Welcome to Hot World Summer - CNN One Thing - Podcast on CNN Audio - CNN

Welcome to Hot World Summer - CNN One Thing - Podcast on CNN Audio

My younger sister lives in Phoenix and I was talking to her the other day about how her dogs are dealing with this extreme heat. She says it's so bad they run around in the backyard for about 5 minutes and then want to come right back in. Walking them on the pavement is pretty much a no go, both for the animals and the human. And who can blame them? It has not dipped below 110 degrees Fahrenheit there since June. The low - yes, the low - was 97 early Wednesday.

It feels like if the hot sauce could be felt without you having it taste like it and it got poured on my back.

That is just a tiny, tiny snapshot of the pain millions and millions of people are facing around the world right now.

You know, we've had globally the hottest temperature on record back July 3rd. Well, every day since then, we have surpassed the old record.

And as this climate change fueled heatwave drags on, experts say buckle up. Even though this is the hottest planet Earth has ever been, this could actually be the coldest summer of the rest of your life.

My guest this week is CNN Chief Climate Correspondent Bill Weir. We're going to talk about what's behind the record setting temperatures and what we can all do to survive this new abnormal. From CNN, this is One Thing. I'm David Rind.

Bill, I need a gut check here because we're talking about July 19th. It's summer. It's supposed to be hot in the summer, right?

Absolutely. Especially in Phenix and Miami and the southwest of the United States. But they don't know heat like this. They don't know three weeks of 110 degree highs in Phenix with lows in the mid nineties, which is really dangerous. This is a this is a new level of summer discomfort and it is only July. Normally, we hit these dog days in August, the beginning of September. But this this year is off the charts in every measure.

Yeah. What is different specifically about this heat wave that has been going on now for weeks?

Well, the main driver behind it all is climate change. If you think of the bell curve of temperature and that is sort of been so hospitable to human evolution with the the middle high part of that bell curve around 68 degrees Fahrenheit and the coldest extremes on the left and the hottest on the right. That whole curve has moved almost two degrees towards the hot side.

Italy, Greece, Spain and Switzerland are just some of the countries already suffering the consequences.

Man (Translated)

00:02:57

(Italian) this is not normal. I don't remember such intense heat, especially at this time of year.

So you have much higher chances of these record breaking temperatures, which we've seen 3500 temperatures around the world, new highs set.

In Death Valley, California. It will be the hottest place on Earth. It's possible that temperatures there reach 130 degrees.

In the United States, it's been 1500 records smashed. So it's just we've we've built a new planet for ourselves and we're just sort of figuring out how it works, how it affects the water cycles.

This fire is just far too large to extinguish. In fact, the area already burned is larger than most countries on the planet.

In places where it's dry, like the boreal forests of north, in Canada, it means wildfires.

This time, the smoke traveled over 2000 miles to get where I'm located now. And what you see directly behind me is extremely unhealthy air.

And it's just south of there. You know, a warmer planet holds a lot more moisture. When the rains come, they come in buckets as we saw in the northeast last week.

But it is absolutely raging. And we keep seeing these pulses of water coming up out of the street. I'm going to stop talking for a second and just let you listen to this.

And this is a global trend. If you go around, if you sort of imagine you're holding a globe in your hands and just slowly rotate it, there are these big heat domes. North America and Europe, Southern Europe in particular, and parts of China, where they hit 126 degrees, new all time high.

Hospitals saying they're seeing people come in with burns because surfaces the ground is so hot. If people get to the point that the delirious at about 107 degrees, they are falling, making contact and they're dealing with those burns.

Weather is local. And that's why climate change often is such a challenge to talk about, because there's always going to be a bluebird day after the pain. But to experience this sort of scorching heat sort of around the world at the same time is is something else.

Can you talk me through the heat specifically? Because when we talk about climate change and some of the more visible catastrophes that can come along with that, with melting ice, rising seas, more extreme storms, but heat the silent killer, you can't see it. So what can we all do on a practical, personal level to stay safe?

Well, just be super aware of your body's limitations. And I went to the gym the other day, and for the first time ever, I looked at what the temperatures are on the dry sauna and steam room, 170 degrees. So the Scandinavian style hot sauna, 108 degrees steam room, and I can do maybe 10 minutes in each of those. But if you were to lock me in there for an hour, then. Then we're getting into dangerous levels. And a lot of people who are working outside don't realize that their body temperature, the air temperature may be 120 degrees with the heat index. But if they're working with equipment, that could be 180 degrees. And so there's all this radiated heat that it goes as well. And so your body goes into overtime, the kidneys go into overtime to try to cool yourself off. And folks, you know, with health problems, the elderly are the biggest victims of this. We saw this in Europe last year where thousands of people died in the northern latitudes and they're mostly older folks and older homes not equipped to cool themselves.

I know in some ways the moral of the story of our planet is kind of 'there is no escape' like this is coming for everybody. But I do get the feeling that where people decide to live now is going to be very important and very fraught kind of decision. So what is that going to look like?

