Consider This from NPR - Climate Change And Record Breaking Heat Around The World

Episode Date: July 21, 2022

Record high temperatures have wreaked havoc around the world this week. In Southern England, railway tracks bent from the heat. In China, the roof tiles on a museum melted. In Texas, heat and a dry spell have caused nearly 200 water main breaks over the past month.And extreme heat puts lives at risk, too. It's more deadly than tornadoes, hurricanes, and all other weather events combined.Extreme temperatures, and the attendant misery, are connected to global warming, which is driven by human activity and accelerating.Reporters from around the globe talk about what they're seeing and how governments are responding. NPR's Rebecca Hersher, who reports on climate science and policy from the US, NPR's John Ruwitch in Shanghai and Willem Marx in London.This episode also features reporting from NPR's Franco Ordoñez.In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment to help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This message comes from Indiana University. Indiana University performs breakthrough research every year, making discoveries that improve human health, combat climate change, and move society forward. More at iu.edu slash forward. So this week, all around the world, we are seeing record high temperatures, like in the UK. This will be potentially lethal weather for a couple of days. China. The sweltering heat will last from the 16th of July to the 24th of August. And the US.

60 million Americans are facing heat alerts from North Dakota to Texas. And all of this is causing all sorts of problems, like damage to infrastructure. We've never seen temperatures like this, like literally ever. This is probably the hottest day in history. And a lot of our infrastructure is just not built for these types of temperatures. That's UK Transport Minister Grant Shapps in an interview with Sky News earlier this week. In southern England, railway tracks bent from the heat. In China, the roof tiles on a museum melted. And here in the U.S., the long spell of heat and no rain in Texas caused nearly 200 water main breaks over the last month.

And it's not just damage to infrastructure. Extreme heat is really dangerous to people's health. Larry Kenney is a professor of physiology. He has a lab at Penn State University where he cranks up the heat and humidity, puts people on a treadmill, and sees how their bodies respond. People need to understand that heat is the most deadly of all weather-related fatalities, much more so than tornadoes, hurricanes, all other things combined, that it is dangerous. And in particular, it's dangerous to vulnerable populations like the elderly. Dr. Jennifer Vines is the lead health officer in the Portland metro area. Last year, she helped oversee the response to a record-breaking heat wave that left almost 70 people dead in that area. Heat can sneak up on you. And we know from other disastrous heat waves

that it can overtake people in ways unexpected. It can happen quickly. It can also happen after a couple of days of just really a lot of heat stress on the body just from sitting at home. It was virtually impossible without climate change. And that is Michael Wehner. He's a senior scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory who studies how climate change influences extreme weather. He says the heat wave that hit the Pacific Northwest last year wouldn't have happened if it weren't for climate change. Extreme temperatures, all the ripple effects that flow from that, all the misery millions of people are experiencing right now, all of this is connected to global warming, which is driven by human activity and is accelerating. Humans have the tools to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change, but we are running out of time.

Any heat wave that occurs from now on, the temperature has been increased by climate change. For a garden variety, heat waves, so like the hottest day of the year or the hottest day, you know, every 10 years. In the United States, climate change has increased that heat wave temperature by between three and five degrees Fahrenheit. Consider this. Extreme heat is gripping regions all over the world, including Europe, China and the U.S. Temperatures in many places have lingered around 100 degrees or higher for days, even weeks on end. This is life with climate change, and it will only get worse if greenhouse gas emissions don't decrease dramatically. Coming up, we are going to talk to three reporters in countries around the world about what they are seeing and how governments are responding.

From NPR, I'm Elsa Chang. Send, spend, or receive money internationally, and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the WISE app today or visit WISE.com. T's and C's apply. It's Consider This from NPR. This week, with large swaths of the U.S. under heat warnings and advisories, President Biden traveled to Massachusetts to talk about the steps that he's taking to address climate change. As president, I have a responsibility to act with urgency and resolve when our nation faces clear and present danger. And that's what climate change is about. It is literally not figuratively a clear and present danger. But

he stopped short of declaring a climate emergency, as many advocates are pressing him to do. Let me be clear. Climate change is an emergency. And in the coming weeks, I'm going to use the power I have as president to turn these words into formal, official government actions.

