A melting planet: how hot is too hot?

located:	Canada, United Kingdom, USA
editor:	Shira Jeczmien

California is on fire. So is Portugal, Greece, Sweden and Canada. In London, the tar which fills the gaps between concrete slabs of an outdoor train platform began to melt and seep through the cracks, sticking to commuters’ soles. Temperatures hit a record high across Europe as Lisbon sizzled in 46 degrees celsius. Tokyo swathed through the heatpool that became the outdoor at 38C for 7 consecutive days. Temperatures are rising, in every corner of our planet, taking lives along with it and as the Guardian headlines its latest insight into the rising temperatures in a series titled ‘Sweltering Cities’, heat is set to become “the next big inequality issue”.

Because when it comes to the stifling temperatures of our present and – more importantly, future – world, the notes of inequality sound far too much like an old familiar tune. To put it shortly, the wealthy few will suffer less and the impoverished many will suffer more. A lot more. A University of California, Berkeley study found that persons of an ethnic minority group are on average less likely to have a tree or a park in their habitual environment than white people, with Asians at 32 percent, Hispanics at 21 percent and black people at a whopping 52 percent. In that very same breath it’s worth noting that shade from trees can lower temperatures by 11-25C.

The city, in the jargon of climate change researchers, is referred to as a heat island. Concrete, dense high rises, brick walls and scarce vegetation all make for a lethal cocktail that is more flammable than it is enjoyable; absorbing heat throughout the day and spitting it back up when night falls. And according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), by 2030, 60 percent of the world’s population will become residents of precisely these ‘heat islands’.

Currently air conditioning and cooling units are a premium, not economy. DIY cooling methods for the poor, such as spraying the body with water, damping the bedsheets and floor or hanging a damp cloth in front of a fan are merely temporary solutions that hardly withstand the current heat rise, let alone the temperatures researchers are predicting for 2100, with the share of people exposed to deadly heat for more than 20 days a year jumping from 20 to 73 percent.

But it isn’t yet as bleak and hopeless at the latter stats might point towards. It has been proven that collective effort, across economical divisions in cities, have the potential of dramatically lowering temperatures across vast urban areas. Painting slum rooftops white (which lowers the temperatures by up to 5C), allocating more greenery to poorer neighbourhoods such as trees or even small gardens, opening locked parks during the day and distributing free water all make for a drastic positive impact.

In defiance of the disparities between how the rich are set to cope with unbearable heat or how the poor will, our slowly boiling planet will have an impact on our society in its entirety. Migration will rise, health related issued will increase; neither us nor our human made environments are built to endure such temperatures. Cities of the future and their citizens must be prepared to tackle this global issue from within a unit, not a socio-economic divide.

Photo: flickr/dingbat2005

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