Spare a thought for those living “the hot life”
When discussing climate change, the conversation often turns to metrics like global averages or regional temperatures. However, these broad measurements overlook the reality that, even within the same city, different individuals experience drastically different climates.
Some people live much hotter lives than others.
The climate an individual experiences is deeply connected to their social and economic status. Research has consistently shown that poorer neighborhoods are hotter. This occurs because wealthier neighborhoods typically have trees, parks, and better infrastructure that helps to keep the temperatures down.
Poorer neighborhoods have more concrete surfaces, fewer trees, and inadequate housing structures, all of which contribute to a hotter environment. Some of this is a relic of segregationist housing policy, where today’s hottest neighborhoods were more likely to have formerly been “redlined” areas.
Hotter temperatures in poor neighborhoods inevitably lead to increased reliance on air conditioning to maintain a comfortable living environment. This means higher costs for cooling a home. While wealthier individuals can simply adjust their thermostats, the poor must make difficult choices between cooling, eating, rent, and other necessities. The cost of cooling a home thus becomes not just a matter of convenience, but a reflection of the broader inequalities in our society.
In addition to the disparities in living conditions, the climate divide is further widened by the nature of employment. Poor individuals are more likely to have “hot jobs” — jobs that require working in extremely hot environments. These occupations include outdoor professions like landscaping, agricultural work, and construction, where workers are exposed to the full brunt of the sun’s heat. Hot indoor jobs include those working in warehouses or restaurant kitchens, or basically any job without good ventilation or cooling systems.
Some of the people in Texas living the hottest lives are prisoners who live in un-air-conditioned facilities. Despite the extreme temperatures common in the region, the Texas State government has actively chosen not to air-condition prisons. This decision leads to inmates living in conditions that are unbearably hot during the sweltering summer months, leading to the deaths of prisoners.
It’s not just heat — it also applies to other climate disasters. If you ask who typically experiences flooding, the answer similarly points to the poor and socially disadvantaged. This phenomenon occurs for two primary reasons: 1) economically challenged individuals often reside in the most flood-prone area, because rich people have taken the better land, and 2) there is much less investment in helping these communities adapt to the increased risks of flooding.
The latter issue stems from economic cost-benefit analyses that ends up prioritizing the defense of affluent neighborhoods from floods because of the concentration of expensive assets there. This underscores one of the many problems with economic analysis: emphasizing the protection of wealth rather than the equitable safety and well-being of all residents. It's a stark illustration of how economics plays a key role in perpetuating the disparity in how natural disasters unequally affect our society.
Those saying “we can adapt to climate change” or “it’s not that hot” are almost always people who live the cool life. They live in air conditioning and, when they go to work, they get into an air-conditioned car and drive to their air conditioned office. They don’t understand that not everyone lives like they do.
They also don’t understand that they won’t be able to escape the heat forever. As the climate warms, one day the hot life will come for them.
Going off on a tangent: I am currently in Oxford and note a great deal of food is imported into the UK from places where there is increasing difficulty growing food due to drought, fires and floods. (Not forgetting Putin annihilating Ukraine's farmland and produce at a time we cannot afford to waste the lives of healthy young people and resources on wars.)
When I was a young chap in the early 1960s I was aware I needed to work or I might not have enough to eat or somewhere to live - now in my old age I am conscious there may not be much food to buy here. Even in NZ where I live floods this year have devastated land that was particularly suitable for the crops grown there. Some is low-lying and rising sea levels may render it permanently unusable.
I was just reading about the saguaro cactus plants in the Phoenix area collapsing in the heat. I cannot imagine what such extreme heat is doing to humans having to work outside in these conditions.
https://parade.com/news/giant-cactuses-are-collapsing-arizona-heat-wave-photos-july-2023#