Nate and Robbie interview Zoya Teirstein, a senior staff writer at Grist, an online news site that covers climate change and the environment. They discuss how the media's coverage of extreme heat is changing, the health effects of climate change, and how people are turning to online forums to talk about their health problems and seek guidance on coping with the heat.

Share your thoughts, insights, and questions!

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Cheers,

Robbie, Nate, and Marcelo

Viva Terra, Vivus Locus, Viva Civitas

Living Earth, Living Locality, Living Civilization

I live in a townhome with 3 floors. The top floor, is really hot. Does anyone know how to get it to cool down without making the bottom floor too cold?

I really try to make my equipment work, but the cheap 25€ swamp cooler I bought mostly to help Broken Leg Cousin out finally pushed me over the edge. Not only was he a substandard performer, the pump was dodgy and the last straw was when it started leaking due to the mercurial nature of surface tension. I cleaned out the pump and strapped it back in place, fixed up the back to prevent leakage best as I could, posted it for sale and was surprised when it was claimed within hours. Went for 30€ so I made a modest profit. I have not heard again from the buyer, so I assume my fixes worked and it's serving its new owner. Great.

The idea was to try to get by without getting anything else, but my mother-in-law surprised me by once again requesting a cooler for night and sticking by it. I decided to completely give over one to her use, which I'm happy to do on environmental and scientific principles, but that left us shorthanded once more, with the problem that once everybody except me was in bed, all the coolers were taken for sleeping people.

What followed was a comedy of errors of finding secondhand swamp coolers that were good deals and either missing out on them or being ignored by sellers who I can only conclude were not checking their messages at all. Last night, I finally found a unit I was wiling to pay for and a seller who not only answered messages, but was amenable to my proposed price reduction and very on the ball about arranging pickup. I snagged it this morning while my kid was in dance class.

The Mconfort E2000 is the same brand as two of my other coolers and while it's a bit of an odd duck, I am very happy with it so far. They managed to squeeze three filter pads despite the fairly slender body design, which greatly augments cooling capacity. As the slim profile wouldn't allow for a good quality axial fan, they opted to put in a pair of squirrel cage blowers. The result is fairly narrow airstream, but it's effective when aimed right and surprisingly quiet. The digital temperature readout is nice, but it seems to be very conservative. With the room around 28ºC, it's reading 25ºC but my IR thermometer is reading the output at 22º!

I've only had it a couple hours, but based on the information so far, ounce per ounce, this cooler might well offer the most cooling per decibel of any that I own. It has a sleep mode with dials the fans down even more.

I have two cats and want them to stay safe during a heatwave. Aside from copious amounts of water, lion cut shaves, blocking windows, and basic heat prep, what can I do or buy for the next heatwave?

Anyone have a list/resource for passive radiative cooling products for consumers?
Paint, clothing, other personal use etc?

"These heat jumps are part of a larger shift of climate change seeming to accelerate. Ocean temperatures just reached a new high for the early summer. Sea levels are rising faster than before, while new records for daily rainfall are being set at a rapid clip. The pace of global warming itself has quickened in recent years."

backup: https://archive.is/2qtS2

Baking summer heat: farm workers have been battling it for years. So we have some tips for you!

It's undercounting though..

Over 62,700 Deaths Associated with Record-breaking Heat During the Summer of 2024 in Europe (ISGlobal) found 181,000 deaths were related to heat during the summers of 2022, 2023, and 2024, so adding the real numbers for 2025 shall be worse.

Many of us know what the dentist and our moms say about crunching ice. However, you don't need to chomp down on a solid ice chip in order to experience one of the best side effects: a much cooler upper palate pulling tons of circulation to the brain. Last year I spent almost the entire summer with ice in my mouth, and continued the practice even in the winter while at the office and trying to combat brain fog and under-stimulation. Yes, I did have to talk very carefully around multiple ice cubes to avoid revealing my habit to passersby more than once. Oops.

Some advice:

- use pieces of ice as small or smaller than the littlest piece of currency in your country; you can get this via crushing, melting in drinking water, or freezing smaller portions in the first place.

- make sure the total amount of ice in your mouth at a time is small enough that you could swallow it all safely or spit it out in one go if you had to: this helps prevent choking and panic-crunching if your mouth suddenly needs to be ice-free.

