By Laurie Goering

Giving heatwaves names and strength ratings, as for hurricanes, could drive home the spiking danger from a threat that kills more people in the United States each year than storms and floods but rarely hits headlines, heat experts said on Tuesday.

“People do not understand this risk and we need to change that,” said Kathy Baughman McLeod, director of the Washington-based Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center, which works to cut climate change, migration and security risks.

With 2020 set to be one of the hottest years on record, in a long string of them, “extreme heat is or will be felt by everyone, everywhere, at some point. We have to build awareness to this invisible threat,” she told an online event.

The research, done by the Climate Impact Lab and based on data from 40 countries, found the problem will be most severe in the already hot tropics, in countries from Bangladesh to Sudan, where people may struggle to afford adequate cooling.

Continue Reading at Thomson Reuters Foundation…

Areas of Focus: Climate Change
Definition
Climate Change
Climate change is an urgent global challenge. EPIC research is helping to assess its impacts, quantify its costs, and identify an efficient set of policies to reduce emissions and adapt...
Environment
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Environment
Producing and using energy damages people’s health and the environment. EPIC research is quantifying the social costs of energy choices and uncovering policies that help protect health while facilitating growth.
Environmental Health
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Environmental Health
Energy and industrial processes introduce toxins into the environment. EPIC research is helping to educate policymakers and consumers on the social and economic costs of this pollution, and the potential...
Climate Impact Lab
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Climate Impact Lab
Climate change is already altering lives every day. The Climate Impact Lab is building the world’s most comprehensive body of research quantifying the impacts of climate change sector-by-sector, community-by-community, around...
Climate Change and the U.S. Economic Future
Definition
Climate Change and the U.S. Economic Future
The effects of climate change will be different across the country, with some of the worst impacts falling on already-disadvantaged regions.
Climate Impact Lab
Definition
Climate Impact Lab
Climate change is already altering lives every day. The Climate Impact Lab is building the world’s most comprehensive body of research quantifying the impacts of climate change sector-by-sector, community-by-community, around...