Heat waves are a fact of life, with climate change upping their intensity and frequency.Sammy Kogan/The Globe and Mail
Portions of Highway 402 east of Sarnia, Ont., were closed last weekend, as parts of the road buckled in the heat.
In New Jersey, more than 150 people attending outdoor graduation ceremonies at a high school required treatment for heat exposure; 16 were taken to hospital.
In Toronto, it was so hot that some pools had to close on Sunday. You know you’re in trouble when a sentence like that is not an Onion headline.
So yes: It was very, very hot this week. Heat records fell as temperatures rose in many parts of central and eastern Canada and the United States.
Ask a doctor: What are the signs of heat illness?
Students were sweltering in classrooms – and it wasn’t exam-related flop sweat. Most Toronto public schools do not have central air conditioning. This may have made sense when they were built. But now? The climate has changed. And it’s an emergency.
It’s not just extremely uncomfortable. Environment Canada’s heat warning issued last Saturday employed the operative word: dangerous. This kind of heat (and humidity) is dangerous at home, at school, at work – even if, as some Toronto residents looking for a splashy cooldown last weekend found out, your workplace is a swimming pool.
A steamy school is not a safe or effective learning – or teaching – space. The Canadian Environmental Law Association is calling for a maximum indoor temperature of 26 degrees in schools and childcare settings. “All levels of government must update their laws and policies to reflect our warming world,” said Jacqueline Wilson, counsel for CELA, in a statement.
Work in an air-conditioned office? Have AC at home? Lucky you. But this should not be about good fortune. A temperature-safe environment should be a given. A right.
Ontario heat wave prompts concerns about students, educators sweltering in schools
Stay hydrated, they tell us; wear light-coloured clothing. Get thee to a mall, or a movie theatre, or the pool (if it’s open). Be careful! Don’t over-exert yourself in this stifling heat. I mean, I love having a legitimate excuse not to exercise, but come on.
Band-Aid solutions and helpful stay-cool tips from government are not the answer. The obvious change required is in the buildings where we live and work. Cooling systems should not be optional. Just as indoor heating is a must, indoor cooling should not be considered a choice either.
“People don’t die because it’s too hot outside, they die because it’s too hot inside,” notes Sarah Henderson, scientific director of Environmental Health Services with the BC Centre for Disease Control. She points out that during B.C.’s 2021 heat dome, 98 per cent of the heat-related deaths occurred indoors.
“We cannot control the outdoor environment, but we can control the indoor environment,” she says.
Dr. Henderson, who is also a professor at UBC’s School of Population and Public Health, is lead author of a new study that found a spike in deaths outside health care settings when people were exposed to both high temperatures and wildfire smoke. “When you stack the two together, there’s just a lot going on in your poor body,” she says. The study notes that high temperatures pose more risk than the smoke.
Extreme heat events are an “important” public health risk, Health Canada warns. In 2023, it reported that hotter extreme temperatures were linked to an increase in emergency department visits and hospital admissions.
A 2022 study of tenants in Hamilton found 70 per cent had been affected by extreme heat conditions in their homes. The Association of Communities for Reform Now report found that for many, air conditioning was not an option – that it was too expensive or prohibited. “I have a window air conditioner,” reported one survey respondent named Jay S. “But my landlord threatened me with eviction if I put it in.”
In B.C., some stratas (condo boards, essentially) also forbid them. The same goes for heat pumps.
In Ontario, a private member’s bill, the Heat Stress Act, calls for protection from adverse effects of heat at every workplace. That would be a start.
“We never question that people’s homes should be thermally safe in winter,” says Dr. Henderson. “In the summer, for some reason, this question of thermal safety is seen as a luxury. And it’s a disconnect I don’t understand.”
It’s not like any of this is a surprise. Or going away. Heat waves are a fact of life, and it’s a fact that they are deadly. Climate change is upping the intensity and frequency. So we shouldn’t just address the issue this week, when people are too hot to think, and then –when the heat breaks and the rains come – cool our heels and shrug our shoulders. Strategies must be developed and laws passed. Cooling systems, especially environmentally friendly heat pumps, should be more accessible (read: affordable).
It might be too late for this summer. But there’s another one coming, and another one.