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The City of Toronto recently completed a groundbreaking study of its ‘thermal comfort’ done by Buro Happold and Dialog. The work will provide valuable lessons to urban planners, developers, and other stakeholders as the country’s largest metropolitan area prepares a strategy to suitably... View full entry
President Joe Biden on Thursday announced plans to increase protections for workers facing extreme heat, as temperatures across the U.S. soar and large swaths of the country face heat advisories. — HR Dive
The President’s announcement comes as close to 40% of the U.S. population faces heat advisories, according to the National Weather Service. The country currently has no federal standards on workplace heat safety, and there has been no timeline for the finalization of one. As reported by HR Dive... View full entry
Rising temperatures and increasingly frequent heat waves driven by climate change are turning many Mediterranean cities into dangerous places, especially for vulnerable groups.
“We are not focusing enough on how extreme temperatures affect urban environments,” says Eleni Myrivili, who has spent years studying this issue in her hometown of Athens, which is one of the cities hardest hit by rising temperatures.
— EL PAÍS USA Edition
Amid devastating wildfires and record-breaking numbers of heat-related casualties throughout the Mediterranean region, Spanish newspaper EL PAÍS sits down with Eleni Myrivili, chief heat officer of Athens (Europe's first such municipal appointment) and also global chief heat officer to U.N... View full entry
MIT researchers have published details of a new open-source forced-air evaporative cooling chamber. Described as being less expensive than refrigerated cold rooms, the chamber is intended to offer accessible cold storage for smallholder farmers, as well as significantly reduce post-harvest... View full entry
With record-high temperatures impacting millions around the world, a spotlight has been cast on the workplace conditions of construction workers, who currently aren’t protected by any strict standard regarding extreme heat. According to a heat tracker by The New York Times, approximately 27% of... View full entry
“Underground climate change is a silent hazard,” he said. “The ground is deforming as a result of temperature variations, and no existing civil structure or infrastructure is designed to withstand these variations.” — NBC Chicago
NBC Chicago reports on research from Northwestern University Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Alessandro Rotta Loria and his findings on the effect of density and subterranean heat in the city’s downtown Loop, where temperatures have been shown to be... View full entry
A new scientific study has shown the positive correlations between public health and tree planting in urban areas. In a report published recently by The Lancet medical science journal, a team of European researchers shared data on mortality rates in 93 cities in the summer of 2015 that... View full entry
The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) is now soliciting support for a new congressional effort aimed at bolstering heat mitigation strategies in vulnerable communities across the country. The bill, formally titled H.R. 7534, was introduced by Democratic Arizona Congressman Ruben... View full entry
Kargbo grew up to become a banker, but she has spent the last several years working in the administration of Freetown mayor Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, a noted climate activist. Before becoming the city’s chief heat officer, she headed up the city’s sanitation department [...] Kargbo says her work is to keep climate change on the agenda, however many other things are tugging the world’s attention away. — Experience Magazine
A former aide to the noted climate activist Mayor of Freetown Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, Eugenia Kargbo is one of five official Chief Heat Officers (CHOs) in the world. After being appointed in 2021, she joins fellow CHOs from Athens, Miami, Santiago, Chile, and Monterrey, Mexico in a program... View full entry
New regulations, called Part O, took effect in England in June, requiring that new homes are built with some measures to combat overheating. The regulations aim to reduce solar gain — the increase in room temperature caused by sunlight — ensuring the safety of occupants, even if it may remain uncomfortable. — The New York Times
Hundreds of UK residents died in this week’s “heat apocalypse” that posed particular challenges to those living in the country’s many recently-converted office buildings and council housing. Brick masonry remains the predominant residential construction material, though Low Energy... View full entry
Cities across Europe are scrambling to implement public infrastructure upgrades to combat rising temperatures. As a result, many areas are "melting" under the strain of heatwaves that have already claimed more than 1,900 lives in Spain and Portugal alone. Not to mention the... View full entry
In time for the start of summer, the global fraternity of Chief Heat Officers has grown as cities decide to commit themselves to full-time professionals from the subfield of public design in the face of mounting challenges caused by climate change. The city of Monterrey, in the Mexican state of... View full entry
This house on the real estate market in Scottsdale, Arizona, for $2.1 million is throwing some serious shade — in the coolest way possible. How? The “one-of-a-kind” property is basically all underground, but not in “bunker” fashion. — The Sacramento Bee
The 3,300-square-foot, five-bedroom, four-bathroom home is described as an “earth-sheltered subterranean home” designed “to create highly efficient living.” According to its listing on real-estate marketplace Zillow, the residence was built in the 1970s, designed in response to high costs... View full entry
Europe’s summer of natural disasters has included increasingly frequent extreme weather events [...]
Ms. Myrivili’s appointment is a recognition of that new reality. But it is also a foreboding sign that having someone to grapple with suffocating temperatures may be a mainstay of the municipal cityscape, as necessary and unremarkable as a transportation, sanitation or police commissioner.
— The New York Times
Other cities like Miami have retained administrators with similar titles. Athens is leading the way in terms of a loss of residents who are in large part moving to escape the heat. The country itself is expected to lose 8 million people in the next four years. Myrivili earned a PhD from... View full entry
Across southern Europe, large wildfires have so far killed eight people and caused mass evacuations while also threatening to damage ancient cultural sites. In Greece, authorities have partially closed the Acropolis and other major archaeological sites while battling with dozens of conflagrations around Athens. — Hyperallergic
Greece is currently in the midst of its worst heatwave in over thirty years, and the capital region has been squarely in the crosshairs as the heat has combined with encroaching wildfires to create an emergency situation in Athens. The UNESCO World Heritage Site has recently been... View full entry