Surviving the extreme heat this summer
Sam Hawley: Hi, I’m Sam Hawley, coming to you from Gadigal Land. This is ABC News Daily. In the past few days, large parts of the country have been living through well above average heat. In some cases, temperatures are up to 18 degrees higher than usual for spring. And now we’re officially in an El Nino. Understandably, that’s got a lot of us questioning just how excruciatingly hot summer will be. Today, the founder of Sweltering Cities, Emma Bacon, on who the heat will hit the hardest and how best to prepare as temperature records continue to fall.
News conference: Good afternoon, everyone. The bureau is today declaring that an El Nino event is underway in the Pacific Ocean.
Sam Hawley: Emma. The Bureau of Meteorology has declared that we’re now in an El Nino.
News conference: Globally, the El Nino really means that we have a continuation of the global heat that we’ve seen in the global oceans in particular. And the global oceans have been at record temperatures since about April.
Sam Hawley: And I think we all know by now that that means a very hot and dry summer ahead. But what can we really expect?
Emma Bacon: Well, it’s important to remember that this El Nino event is happening, it’s the backdrop of climate change. We’ve already been seeing over the last few years increasing temperatures the last couple of years haven’t been as hot. But even during those summers we’ve seen record temperatures. In Perth, for example. So we can expect, as you said, for it to be extremely hot. People should expect unprecedented heat, for heat records to continue to fall. All summer long.
Sam Hawley: And already it’s only spring and it’s been so hot in so many places across the country. On the East Coast, 35 degree days, there’s bushfires already in some parts of the country. Total fire bans are in place already.
News report: Temperatures in some parts of western Sydney today climbed above 36 degrees.
News report: Firefighters are battling a bushfire on Tasmania’s east coast, with strong winds fuelling the blaze near Coles Bay.
Sam Hawley: Does any of that surprise you?
Emma Bacon: No, it doesn’t. You know, if we can look at what’s been predicted in terms of rising temperatures, this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. And it actually says we should be more prepared than we are, to be honest. You know, we’ve been looking at the European, the Northern hemisphere summers for the last couple of years. 60,000 people died last year in Europe during their summer heat.
News report: A red alert issued across 16 cities in Italy, many struggling to cope. In Greece, unprecedented conditions forced the closure of the famed Acropolis. As extreme heat edged over 40 degrees.
Emma Bacon: This should have been and I think it is a huge warning alarm for us in Australia that we are going to be experiencing the type of unprecedented heat that the northern hemisphere have had for the last couple of years.
Sam Hawley: Yeah, and of course here we know it often leads to bushfires and that can be a really traumatic thought, can’t it, for a lot of people now?
Emma Bacon: It is. And people we speak to around the country are afraid of those compounding disasters. So what happens if there’s a bushfire at the same time as a heat wave? Maybe emergency services are stretched, maybe you can’t open the window to get some fresh air in your house in the evening. We speak to people in Queensland who are concerned that they’re going to see floods, storms and heat at the same time in the coming years. You know, what does that mean for them in their homes? What does it mean for the emergency services? You know, we need to be thinking about none of these disasters happening in isolation.
Sam Hawley: So, Emma, we know that we’re heading for a hot and very dry summer and there’s really nothing we can do to stop that. That’s completely out of our control, unfortunately. But I want to talk to you now about who among us will suffer the most because the heat does not have the same impact on all of us, does it? Heat is not equitable.
Emma Bacon: No, exactly. So we can’t stop the heat waves happening this summer, but we can stop heatwave disasters and we can act to reduce the extreme heat days into the future. We want to make sure that we are taking serious climate action because if we don’t, it’s these hot summers that are going to become even more of our future. So it’s key to make sure that we’re acting to, you know, turn off the oven. In terms of who’s vulnerable during extreme heat. You know, the categories like older people, people with disabilities and chronic illnesses, people on certain medications, even, you know, antidepressants can have an impact on how your body can regulate temperature. We know pregnant women, little kids, you know, all of those people have physiological reasons why their body might struggle to regulate temperature. But in the sort of heat that we’re going to see, that might be a surprise to people, how dangerous it gets. I think we need to expand our understanding and think, you know, all of us are potentially at risk this summer or next summer and summers into the future. What we’ve seen in places like the Northern Hemisphere and North America over the last months is, you know, people dying on hikes because they don’t understand that that it’s going to be much hotter than they understand, they don’t take enough water and they end up dying in national parks. And those are just extreme, you know, tragedies for people. These are preventable disasters. There’s also the social vulnerabilities. So people who live in hot homes, you know, renters or people in public housing who can’t make simple updates to their homes, those people are more at risk.
News report: A recent survey of 200 people on low incomes by the Australian Council of Social Service found two thirds were struggling to keep their homes cool.
Emma Bacon: People in insecure work who don’t feel as comfortable saying to their boss, Hey, it’s actually too hot to work. You know, maybe they don’t have the workplace protections. And we also know that people who are at risk are the ones who can’t afford to keep themselves cool in heat waves. We’ve spoken to people across the country who say even if they have aircon, they’re second guessing whether they can afford to turn it on.
Sam Hawley: Yes, it’s really expensive right now, isn’t it? So even if you do or are lucky enough, I guess, to have air conditioning before you flick that switch, you’d be thinking of your electricity bill.
Emma Bacon: 100%, and it’s not just that. It’s, you know, can I afford to turn on the air con? Can I afford to even turn on a fan, use more electricity overnight? Can I afford to go somewhere cool on hot days or make simple alterations to my house? All of these are ways that inequality creates vulnerability.
