The Washington Post analyzed the risks of a prolonged, citywide blackout coinciding with a more severe heat wave. Experts warn this type of catastrophe — a combined power outage with a heat wave — is a scenario that cities and states are unprepared for.
As summer begins in the United States, some local officials and health experts are sounding the alarm about the dangers of extreme heat, whose effects can be deadly but hard to trace. Kristie Ebi, professor of global health and of environmental and occupational health sciences at the UW, is quoted.
In the Puget Sound region, average monthly lows are rising in all summer months, with August continuing to see the highest lows. And, while minimum temperatures are up year-round, the summer months — July to September — have seen the sharpest increases.
Kristie Ebi, professor of global health and of environmental and occupational health sciences at the UW, is quoted.
As Earth’s climate continues to change from heat-trapping gases spewed into the air, ever fewer people are out of reach from the billowing and deadly fingers of wildfire smoke, scientists say. Already wildfires are consuming three times more of the U.S. and Canada each year than in the 1980s and studies predict fire and smoke to worsen.
Kristie Ebi, professor of global health and of environmental and occupational health sciences at the UW, is quoted.
Climate change is making summers hotter, blackouts more common, and heat-related illness more dangerous. The power system may be resilient—but it still has vulnerabilities.
Dr. Jeremy Hess, professor of global health, of emergency medicine and of environmental and occupational health sciences at the UW, is quoted.
In June 2021, the “heat dome” that struck the Pacific Northwest set 128 all-time high temperature records across the state. Two years after that event, a collaborative effort led by two University of Washington teams has drawn up recommendations for how people and groups across the state could prevent future heat-related illness and save lives.
Dr. Jeremy Hess, professor of global health, of emergency medicine and of environmental and occupational health sciences at the UW, and director of CHanGE, is quoted.
Carole Green, a master’s student at the University of Washington (UW) School of Public Health, studies how prepared our cities and countries are to adapt to climate change’s impact on our health. Green works with faculty in the Department of Global Health, at the UW Center for Health and the Changing Environment (CHanGE), and at the Lancet Countdown — a global team of experts reporting climate change updates — to understand the health risks and vulnerabilities communities face.
Climate hazards such as flooding, heat waves and drought have worsened more than half of the hundreds of known infectious diseases in people, including malaria, hantavirus, cholera and anthrax, a study says.
Kristie Ebi, Professor of Global Health and of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences at the UW, is quoted.
Two University of Washington experts in climate change and health are lead authors of the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The African continent is heating up more, and faster, than other regions in the world according to the recently released State of Climate in Africa Report. By 2030, the report says up to 118 million extremely poor people will be subject to the devastating impacts of drought and intense heat.
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