Climate change will test the ability of humans to survive

Scientists say urgent action needs to be taken. According to them, our way of life must be rethought.

Extreme heat is going to become more and more of a problem in the future, periodsaid Professor Blair Feltmate, director of theIntact Center on Climate Adaptation [Centre sur l’adaptation au climat Intact, traduction libre] from the University of Waterloo, Ontario.

Temperatures in India and Pakistan recently soared to 50C, killing at least 90 people and devastating agricultural crops. South Asia, along with Africa, Australia and the US Gulf states, is now facing life-threatening combinations of heat and humidity – conditions scientists did not predict until the end of the century.

Canada is also feeling the effects of extreme heat: in British Columbia last summer, 595 people died from the heat. The village of Lytton, British Columbia, set a new Canadian record for heat (49.6°C) on June 29, before being razed by a forest fire the following day. The same heat dome left the ground parched, contributing to catastrophic flooding in British Columbia months later.

Mr. Feltmate is one of the authors of a recent report which warns of a life-threatening future for Canadians in terms of heat, especially those living in the southern interior of British Columbia, along the US border in the Prairies, and in southern Ontario and Quebec.

We are going to see some extreme heat spells that will make it look relatively mild what we saw in British Columbia last year during the heat dome said Mr. Feltmate.

How heat affects our body

When you’re exposed to prolonged heat, you may feel sluggish because your organs are working harder to keep you cool — and alive.

Your heart beats harder to push blood to your skin, where it can cool down. Sweating is also essential for cooling your body, but it becomes more difficult as the humidity rises.

In extreme cases of heatstroke, the body begins to cook, leading to cell destruction and organ damage.

It is very similar to cooking an eggsaid Professor Stephen Cheung, an expert in environmental stress on human physiology at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ont.

The reason it changes from a liquid white mass to a solid white mass is that the proteins have changed. […] If your body continues to heat up and is unable to control its temperature, eventually your proteins will do the same in your cells.

Sitting in the shade and drinking water is not enough when you are already suffering from heat stroke. It is essential to cool [une personne frappée d’un coup de chaleur] as quickly as possible, ideally by immersing it in as cold water as possibleMr. Cheung said.

Heat can also have a negative impact on people’s mental health, says Michael Brauer, a professor in the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia.

Night temperatures are very important. It’s really about trying to get your bedroom cool enough, your body cool enough that you can sleep.

Beat the heat

Cheung, who helped Canadian athletes prepare for the heat and humidity of the Tokyo Olympics last year, says our body’s core temperature can adapt to higher heat on a period of approximately two weeks of gradual and continuous exposure.

The biggest advantage, in a sense, that humans have over other animals is our behavior. We can develop things like housing, air conditioning, better clothes, etc.Mr. Cheung said. But it comes at a cost, whether it’s forcing us to stay indoors, or increasing energy consumption due to air conditioning.

Many people cannot stay indoors and stay cool, especially those whose work involves physical exertion outdoors, such as farmers and people doing manual labor.

In the future, according to Mr Feltmate, the working day will have to be staggered so that these workers can avoid the hottest times of the day – for example, starting work at 5.30 a.m. and finishing it at 1 p.m. .

Cities themselves need to be cooled, which means designing and renovating buildings with heat in mind, planting more trees and painting roofs white so they reflect light instead of heat. ‘absorb,’ says Mr. Feltmate.

He adds that it’s essential that residential buildings have a backup power supply to keep air conditioning and fans running in the event of a heat-induced power outage.

A lack of urgency

As simple as these measures may seem, Feltmate says Canadian cities and governments are not acting fast enough, despite warnings about the risk of loss of life from extreme heat.

What is missing from the equation, more than anything, is the absence of a sense of appreciation for the need to act urgently to put adaptation measures in place.

Adapting also means making a plan in case places become too hot to be inhabitable by humans, as may be the case in parts of the Persian Gulf, South Asia, Central America and West Africa before the end of the century.

There are real thresholds to what our bodies can handle even when acclimatized, and the Gulf region is starting to exceed those thresholds more regularly.said Cascade Tuholske, researcher at the Center for International Earth Science Information Network [Centre pour le réseau international d’information sur les sciences de la Terre, traduction libre] from Columbia University, whose research focuses on exposure to deadly urban heat.

Poorer countries, where people depend on subsistence agriculture, could see mass migration to cities, which themselves are ill-equipped to deal with the increasing heat.

This is why global solutions to climate change are so important, Tuholske said.

I really question the livability of many of the most populated places on the planet due to extreme heat without adaptation. The future really depends on the present and how much we tone down the heat right now.