Sam Hawley: Yeah, of course. And not all of us can just pop down to the beach for a swim. And not everyone has a sea breeze.
Emma Bacon: Yeah, exactly.
Sam Hawley: What does it mean for the well-being of the people, you know, that can’t afford air conditioning, that can’t get to the beach for a swim that don’t have the sea breeze?
Emma Bacon: Well, for people who live in hot homes and hot suburbs means that they are going to be under physical and mental health pressures this summer. Mental health. You know, we’ve covered what the physical health pressures can be on people’s bodies to try and stay cool. We know that people with existing medical conditions, that’s a risk. But there’s also mental health challenges when it comes to heat. We know that assaults, domestic violence, suicidality, mental health, hospital admissions all go up as the temperatures rise. And we’ve heard from people around the country, we’ve done these big summer surveys asking thousands of people how they feel the heat. And it’s quite harrowing reading, to be honest. The things that people are telling us is that it’s their anxiety, it’s their depression, it’s feeling like, you know, their homes are unsafe, are hot, the walls are hot around them, that they are feeling isolated because they can’t go out in the heat. People aren’t sleeping at night. And that’s putting a lot of pressure on their mental health and creating conflict potentially in their in their home with their families. And the widespread mental health impacts can’t be underestimated.
Sam Hawley: Yeah, and presumably there’s some suburbs in Australian cities that are far worse than others.
Emma Bacon: Yeah, definitely. So these urban heat island suburbs, as we call them, are areas where there are fewer trees, there’s more concrete, more dark surfaces, and they can be up to ten degrees hotter than other cool parts of the city that might get those sea breezes or have leafy streets and better design and planning. And people can think of it as these suburbs at the edges of lots of our major cities now, which have lots of dark roofs, very few trees, big bitumen roads. And what it’s like on a hot day there is that you’ve got the sun beating down on you, but you’ve also got the radiant heat reflected back at you coming from the bitumen, coming from the dark roofs, dark roofs themselves like heat up suburbs. They heat up our homes. We need to be building safer, cooler suburbs because, you know, whether it’s western Sydney, the northern suburbs of Adelaide or Logan and Ipswich in Queensland, all of these places are urban heat islands where people are at even more risk.
Sam Hawley: All right. So, Emma, we know for sure that the hot summer ahead is going to be a lot worse for some Australians than others. So let’s look at what can be done to fix this. First of all, what can people do to their homes, their existing homes?
Emma Bacon: A lot of this is about being prepared, saying, what can I do now ahead of summer? You know, let’s not wait until it’s been 40 degrees for three days to go and try and buy a fan. Can you install better blinds to block the sun from coming in? You know, the windows are there other, you know, window coverings that you can install, whether they’re awnings on the outside or fabric on the inside to make sure that hot air isn’t coming in so hot temperatures aren’t coming in. What I do at home, you know, I make sure we’ve got those door snakes around the doors. There’s lots of gaps. And to make sure hot air isn’t coming in, that can make a big difference. And also, if you’ve got the capacity, things like planting trees on your block and especially against those north and west walls, they’re going to both block the sun and contribute to local cooling. But we also know that it’s easier for some people to do this than others. There’s people who are renters around the country who have told us we just want a bit of insulation or a ceiling fan or these minor alterations. We want our windows, you know, to have flyscreens on them so we can open them in summer. We need to make sure everyone has equal access to being able to update their homes, and we’re funding that.
Sam Hawley: All right. And what about these hot suburbs? Is there any way we can cool those down a bit?
Emma Bacon: Yeah, definitely. If you can see, like, as I said, lots of our hot suburbs at the moment. They’ve got treeless streets, lots of concrete, dark surfaces. And one thing we can do is we can say we are not going to install any more black roofs. Black roofs on a hot day can be 40 degrees hotter than the local air temperature. People have measured even earlier this year, temperatures up to 50 degrees inside the roof cavity of a roof of a home with a black roof in western Sydney. And we can also be way more ambitious when it comes to planting trees, you know, on both public and private property and stopping the deforestation in our suburbs. Let’s keep the mature trees there.
Sam Hawley: So, Emma, what’s your message as we head into what is going to be a hot and long summer? How are we going to survive this?
Emma Bacon: One thing in environmental disasters that we need to know is that community connection can save lives and isolation can kill. What we can do now is we can talk to our friends, family, think about who you’re going to check in on on a hot day. Who are you going to check in and say, you know, hey, man, how are you feeling? Are you okay? Checking in on a friend that lives alone and might not have aircon. Having those community connections and making sure that people aren’t struggling by themselves. And we’re offering a hand. That’s hugely important. But not all of these burdens should fall onto individuals. This is a really actually, when you think about it, heatwaves don’t just affect a small number of people at once. They can affect millions of people at once. So we need much more ambitious solutions at a state and federal level, including better planning for our suburbs, retrofitting unsafe homes to make them more energy efficient and doing health outreach, social outreach to vulnerable communities to make sure they’ve got the resources. We shouldn’t be living in a country where people die in heatwaves because they’re poor.
Sam Hawley: Emma Bacon is the founder of Sweltering Cities. The last El Nino event occurred in 20 1819 in eastern Australia. Nine of the ten driest winter spring periods on record occurred during El Nino years. This episode was produced by Nell Whitehead, Bridget Fitzgerald and Anna John, who also did the mix. Our supervising producer is David Coady. I’m Sam Hawley. Abc News Daily will be back again tomorrow. Thanks for listening.
