How to Prepare for Climate Change: A Practical Guide to Surviving the Chaos - Softcover

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David Pogue is a seven-time Emmy Award winner for his stories on CBS Sunday Morning, a five-time TED speaker, host of  twenty NOVA specials on PBS, and a New York Times bestselling author. He’s written about Apple for his entire career, including thirteen years as a Macworld columnist, thirteen more as tech columnist for The New York Times, and twenty years as the #1 bestselling author of books about Macs and iPhones. He lives with his family in New York.

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“How to Prepare for Climate Change” by David Pogue (Simon & Schuster, 2021) is the first practical guide to adapting to the new climate. It covers where to live; how to invest; how to insure; how to talk to your kids; how to build; what to grow; how to prepare a business; and how to prepare for flood, fire, drought, hurricane, heat waves, and tornadoes. 

This excerpt is from Chapter 10, “Preparing for Heat Waves.” 

Preparing for Heat Waves 

You could fill an internet with examples of heat records being broken recently: 

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  The last five years have been the hottest ever measured on the planet.  
  

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  September 2020 was the hottest month ever recorded.  
  
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  The hottest temperature ever reliably recorded was 130° F in Death Valley, California—on July 10, 2021. 
  
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  The July 2021 North American heat wave produced the hottest temperatures ever recorded in Canada (121.3°), Oregon (116°), and Washington state (118°).  
  

But these records are made—and guaranteed—to be broken, over and over again. Computer models predict that from 2050 to 2100, heat waves will triple in frequency. 

Figure 10-1. The 0 line represents the 1901–2000 average worldwide temperature, as measured by both land-based and sea-surface sensors. The downward bars indicate below-average temperatures; the upward ones indicate above average. 

Unfortunately, in most years, heat is the biggest killer of them all. In 2018, heat killed 50% more Americans than floods did, and three times as many people as hurricanes. In 2021, the Pacific Northwest heat wave killed over 700 people—and over a billion animals. 

Figure 10-2. Of all the extreme-weather monsters, heat is the deadliest. 

The bottom line: In the last 25 years, heat exposure has killed more people than hurricanes, lightning, tornadoes, floods, and earthquakes combined. 

Figure 10-3. In the United States, the Northern and Western states have warmed the fastest since 1991—look at Alaska! The Southeastern states have heated up but not nearly as much. (Darker spots have heated up more.) 

How Heat Affects Us 

Heat dries us out, weakens us, impairs our thinking, makes us more argumentative. It also stresses our hearts, which might not be an immediately obvious side effect.  

Ordinarily, a teaspoon’s worth of sweat, cumulatively evaporating from all over your body, can cool your bloodstream a full 2 degrees. (A liquid evaporating from any surface cools it down.) 

But when it’s humid out, sweat doesn’t evaporate from your skin, because it has no place to evaporate to. The air around you doesn’t want it; it’s already saturated with water vapor. That’s why humidity magnifies the effects of heat waves. 

The unfortunate payoff: 

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  Asthma. Hot air and humid air are both triggers for asthma attacks. To make matters worse, hot days are usually windless days. If the air is polluted, it just sits there, stagnant, and you’re breathing it. That’s why asthma and other lung problems get worse during heat waves. 
  

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  Heat cramps. When you lose enough water and salt, you start getting muscle spasms, especially if you’ve been playing sports or working outdoors. Consider these your early-warning system. Stop what you’re doing, start drinking water, and get out of the heat. 
  
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  Heat exhaustion. If you’ve been in extreme heat for a long time—a couple of days, for example—you might start sweating heavily; feeling your heart race; and feeling faint, dizzy, and tired. You may also get nausea and headache. Key symptom: Your skin is cold and clammy. 
  

This is really bad news. Stop what you’re doing, start drinking water, get out of the heat, and seek medical treatment fast. 

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  Heatstroke. This is the final stage of heat injury. Your body can’t control its own temperature anymore. Your internal temp spikes above 104°. Congratulations: You’ve got hyperthermia (heatstroke). 
  

You get confused, dizzy, and mumbly, with a splitting headache. Sometimes, you feel nauseated, your skin is flushed, you’re breathing fast, and your heart goes nuts, beating fast to try to cool you down. Key symptom: Skin is hot and dry. 

You might not even know what’s happening, because—unless you’ve been exercising—you’re not sweating. But unless you get emergency treatment fast, heatstroke can do damage to your brain (because it swells in your skull), heart, kidneys, and muscles. 

If you suspect that someone is having heatstroke, Cool them down. Get them into shade or air-conditioning; take off as many of their clothes as possible; spray them with water; and put cold, wet towels on their neck, armpits, and groin. 

The AC Problem 

Air conditioners are power beasts and environmental disasters. They’re the costliest items on your electric bill, accounting for half of it in hot weather.  

Another problem: Air conditioners work by pumping indoor hot air out of the building. The net effect of those thousands of air conditioners is, quite literally, to heat up the outdoors, by as much as 2 degrees. They contribute to the heat island effect, a measurable spike in temperature in densely populated areas. 

Figure 10-4. This is London, viewed from space with an infrared camera. The darkest spots are 5 degrees warmer than the lightest ones, even though the weather is identical. That’s the heat-island effect. 

Finally, all those air conditioners running simultaneously contributes to another common heat-wave side effect: Power blackouts. 

In other words, you should know how to cool yourself even without power. Read on. 

Indoors in the Heat Wave 

Once the heat wave is upon you, eliminate as many heat sources as possible. Don’t run big appliances (washer, dryer, dishwasher, oven, stove) until it gets cool at night; they pump heat into your house.  

Close the shades or curtains, especially on windows that face south and west. Instantly, you’ve created a midday temperature drop of an almost 20-degree difference. If you don’t have window coverings, hang some kind of improvised white drapes, or even fill the windows with reflectors made of foil-covered cardboard.  

Meanwhile: 

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  Keep the heat out. Keep exterior doors and windows closed during the hot part of the day.  
  
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  Let the air flow. Open all the interior doors of all the rooms. More air flowing means a cooler interior. 
  
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  Designate a “cool room.” A typical basement stays at around 55° all year long, no matter how hot or cold it is above the ground. A basement is a great place to hang out when it’s baking outside. 
  

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  Cool packs. Mattresses and couch cushions trap body...