| Description |
1 online resource (42 pages) : color illustrations, color maps, color photographs |
| Contents |
Chapter 1 Introduction. Examining future extreme heat and emissions choices. A snapshot of results. -- Chapter 2 The heat index: what extreme heat "feels like". How and why the National Weather Service uses heat index thresholds. -- Chapter 3 How heat harms our bodies. Heat-related illnesses and deaths. Child bodies. Elderly bodies. Bodies with special conditions and needs. -- Chapter 4 Findings: the future of dangerously hot days. Midcentury results (2036-2065). Late-century results (2070-2099). -- Chapter 5 Implicatons: how the heat we create threatens us all-but some more than others. Outdoor workers. City dwellers. Rural residents. People and neighborhoods with low income or experiencing poverty. People exposed to other extremes. -- Our challenge and our choices: limiting extreme heat and its accompanying harm. Keeping people safe from extreme heat. Investing in heat-smart infrastructure. Investing in climate-smart power systems. Putting the nation on a rapid path to reduced emissions. Holding the line against an unrecognizably hot future. -- Appendix: methodology. -- Endnotes. -- References |
| Summary |
Extreme heat is among the deadliest weather hazards society faces. During extremely hot days, heat-related deaths spike and hospital admissions for heat-related illnesses rise, especially among people experiencing poverty, elderly adults, and other vulnerable groups. This Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) analysis shows that if we stay on our current global emissions path, extreme heat days are poised to rise steeply in frequency and severity in just the next few decades. This heat would cause large areas of the United States to become dangerously hot and would threaten the health, lives, and livelihoods of millions of people. Such heat could also make droughts and wild fires more severe, harm ecosystems, cause crops to fail, and reduce the reliability of the infrastructure we depend on |
| Notes |
"July 2019." |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 34-42) |
| Notes |
"This report was made possible by the generous support of the Barr Foundation, the Common Sense Fund, the Energy Foundation, the Fresh Sound Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Rauch Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, The Scherman Foundation, one anonymous funder, and UCS members." |
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Online resource; title from PDF title page (UCS, viewed November 12, 2019) |
| Subject |
Climatic changes -- Health aspects -- United States
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Heat -- Health aspects
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Human beings -- Effect of temperature on
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Climatic changes -- Health aspects.
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United States.
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| Author |
Spanger-Siegfried, Erika, author
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Licker, Rachel, author
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Caldas, Astrid, author
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Abatzoglou, John, author
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Mailloux, John, author
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Cleetus, Rachel, author
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Udvardy, Shana, author
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Declet-Barreto, Juan, author
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Worth, Pamela, author
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Union of Concerned Scientists, publisher
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