So, OK, he says this is an emergency, but actually declaring a climate emergency would allow Biden to use some presidential powers to put more restrictions on fossil fuels. He could halt oil drilling, ramp up clean energy projects like wind and solar. And all of this is crucial because the U.S. is one of the largest contributors to global warming. Climate activists are constantly talking about measures that individuals and governments can and should take to combat the effects of climate change. And this week, the scorching temperatures all around the world really bring the issue into focus. So we brought together three NPR reporters to talk about this.

Rebecca Herscher, who reports on climate and the effects of global warming. John Rewich, who is in Shanghai. And Willem Marks in London. I started with Willem. The UK recorded like its hottest day ever this week, right? Like, can you just describe for us, what is it like in London at the moment? Well, fortunately, it's cooled down significantly since that high point. Temperatures really spiked here. It was very, very uncomfortable. But the impact here of that recent heat has been far more about just people's discomfort. We saw a pretty unprecedented

number of wildfires blazing across the country, destroying damaging homes and communities. And this particular heat wave really prompted a lot of conversations, both privately among friends, but also in the public sphere among politicians about improving what you might call Britain's climate resilience. A few days back, I was up at one of London's four airports where the heat had caused a problem with the runway, diverting dozens of incoming flights, forcing departures to be delayed or cancelled. We've seen several highways in various parts of England close because the asphalt literally buckled under the sun. And, you know, most concern to computers here, train services on major routes, a lot of them were cancelled. It turns out the metal rails on the UK's railways,

they're simply not designed to withstand temperatures above 100 degrees Fahrenheit. So many of them bent out of shape. And experts told me that can cause very dangerous derailments. I mean, this is so incredible to listen to. How are you seeing people cope with not just these extremely high temperatures, but just all the disruptions that these temperatures are causing? Well, the fun sites you'll see are people eating more ice creams, looking for venues with air conditioning where they can work. That includes myself and many of them staying off public transportation, particularly buses that get incredibly overheated and uncomfortable. And then around parks and people's backyards, a lot of paddling pools,

kids with water guns, as well as stores and transportation hubs reminding people to carry water with them at all times. Well, how about you, John? Because, I mean, unlike the UK, vast parts of China have long been used to scorching heat during the summer. That's nothing new. But now the country's seeing record temperatures. You're in Shanghai. What is it like there right now? Yeah, it's been a record-breaking summer. To illustrate the point, Shanghai last week had several days over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. And on one of those days, the official temperature, the official high was 105.9, which matched the highest recording for the city since China started tracking temperatures near the end of the Qing Dynasty in the 1870s.

It's not just Shanghai, though. The government says as many as 900 million people around the country have been coping with high temperatures since June. It's forecast to last till August. So the government's warning people to limit their outside exposure. They're also taking some other steps in the city of Nanjing, for instance. They opened up underground bomb shelters so people could go down there and get some relief. There's reports of rail workers in the South sliding giant blocks of ice along tracks so they don't warp. And spare a thought for the COVID testers. In Chinese cities now, the authorities are requiring everyone to get PCR tests, sometimes daily.

There's test sites everywhere. And some of these people don't have air conditioning. They're in white hazmat suits, N95 masks, face shields. And they've just got fans blowing on them and sometimes blocks of ice to try to keep cool. Oh, that sounds unbearable. Well, Rebecca, I want to turn to you because you report on climate and the effects of global warming. Can you just help us understand what is happening this summer in all these different parts of the world? I mean, this is textbook climate change in action. So global warming makes heat waves longer.

It makes them more widespread because the whole world is heating up. And it makes them hotter. And a few degrees may not sound like a lot, but that is how records are broken. It also is tough on people's bodies, especially in places where people are not used to this heat, which is how heat illness happens when your body is not acclimatized to the heat. And it's one reason that heat waves are so deadly. So the thing to remember here is that this is just the beginning. It will only get worse in the future because the climate is still getting warmer. How bad will it get? That's the million dollar question. Well, humans decide if greenhouse gas emissions decrease quickly, it will help control future heat waves. Right. Humans decide.

