Hundreds of people who died during the historic heat wave in British Columbia last summer died in inadequate homes for temperatures that rose to 30 and beyond for days, according to a report from the BC Forensic Service this month.
It was hot outside, but inside it was often much hotter, with tragic consequences.
Of the 619 heat-related deaths, 98% occurred indoors, according to the forensic service review.
Only one percent of the victims had air conditioners turned on at the time.
But a year later, experts warn that residents and policymakers should think beyond air conditioning as the predominant solution to the risks, as climate change fuels heat waves that scientists say are making them hotter and more frequent.
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“What worries me is that we’re talking about mechanical ventilation as a general measure for all buildings, and that’s very problematic if that’s what we end up doing,” said Adam Rysanek, an assistant professor of environmental systems at the University of British Columbia. school of architecture.
“We will become fully accustomed to this air-conditioned society,” with the windows closed year-round, said Rysanek, director of the university’s construction decision research group.
Alternative answers can be found in how buildings and cities are designed, landscaped and even colored, as lighter surfaces reflect more of the sun’s energy, he said.
Two-thirds of those who died during the extreme heat last summer were 70 or older, more than half lived alone and many suffered from chronic illness.
Rysanek said it is important to ensure that such vulnerable people have access to air conditioning when temperatures heat up dangerously.
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But many sources of overheating in buildings come from design and performance, and focusing on air conditioning ignores proven solutions, he said.
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Urban planners and the construction industry should adopt lighter-colored materials for buildings and even paved roads, he said, in addition to adding shade to the exteriors of buildings.
“At the peak of heat, much of the cooling demand comes from the solar energy that is received outside the building. Let’s think about it.”
Alex Boston, who was part of the forensic review panel, said the “underlying vulnerabilities” to hazardous heat are growing in BC and across the country as a result of demographic change and how houses have been built and communities.
The number of people over the age of 65 and people living alone is increasing, and both characteristics increase the risk during extreme heat, said Boston, executive director of the Simon Fraser University Renewable Cities Program.
“In addition, it is the elderly alone who have chronic illnesses and, in addition, it is the elderly who have some kind of material or social deprivation,” he said.
“It could be income, it could be the nature of their home and the neighborhood where they live that (could) have an inadequate tree canopy. All of these factors come together and we have to work on many of them simultaneously.”
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Not making sure buildings are surrounded by trees to provide shade and evaporative cooling would be “shooting us in the foot in terms of the energy load and cooling demand of a building in the future,” Rysanek said. asking “very robust.” vegetation and landscaping requirements to mitigate extreme heat.
Metro Vancouver aims to increase its urban tree cover to 40% by 2050, compared to an average of 32% across the region, although a 2019 report noted that existing coverage was decreasing due to urban development. The goal of the city of Vancouver, specifically, is to increase the canopy from 18 to 22 percent.
Boston said many of the measures to improve heat resistance have important benefits, such as restoring urban tree covers.
Trees and vegetation help reduce the risk of flooding, he said, and neighborhood parks serve as social centers that can alleviate social isolation and foster a sense of community.
“We have complex problems, and if we only look at one isolated component, we don’t maximize the benefit of solving those problems in an integrated way,” Boston said.
For example, the Boston organization is working on a project on the north coast of Vancouver to consider how social service providers could help seniors manage secondary suites in their homes, an approach that, he said, it could alleviate the insecurity of housing while mitigating the risks of living alone during extreme heat. .
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“We have to solve multiples,” Boston said.
Meanwhile, a 2020 survey and report from BC’s hydraulic and electrical authority found that residential air conditioning use had more than tripled since 2001.
Many residents were adding an average of $ 200 to their summer bill using air conditioning units inefficiently, with nearly a third of respondents setting the temperature below 19 ºC. Popular portable units use 10 times more power than a central air conditioning or heating system. bomb, the report said.
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Globally, the International Energy Agency projected in 2018 that energy demand for air conditioning would triple in 2050.
Continuing on this path would make it difficult for governments to achieve greenhouse gas reduction targets to mitigate climate change, Rysanek said.
“Should we aggravate this problem? the development costs of the building are a drop in terms of the climate impacts we will face, ”he said.
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The BC government should encourage non-mechanical cooling options to stimulate adoption in homes and commercial buildings, he said, pointing to measures such as natural ventilation, ceiling fans and integrated radiant cooling in floors or ceilings, all this would cool the residents before turning. in an air conditioner.
“We should encourage our policymakers to realize that there is a big world of alternatives. We may not yet have suppliers here in BC, but it is a great opportunity for business,” Rysanek said.
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Companies around the world have been deploying these refrigeration alternatives in Europe, Asia and elsewhere, and “we should try to invite them here so that we learn about these things, as an audience, as consumers,” he said.
The coroner’s report calls on BC to ensure that the 2024 building code incorporates passive and active cooling requirements in new homes, along with cooling standards to renovate existing homes, and that “climate change lenses” are adopted “in regional growth strategies and official community plans. .
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It also recommends that the province consider issuing refrigeration devices as medical equipment for those most at risk of dying during extreme heat.
Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth has said the government will consider the report and “take the necessary steps to prevent heat-related deaths in the future”.
It’s hard to predict how often BC could see a recurrence of last summer’s highest temperatures, but climate change is certainly causing heat extremes to increase in frequency and magnitude, said Rachel White, assistant professor in the department. of Earth, Oceans and Atmosphere Sciences at the University of BC
“When we have a normal heat wave in the future, it will get hotter than we are used to,” he said.
A heat dome refers to a region of high pressure that settles into place as temperatures below heat up, White explained.
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Sometimes these regions become “quasi-stationary,” depending on factors such as the strength of the winds circulating in the upper atmosphere, he said.
As the heat dome covered BC last year, its effects were amplified by the soil that was already affected by the drought, lacking moisture that would evaporate and help cool the …