Extreme Heat Reshapes Farming, Building Codes and Rural Life

[V. Kelly Turner/ Luskin Center UCLA] “We see that folks in the agricultural sector are having to think about things like growing and planting times, and even things like fertilization — the whole process is built around climate and weather. Nobody knows weather better than farmers. You could argue that most of our cultural institutions, like the school year, are built around agricultural seasons.

Paul Yeager: This isn't a new phenomenon in our lifetime. What has changed from when we were kids to now?

[V. Kelly Turner/ Luskin Center UCLA] Not a lot has changed in terms of infrastructure, air conditioning access, tree canopy. A lot of people are surprised to find out that heat kills more people than all weather-related disasters, but it doesn't create the same kind of property damage. After a hurricane, it looks like a hurricane has been there. After an extreme heat event, you don't have that same impact. So it can be harder to make the case, both on a visual level and because property damage translates to dollars, and that's what a lot of our recovery systems are tied to. Making the case that heat is a crisis requires rethinking — it's not about how many buildings were knocked over and destroyed, it's about how many people ended up in the ER.

[Paul Yeager] Can we build to protect against heat?

[V. Kelly Turner/ Luskin Center UCLA] It takes building and management — so yes, absolutely. The solutions to heat are here. We know they're here because some people already have them.

[Paul Yeager] When I worked at a TV station in eastern Iowa, our meteorologist would say that as a community grew larger and hotter, weather systems seemed to change, systems seemed to go around it more than they used to. Was he onto something, or was that bunk? 

[V. Kelly Turner/ Luskin Center UCLA] That's absolutely true — I know that precipitation patterns can be affected by urban development, which changes the experience of climate. But I'd argue it also creates new opportunities, especially around heat, because being clustered together gives you shade opportunities but also access to services. There's a real urban-rural difference here. We hear a lot about protecting cities from heat, but we also need to protect rural communities from heat. If you're in a rural community, the next building  is get in a car and drive 20-minutes away to a cooling center — a much different prospect than in an urban area. We've got to rethink the lifestyle and morphology differences.

[Paul Yeager] You also mentioned building. I want to explore that a bit. In Florida, we build homes that can withstand hurricanes; in Iowa, we build homes that can withstand tornadoes. You mentioned a smart or cool roof that can help cut down on heat. Tell me more about that.

[V. Kelly Turner/ Luskin Center UCLA] We need to treat the whole building envelope the same way. We have regulations and building codes about insulation and roof reflectivity — cool roofs that reflect sunlight energy away, make it less warm inside and cheaper to cool. That's for new buildings, but there are some gaps with retrofitting older buildings — some older homes aren't wired for air conditioning, which becomes a whole prospect for electrification. A home is not a home is not a home — there are rentals, mobile homes, and different categories, and the easiest place to attach new heat standards is new construction through building codes.

[Paul Yeager] Before we started recording we were talking about the Iowa State Fair. One thing the Iowa State Patrol they had a truck in a pretty visible place to see how it was inside and outside on a hot day in the car. We’ve all seen the local TV demonstrations of a cookie sheet of raw dough to see how long it takes to cook or an egg on the sidewalk. Those are temporary ideas to get them on our brain. It sounds like we need constant help thinking about ways to actually address heat, not just point it out. Is that what you're saying?

[V. Kelly Turner/ Luskin Center UCLA] Yes — and there's actually an opportunity coming up that's super relevant to state fairs. There's a farm bill hanging in the balance, that has protections built in for food and refrigeration, but not necessarily for people. Every time there's a chance to structure funding for communities, my hope, and I'm a little biased, is that we're asking: will this survive extreme heat events? Because that's going to be the reality we're living through, so we need to bake it into everything we're already doing.

Paul Yeager: The full MtoM episode will release  Tuesday.