Governments can set up early-warning systems to alert health workers, shut down schools and suspend outdoor activities. They can provide the public with forecasts of imminent heatwaves, explanations of the dangers and detailed advice on what to do. Digital channels, including social media, can help distribute such information widely, and not just in tech hotspots like the Pacific Northwest. In 2017 nearly half the population of Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital, were warned of an imminent heatwave via Facebook.
Improved infrastructure can also help. This includes providing shaded areas, water parks and “misting stations” to help people cool down, and access to air-conditioned “cooling centres” where they can find shelter and sleep if necessary. Such amenities depend, in turn, on a more fundamental form of infrastructure: reliable access to water and electricity, supplies of which may need to be carefully managed.
Last comes planning. Building codes should ensure that new homes and offices can cope with extreme heat. Existing buildings can be adapted by painting walls and roofs white, or adding sheets of white material, to reduce heat build-up in urban areas. Planting trees provides shade and cools the air, and also improves it—leading to a vogue for miniature “Miyawaki forests” planted in urban areas.
The world is, understandably, focused on a different health crisis right now. But heatwaves, along with obesity, dementia and antibiotic resistance, pose an entirely foreseeable threat in the decades to come—as we explain in “What If?”, our annual collection of future scenarios. The timing and severity of the coronavirus pandemic could not have been foreseen. These other far more predictable and preventable crises are different. There is no excuse for failing to take them more seriously.