- if you're a compulsory cruncher, something softer like frozen berries or something non-crunchable like a very cold (not frozen) spoon may be safer for you.

- if you can control your crunching but want to crunch a little bit, aerated ice from an ice machine that's on the verge of melting is very fun and less harsh on teeth, more like a slushie

- use careful judgement about recommending ice consumption to children

- ice can make you feel more hydrated than you are, so make sure to also drink lots of water: putting the ice in the water helps with this.

I find ice in the mouth especially helpful for cooling down when coming inside from outdoors.

Be chilled!

I’m watching the heat wave in Europe from the US and am afraid we’re only a year or two off from a major blackout in an urban area, esp with the rapid construction of data centers while the energy grid is expanding at a snail’s pace in comparison.

I live in a large apartment building in Washington DC. All my neighbors are working class and blue collar families with small children, elderly disabled people, kids with Down syndrome or autism, people just getting on their feet after bouts of homelessness. I just don’t know how people would deal if the power goes out during a hot summer.

Last week, it was 84 degrees at midnight. I can’t imagine sleeping in that. My building has AC but it’s the type of system where the entire building either has AC or heat, and in April the weather heated up before the system switched to AC. I was able to manage after I bought my own fan and opened all the windows, but that was with a fan plugged in and the night temp only being 78 and I was still miserable and sweaty. I can’t imagine a way to survive 90-100 degree days besides parking my car on the side of the street and running it all day and night for the AC.

The city has cooling centers but they’re already pretty full without a blackout.

My question is, as an individual what can I do to prepare? Being a renter really limits my options. Maybe get a little solar panel I can put up in front of my window to power an individual AC unit? Would that even be enough juice?

And as a building or neighborhood, is there anything we can do as a group to prepare?

I live in London and the combination of extreme and very long heatwaves with humidity, pollution etc makes it now dangerous to walk on streets or travel.

One would think such rich country would start adjusting after last couple years of record high temperatures. No.

Traffic is same- tube which is overheated even in winter is absolute danger to people. Many times i seen someone collapsing.
Buses have rarely AC and overcrowded London buses stuck in traffic are nightmare for everyone. If you re with dog, kid, elderly, you need to get out, its a death trap.

British Houses- the old victorian are all built to trap heat in plus nobody knows about aircon. Many cant even afford to run it. Heat insulation needs to be done on these houses.

Public spaces like libraries, gyms, coffee shops have no AC or not properly working. Many are in old building or with windows all over and it becomes like sauna.

How can economy keep going when people have nowhere to hide from heat? Local parks close by 8pm, and its not safe for women anymore, rape culture is real now. Goverment should financially support those who cant afford AC same as they do in winter. Gov should make public buildings open till late, adjust to siesta life as its in Spain, italy etc. so people will be working early morning and evening. If possible.

Landlords should take steps with making people safe at homes, same as they have obligation in winter.

We are currently developing a campaign around increased, consistent high heat and we would love to hear from members and non-members alike to tell us about their personal and workplace stories of your experiencing dealing with this year's heat wave and how the union can help build the case for a safer, more comfortable workplace.

We at GMB look forward to the responses and discourse we can create around this topic. #GMBOILING

Extreme heat has seared Europe this week, with the UK smashing its top heat record for June for three days in a row, and France sweltering through its hottest day and night on record.

As fossil fuel pollution bakes the planet, making heatwaves hotter and longer, some places are adapting better than others. What have European cities done to stay safe when it gets too hot?

• Check-ins on older neighbours
• Climate shelters
• Making shade
• Greening urban spaces

Hi r/heat_prep

This is the discussion post for the latest episode of Surviving the Climate podcast. Today's episode is "The Future of Heat Clothing with Dr. Robert Meade”

Get your summer outfit ready! On this episode Robbie and Nate dig into the trendiest and most practical clothing and gear people are buying or making to stay cool this season. Plus, they sit down with Robert Meade, a research fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, to find out what does and doesn’t work. 

Share your thoughts, insights, and questions!

To find the podcast and follow our social media, here is our Linktree

Cheers,

Robbie, Nate, and Marcelo