Diné filmmaker Steven Hatathlie Tallas wanted to find out how traditional Navajo dwellings, known as hogans, handle heat in the Southwest. The science experiment that followed was captured in a new PBS short film called “Standing the Heat,” which can now be streamed on NOVA.
“After reviewing the thermal camera footage, it showed me that the traditional hogans remained 7.5 degrees cooler, on average, than the modern house,” Tallas narrated in his film. “So what’s the secret? How can an older design be handling a new problem like climate change?”
His answer: Thermal mass.
“Thermal radiation, basically, the soil and the ground with the wood makes a good insulation,” Tallas told KJZZ News, “which actually, in the wintertime, puts heat back into the hogan, and during summertime, it keeps heat out.”
Last summer, the Navajo Nation declared a state of emergency during a severe heatwave, when temperatures stayed in the triple digits.
Tallas shared that dealing with extreme heat — caused by climate change — isn’t only a Valley problem. An estimated 13,000 families, or a third of all households on the Navajo Nation, are still without the electricity needed for air conditioning.
“It’s bigger than Phoenix. It’s the whole world,” added Tallas. “Everything is changing.”
His latest project accompanies five other Indigenous-made short films, part of a digital series called “Legacy of the Land.”
Half of them focus on Arizona tribes.
Native Outdoors’ “Megadroughts and Indigenous Voices” centers on Navajo relationships to water, while “Harvesting the Future,” directed by Wenona Benally and Sal Baldenegro, unearths ancient desert agricultural practices in Tucson from the Hokoham, O’odham and Ak Chin communities.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Audio from "Standing the Heat" short film in this story is courtesy of PBS NOVA.
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