With modern solutions such as air-con aggravating the problem, ancient heat-management techniques can offer answers
Heat has become a major health threat to cities, with record numbers of deaths being recorded in urban areas around the world.Heat has become a major health threat to cities, with record numbers of deaths being recorded in urban areas around the world.Beneath the streets of Seville – the city nicknamed “El Sartén”, the frying pan of Europe, where summer temperatures regularly top 40C – a €5m cooling strategy is taking the city back in time.
Some cities now offer cooling centres, where you can escape the heat, though most people do not want to use them on a regular basis. There are policy changes that can help: laws protecting workers, heatwave response plans, and spatial mapping that can identify the hottest parts of a city. They are also remembering that adobe and stone soak up heat better than concrete; so do cupolas, large windows, traditional Japanese “breezeway” corridors and traditional Indian “bowli” stepwells such as at the much-lauded Pearl Academy of Fashion in Jaipur. We used to talk about “winterising” homes; now, perhaps, we must “summerise” them.
One of the key effects of heatwaves, which send demand for electricity soaring and cause extreme storms that stress electrical grids, is to cause blackouts. Blackouts mean no more air-con. A recentsuggested a blackout lasting just two days could hospitalise more than half of Phoenix residents and kill 12,000, mostly in their own homes.
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