Governments and organizations must listen to older adults’ experiences with extreme heat, flooding and wildfire smoke to create effective policies and programs
As crops fail in the rising heat, men are leaving many rural areas for migrant work in cities. Women are left to tend to the farming in increasingly dangerous conditions.
Extreme heat waves are putting lives in danger, with some of the hottest urban neighborhoods 10 degrees hotter or more than their wealthier neighbors. Often, these are communities of color.
La Niña is only part of the problem. The long-term driver of increasing drought – even in areas getting more rainfall overall – is the rapidly warming climate.
The risk from heat waves is about more than intensity – being able to cool off is essential, and that’s hard to find in many low-income areas of the world.
Kevin Trenberth, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau
While surface temperatures were about the 6th warmest on record in 2021, the upper oceans were at their hottest – and they’re a stronger indicator of global warming. A top climate scientist explains.
A hurricane that wreaked havoc from Louisiana to New York City, the Texas freeze and devastating western wildfires topped NOAA’s list of billion-dollar disasters in 2021.
Studies show climate change is raising the risk of cascading hazards that alone might not be extreme but add up to human disasters. Communities and government agencies aren’t prepared.
More than half of the world’s population lives in cities, and that share is growing. Rapid climate change could make many cities unlivable in the coming decades without major investments to adapt.
Hot, humid population centers are becoming epicenters of heat risk as climate changes worsens. It’s calling into question the conventional wisdom that urbanization uniformly reduces poverty.