So let's talk about those decisions starting with the U.S. right here. What is the U.S. doing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions meaningfully? Not enough, according to scientists. You know, the U.S. is the largest historical emitter, still the second largest emitter today. And although U.S. emissions are falling, it's way too slow to avoid catastrophic global warming. So to do that, it would require slashing emissions from cars, from trucks, from power plants. But the path to making that happen has gotten a lot harder for the Biden administration. There's a recent Supreme Court decision that makes it more difficult for the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.

Congress has failed to pass legislation that would support electric vehicles and renewable energy. That means there are fewer options for the Biden administration. They say that they'll use executive orders to try to reduce emissions instead. But, of course, executive orders don't have the force or the long-term stability that a law would. Right. Well, John, what about China's part in all this? Because it's also a huge contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. What are leaders in China committed to doing at this point? Well, China is the number one current emitter of greenhouse gases.

The government's big promises so far are that the country's going to, its carbon emissions will peak by the end of this decade, and that it's going to shift to being totally carbon neutral by the year 2060. Beijing appears to take climate change very seriously. It's investing heavily in renewable energy. The problem really is that the economy is still heavily reliant on coal for electricity. So heat waves just complicate things. Demand for electricity this summer is through the roof. Premier Li Keqiang, as recently as the end of June, called for coal production in China to be increased, actually, to prevent blackouts. I mean, there've actually

been some rolling blackouts in certain industrial areas. Wait, so the result of these rolling blackouts is more coal consumption, which could worsen future blackouts. Exactly. I mean, they have these carbon targets, but they're still building coal-fired power plants. And the thing is, as Rebecca said, and as scientists will tell you, these heat waves are becoming more frequent. They're lasting longer in China as with elsewhere. So the government's pursuit of these green targets is just potentially going to get more and more difficult and complicated. And interestingly here in Europe, you're seeing something quite similar, Elsa, because just in the UK, for instance, we've got this leadership contest to be the next prime minister. And some of the candidates have been less than eager to continue with existing programs already in place to reduce emissions.

And that's really striking because just a few months ago, you'll remember in Glasgow, it was the same government leading the global effort at COP26. That implies the current energy and inflation crisis, in part sparked by the Ukraine conflict, of course, is now bringing what were once settled policies into question. And to some extent, that's being replicated elsewhere in Europe, where the European Union, for instance, unveiled plans last summer to move away from carbon-based energy. Then since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, many European nations have been backpedaling a bit. They've been burning more coal, planning more natural gas terminals, even looking to expand the continent's gas pipeline network. A lot of the governments doing this say they're purely temporary measures. They say they'll aim to get back on

track to hit emissions reduction targets. But climate experts say these kinds of changes that are necessary, they simply cannot happen soon enough. So Rebecca, I want to end this conversation with you because it's pretty obvious that extreme heat will be with us for like decades to come. So given that this is the new normal, what can be done to make heat less deadly for people? Well, there's a lot that can be done. You know, basically humans can build cities for the climate of the future. So cities are heat islands because they absorb the sun's heat, but you can build buildings that reflect the sun's heat. You can protect and expand green space. You can make sure that people have access to emergency air conditioned spaces, spaces that stay cool passively. And this is really important.

People who work outside need to be protected. They need access to shade and water. And on the hottest days, it needs to be financially viable for those people to stay home. It's just not safe. All of those things would make heat a lot less deadly. But it's important to say this is only going to get harder as temperatures go up, and temperatures will keep going up as long as greenhouse gas emissions don't fall dramatically. That was NPR's Rebecca Herscher here in the U.S.,

Willem Marks in London, and John Rewich in Shanghai. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Elsa Chang. This message comes from Indiana University. Indiana University is committed to moving the world forward, working to tackle some of society's biggest challenges. IU makes bold investments in the future of bioscience and cybersecurity, cultivates visionary work in the arts and humanities, and prepares students to become global citizens

by teaching more languages than any other university in the country. Indiana University. Nine campuses, one purpose. Creating tomorrow, today. More at iu.edu.