Well, I'm going to start by stealing some examples from the animal kingdom. I don't know if you know this, David, but the camel is originally from Canada. For millions of years, it was tromping around the boreal forest until they crossed a land bridge into Asia about 70,000 years ago and accidentally figured out that that hump of fat that got them through the winters also works across big deserts. And the eyelids and feet that worked in snowstorms work with sand, and that species literally adapted physically, socially, anatomically. There are penguins now, Antarctica, that are doing this in real time. Some species are staying put as the climate changes, others are moving and thriving while those other populations crash. And we're next. Unfortunately, this is the result of, you know, over a century of packing the atmosphere in the oceans with heat trapping pollution. And so how bad it gets is the only question going forward. Now there's a debate over whether we should call this the new normal. This could just be the opening attractions. If things aren't done to slow down the amount of carbon we're putting into the air. So the cities that adapt, like the camel and the Gentoo penguin, are the cities that are like in Spain, where they're bringing back sort of an ancient cooling system of having underground canals, bringing cool water to the street level. Santorini, Greece, long ago figured out if you paint all your houses white, that reflective power can cool things down. The greenest cities, the ones with the biggest natural canopies, will be the most enviable places. Shade will be a direct correlate or two of property value in this new world.

The other thing to think about is often we think about sea level rise lapping on the front steps of South Beach around Miami. Well, long before that ever happens, there could be an economic crisis in places like Florida because insurance companies are already pulling out almost in mass and saying, if you want to live in paradise down there, you can assume all your own risk. We're not going to cover you. And that changes the economic dynamic. It changes property values, changes tax bases.

Christina Macfarlane

00:08:40

"Like a good neighbor State Farm is there" will no longer apply to its California neighbors. Insurance company has stopped home insurance sales in the state. It cites the growing risk of catastrophes like wildfires and skyrocketing construction costs for the decision.

And so what you're already starting to see is a climate migration that's economically driven by by those folks who see the signs in the markets and are looking already for higher ground. And then there are those that will have to make that decision after a disaster. I mean, some will choose movements in a deliberate way. Some will have movement thrust upon them by either big storms or droughts. And out west, that make agriculture much harder to make a living by. And so this is why a lieutenant general from the CIA who works with National Guards units, not only in the United States but allies around the world, this week said climate change multiplies virtually every other threat to national security.

I know you get asked this a lot, but, like, the vibes are really bad out there. You know, when it's this hard for this long and we hear about all those knock on effects. So outside of just, you know, pulling the plug completely on fossil fuels, which obviously it's not going to happen any time soon, if ever, can anything be done to claw back some of its impacts? Are we truly past a tipping point of sorts?

We are. Unfortunately, there is a certain percentage of parts per million carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that gave us the sweet spot for human evolution and we've blown past that. And so we don't know what's next. We don't know how fast the changes will come. But the one thing that will determine how bad they get is it's not nature. It's human nature at this point. And. If COVID taught us anything, it's that the communities that have the most trust in each other and science usually make out the best. And right now is an opportunity, I think, for people to come to grips with the a much warmer future and a much more unpredictable future and look around their community and figure out ways to batten down the hatches and build stronger community come what may. And and if it's not as bad as we think, will you have a stronger community nonetheless.

Well, so what does that look like then, on the local level in these communities that are being hit hardest? I know in Phoenix, for example, they set up a first in the nation hit response office. It's devoted entirely just to surging temperatures. You mentioned that white paint that reflects the sun's rays and can kind of cool down buildings. Are we going to see more of that in other cities?

Absolutely. It already has sort of taken root in New York City. A couple of years ago, Mayor de Blasio had an initiative to train and and help fund community groups who wanted to do this. And if you look down from the Manhattan Bridge, you'll see these white rooftops are on the Brooklyn side. It's very sort of patchy. But 20 years in the future, when you fly over major cities, I guarantee you you'll see either white roofs or green space because, you know, solving this problem isn't there isn't a silver bullet. It's buckshot of a million ideas. And if you can bring the temperature down in a neighborhood a few degrees using trees, using white paint, using other cooling techniques, you can save lives that way. So it just seems that we're moving in that direction.

And should we be naming these heatwaves like we do hurricanes, would that make some kind of difference in the public imagination?

That's a interesting debate that's ongoing. They've they've started this already in Europe. Italy named the last two big heat waves after mythological figures, including Cerberus, the three headed dog that's in Dante's Inferno and the United States. There's there's been some pushback on whether you do this and how you do it in a way. But the idea is that if you alert people the way you name a hurricane and say this is bad, here's the number, you attach a score to it, We have the data to show that that can absolutely save lives around the world. So that will....

Like you check in on your family when you know there's a hurricane coming, but not necessarily if there's a heat wave going.

Exactly. Exactly. And if you know that on Wednesday of next week, we're going to hit a Category four, you know, Heat Wave David is coming and it's time to to check on grandma and make sure there's there's, you know, maybe some bottles of frozen water in the fridge If the power goes out to keep yourself cool for a few hours. That's the thinking. Look, we are one of the strengths of our species is the ability to normalize pain and adapt to horrible, horrible conditions. And I hope we don't do that. And what's really unfair about this crisis is that the affluent, those with the biggest footprints, can afford the most insulation from these these these problems and and can live in climate controlled comfort while those with very limited means suffer. I worry that we normalize that. But that is the biggest question, because right now the biggest polluters are making the biggest profits in human history and show no signs of changing their business models. And until that happens, it's only going to get hotter.

Bill, thanks so much. Really appreciate it.

One thing is a production of CNN Audio. This episode was produced by Cece armstrong and me, David Rind. Matt Dempsey is our production manager. Fez Jamil is our senior producer. Greg Peppers is our supervising producer. And Steve Lickteig is the executive producer of CNN Audio. If you have literally 5 seconds, leave us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts. That's how long it takes. Not long at all. Thank you for listening. And we'll be back next Sunday. Talk to you then.