Phoenix continues to set heat records this summer, but other communities have also seen an increase in the impacts of extreme heat. And Sara Meerow, an associate professor in the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning at ASU and co-leader the new National Center for Heat Resilient Communities, says she’s seen a sea change over the last five years or so.
Meerow says there's been dramatic increase in the level of interest across all kinds of communities worldwide in taking this issue on, including in some places that haven’t really had to worry too much about heat as a threat before. She joined The Show to talk about this.
Full conversation
MARK BRODIE: It just seems like there's not really such a one size fits all approach, for example, place like Miami is very hot but also very humid, whereas Phoenix is not. So you'd probably need a different action in different places are cities doing that or trying more to do "one of those one size fits all" approaches.
SARA MEEROW: I think that there is this recognition that heat is contextual, as you, as you gave those examples. But I will also say that in some of the research that we've been doing where we've been looking at city plans to see how they're addressing heat and what kinds of strategies they're using, we do see a lot of similarities in the approaches. And so, I would say that there probably is additional room for customization and, you know, contextualization moving forward.
BRODIE: One of the things I think is really interesting that you write about is the fact that people really need to work together in different departments, different areas of expertise, to really make a difference than if you just have, for example, city planners trying to deal with this, you're not going to get the maximum result, as if you have sort of an all of government approach.
MEEROW: Absolutely. So heat is a complex hazard, and these different sectors and different departments, say within a particular community, have been dealing with aspects of heat. But, what I think has been really missing and it's just now we're starting to see some emergence of this, is a really holistic approach to actually addressing heat, right?
So, developing a comprehensive heat strategy for a community or having a dedicated, you know, chief heat officer, who will try to actually bring together the public health dimensions of heat, the built environment or you know, urban infrastructure aspects of heat, the climate modeling, right? All of these different components.
So, yeah, I think that's really, really critical and the reality is we have often had a more siloed, separated approach to dealing with heat, and I think this is a barrier to really efficiently and effectively addressing it.
BRODIE: So you mentioned that you're seeing a lot of similarities and I'm wondering if in those similarities are they the right things? Are cities and, and their leaders doing the kinds of things that they ought to be doing that really make the most difference, or they just kind of doing the things that sound good or look good or, or people think work, but maybe there isn't enough data to, to suggest they actually do?
MEEROW: It's hard to say what works or what doesn't work because it really depends what your goal is, right? And this is something that we talk about in, in this paper is that, you know, if your goal is, you know, really trying to reduce heat deaths in the short term, then it's probably not going to be extremely effective to have your main strategy be planting tiny saplings, right? Because those trees are going to take time to grow large, to actually provide shade, to really be effective heat mitigation.
But, if your goal is, “hey, let's really try to improve the livability and and comfortable in your temperature, the thermal comfort of our community in the long term,” well, then planting those trees might be quite advantageous. And so, again, I think it's really important to just be very clear about, what is our goal. Is our goal, you know, short term heat death, reductions or heat illness reductions, or is it the long term comfort of our community? And this will probably point to different strategies, right?
BRODIE: Yeah. Well, I guess that kind of raises the question of what kinds of goals are you seeing communities setting and, and do you think they are the right goals?
MEEROW: Yeah, great question. I think there's a lot of discussion around urban heat islands, right, And trying to reduce the urban heat island. And, I think that this idea of the urban heat island effect, the fact that cities, urban areas, may be hotter than surrounding areas or natural areas, has really captured a lot of attention.
But, there's also been some criticism that just trying to say, reduce those differences between some average you know, temperature within a city versus outside of the city, that this may not actually be the most important goal if what we're trying to do is really, say reduce heat related illnesses or deaths, right? And so I think that's one area where, you know, it's important to just really, really think about that.
But, I do think ultimately that is, that many communities do have, you know, reducing heat illnesses or deaths as you know, a very important primary goal. And so I think that is critical, I certainly do not disagree with that, that one as, as something to focus on, right?
I would say another one that, you know, my question is, is just pure tree planting goals, as opposed to maybe thinking about the potential for other ways of providing shade.
This is something that has been identified as well as, you know, potentially a limitation is that, you know, again, because trees take many years often to grow to really provide shade, that it can be important to think about, you know, forms of built shade too, right? And how we might actually design our buildings to provide shade to pedestrians down below. So, I think that thinking about these kinds of additional strategies is important.
So, for example, the city of Phoenix has transitioned from previously, they had a tree and shade master plan and the latest sort of iteration is, is much more focused on a shade, which includes trees as a very important part of providing that shade, but also considers built shade as well.
BRODIE: Right. So, we've been talking almost exclusively about the role of government, but I'm wondering what roles other sectors have? For example, the private sector, the the nonprofit sector, philanthropies, you know, entities like that. Do they have a role here as well?
MEEROW: Absolutely. When we talk about heat governance, we make it very clear that we're not just talking about government, right? It's about how society collectively addresses heat risks and this is going to include nonprofits. This is going to include community organizations and the private sector is also a huge player. I mean, the built environment, so how our communities are actually developed, the infrastructure, the buildings, right are going to play a really important role. And so, developers who actually construct those and design those are, are really critical actors.
And I actually think that's one area where where an opportunity, right, to actually provide more guidance to the private sector, to developers in terms of, you know, getting them to actually consider how their designs and what they're implementing might affect heat.
