Heat waves, by any other name
Giving names to heats waves would emphasize the immediacy of global warming
Every climate action advocate has a pressing problem: Getting not only skeptics but also those who believe in climate change to understand we need to act right now.
For too many, climate change is something that’s in the future. And studies show that when something is relegated to the future, humans are genetically predisposed to put it on the back burner. As Jane McGonigal put it in a 2017 Slate article: “Your brain acts as if your future self is someone you don’t know very well and, frankly, someone you don’t care about.” Economists call this the “social discount rate”. In other words, we don’t value consequences in the future as much as the issues we face in the present.
Compounding that problem is that, as a coping mechanism, if something is potentially catastrophic — such as global warming — the human brain typically looks for ways to shield itself. “We have this primal mechanism that means when the brain gets information that links self to death, something tells us it’s not reliable, so we shouldn’t believe it,” Israeli professor Yair Dor-Ziderman explained to The Guardian last year.
So how do we shift perceptions on the climate from an amorphous concept that is a part of the future to something that’s tangible and happening now?
Give it a name.
We already have multiple terms to describe climate change. But dubbing each piece of the puzzle — as it comes up — with an identifiable title is an important part of making what’s going on feel real and current.
One place where this would work: naming heat waves. Simply put, rather than just saying we’re facing another prolonged period of dangerous, record-setting heat, we must slap monikers on them like we do with hurricanes.
For example, in late July and early August, the Phoenix area endured record-high temperatures. On July 30, it was 118 degrees Fahrenheit, which topped the previous record of 115 F established in 1934. Four days later, the thermometer touched 114 F, which tied a record. Instead of just listing off temperatures, we’d call this window into climate change Heat Wave Martin (or some other name).
By doing so, these deadly days will no longer seem like isolated incidents. Instead, they’d reflect a pattern. Phoenix, of course, is not alone. When you combine all the named heat waves across the country, the climate change picture would become clearer.
This is a concept that a number of groups are embracing.
For instance, the nonprofit Urban Design Forum, in conjunction with the New York City Mayor’s Office of Resiliency called for this type of naming in Turning the Heat, a study it released in June.
“When a hurricane gets named, there’s this association that there’s a sense of impending emergency, so therefore I need to act to stay safe,” explained one of the paper’s authors Mallory Taub.
On Aug. 4, a new organization called The Extreme Heat Resilience Alliance launched, in part, with this naming purpose in mind. Its goal is to “harness resources from more than a dozen countries to educate vulnerable populations about extreme heat,” according to the environmental trade publication E&E. One of its priorities is to establish “a naming scheme and severity scale, much as hurricanes are identified by the World Meteorological Organization. Those protocols assist with easy identification and help forecasters communicate with at-risk people across ocean basins and diverse geographies.”
From a practical standpoint, this sort of marketing is vital. Weather and climate are not the same thing. However, for years, experts have recognized that given how little broadcast news outlets report the climate, tying it to weather (which all TV and radio stations regularly cover), will help the communications cause.
Back in 2014, the highly respected science and technology periodical New Scientist reflected on this reality.
“Climate change, as it is usually presented, falls squarely into the category of problems we find it hard to engage with — a seemingly remote threat calling for immediate sacrifices,” the periodical wrote. “The effects of weather, on the other hand, are far more visceral: we don’t need much persuasion to take an umbrella out when clouds loom.”
Shakespeare famously asked, “What’s in a name?” When it comes to getting humans to overcome their hardwired propensity to turning a blind eye to the dangers of climate change, the answer for heat waves may very well be “a lot.”
