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WEEKEND READING Why the extreme heat caused by climate change will be lethal and what we can do to prepare for and reduce the toll.
“It’s not hypothetical, it’s happening right now: we’re already seeing more heat waves,” said Céline Campagna, a researcher specializing in health and climate change at the INSPQ. Photo by Pierre Obendrauf / Montreal Gazette
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On a warm June afternoon, a green oasis awaits visitors strolling behind 11460 Pelletier Ave. to contemplate what was once a parking lot for the four-story Montreal North apartment building.
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Suddenly they find themselves in the middle of dozens of deciduous trees giving relief in the summer to people who come to relax on the benches in the shade, rocks and chais longues.
A resident looks at a laptop at a picnic table under a pergola covered with vines. Another seems lost in his thoughts, resting in a bright blue Adirondack chair.
Paul Lévesque, 76, inspects the lush collective orchard that helps keep the car park turned into a park: well-lined tomatoes about to bloom, tall garlic in care, raised beds of strawberries, carrots and lettuce.
“It’s a much nicer place and people appreciate the shade when it’s hot,” said Lévesque, a retired security guard. “I was ringing like that,” he added, pointing to an adjacent parking lot. Paved and full of cars, there is almost no vegetation.
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Low-income Montreal neighborhoods like this are hotter than others during summer dog days. Rich areas are much more likely to be urban heat islands, locations that experience higher temperatures as buildings, roads, and parking lots absorb and re-emit heat from the sun.
Once known for the activity of street gangs, the neighborhood has been transformed in recent years thanks to the creation of non-profit community housing and projects such as the park, residents say.
Operated by the non-profit group Parole d’excluEs, it is known as La Voisinerie, a place where residents can shoot the breeze and fight the heat.
As Montreal prepares for more intense heat waves due to climate change, it is one of hundreds of initiatives against heat islands that have taken place in Montreal in recent years.
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Paul Lévesque, 76, inspects the lush communal garden that helps keep the park turned into a park north of Montreal known as La Voisinerie. Photo by John Mahoney / Montreal Gazette “It’s a much nicer place and people appreciate the shade when it’s hot,” said Paul Lévesque. Local artist Sergio Gutiérrez, on the right, painted benches and cutlery with bright decoration in the garden, a place where neighbors can fight the heat. Photo of John Mahoney / Montreal Gazette
“It’s not hypothetical, it’s happening right now: we’re already seeing more heat waves,” said Céline Campagna, a researcher specializing in health and climate change at the Institut national de santé publique du Québec (INSPQ).
The scorching weather can be deadly, especially for vulnerable populations and people living in the warmer areas of the island. Prolonged heat spells killed 106 Montrealers in 2010 and another 66 in 2018.
Last year, Montreal recorded its warmest August since records began in 1871.
This year, the city experienced its first prolonged heat period in mid-May, when daily highs exceeded 30 degrees Celsius for three days. This did not meet Montreal’s “extreme heat” criteria (three days with an average high of at least 33 C, with lows not below 20 C).
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But the spring heat may have been fatal for some, and Quebec reported an increase in deaths in May that researchers say can be attributed to the weather.
Since then, the weather has been relatively pleasant in Montreal, with only two days above 30 C. But Weather Network meteorologists forecast a hot, humid second half of summer.
In the coming decades, the region can expect more very hot days and longer extreme heat events caused by the climate emergency, experts say.
“As a society, we are not at all prepared to face temperatures of 40 or more, as we saw in British Columbia last year (when 619 heat-related deaths were recorded), and in Europe and the Midwest. from the United States a few weeks ago. ” said Campagna.
Edward Perst cools down at a nebulization station on Mont-Royal Avenue on July 12, 2022. Older people are among the most threatened people during very hot weather. Photo of John Mahoney / