration.
Knowing what populations are most vulnerable, we can plan solutions that prioritize public support to truly include everyone.
Don’t dwell in despair: we can demand more of our leaders while protecting ourselves and our neighbors. “Power concedes nothing without a demand.” — Frederick Douglass
4. Memorize the Signs of Heat-Related Illness and How to Remedy
Stay ready to care just-in-case by committing the top two heat-related illnesses, symptoms, and what to do, to memory:
Heat Exhaustion: Confusion, Dizziness, Becomes Unconscious
ACT FAST: Move to a cooler area, loosen clothing, sip cool water, seek medical attention if symptoms don’t improve
Heat Stroke: Dizziness, Thirst, Heavy Sweating, Nausea, Weakness
ACT FAST: Call 911, move to a cooler area, loosen clothing and remove extra layers, cool with water or ice
If untreated, Heat Exhaustion can lead to Heat Stroke— which can cause death or permanent disability. Here’s a graphic that restates this from government agencies for another reference:
5. Envision and act on creating cool communities
Dare to let your dreams of a better world rise higher than the hottest temperature. Imagine all the ways we’re both mitigating and adapting to fossil-fueled extreme heat, all the cool upgrades and cool communities features, and infuse all of that vision of a just future with joy. It's critical to go forward and seize joy still, even in the face of such harsh heat. And share! Joy is power in community multiplies, too
Last concept I’ll plug, Climate Resilience Hubs: another important collective climate solution— I wrote a spotlight profiling a version of resilience hubs piloted by nonprofits to save lives in the wake of fossil-fuel supercharged hurricanes, here:
Thanks for reading! Onward— to truly cooler communities for all.
Additional Resources + Poems with Heat
Below, I’ve included additional content from health and environment related government agencies and nonprofits that organize the above information in other formats with slightly different details. You can consider yourself up-to-speed at this point or dive deeper as you please:
Explore More About Adaptation – Extreme Heat and Health
Related Articles of Interest
'Air Conditioning is a Human Right.' Heat-Related Prison Deaths Are Rising Due to Climate Change
Investigative Series: D.C.’s heat islands / Serie: islas de calor en D.C.
Disproportionate exposure to urban heat island intensity across major US cities
As a heat wave grips the US, lessons from the hottest city in America
As a bonus for making it through, I have for you a couple perfect poems on heatwaves:
POEM #1: “Heat Wave” by Lee Young-ju (translated by Jae-Kim)
Why do all the flowers around here bloom from trash? Clearing the trash from under the magnolia tree, he thinks to himself: This day, in which sad prayers come spilling out of his hands, is too hot.
POEM #2 “Heat Wave” by Samuel Menashe
At sea, no ballast
For that even keel
He cannot keep—
No steering wheel
As he falls asleep
POEM #3: “No Name” by Emily Berry
"What can I tell you? It was a summer that seemed to be
making history — their personal history — almost before
it began"
POEM #4: A More Poetic Time by Adam Powers
preplan
your outdoor adventures &
errands in fossil-fueled heatwaves
to happen during sunrise/sundown
There are more heat related poems included in some DC Weather Poetry here:
Human-caused global warming has increased the frequency, size, intensity, and duration of extreme heat events. What were once very rare events are becoming common. —SciLine: Heat waves and climate change