By Editor|2022-05-03T16:57:13+00:00May 3rd, 2022|Comments Off on Warming Up: A Canadian report recommends considering extreme heat as a natural disaster

Warming Up: A Canadian report recommends considering extreme heat as a natural disaster

A report titled Irreversible Extreme Heat has been released by the Intact Centre on Climate Change at the University of Waterloo and calls for governments to recognize extreme heat as a natural disaster. Says lead author Joanna Eyquem, managing director of climate-resilient infrastructure at the Intact Centre, to Global News, “We have a lot of attention paid to flooding and fire obviously, which cause a lot of property damage. But I think that extreme heat is in a different category, and that the cost of extreme heat is people dying and people’s health. It’s something we don’t really have up there with our natural disasters.”

In recent years, extreme heat waves in both British Columbia and Quebec have been responsible for multiple deaths, with the 2021 event in British Columbia being blamed for nearly 600 deaths. The report also projects events will become more common, and of greater duration, than historically seen, making them a greater threat to exposed populations.

The stress of extreme heat waves on power grids is also noted, with the report stating, “If an extreme heat event coincided with an extended power outage 51 with no electricity supply to air conditioners and fans — lack of preparedness could result in widespread fatalities.”

Source:

https://globalnews.ca/news/8772703/extreme-heat-natural-disaster-canada-report/

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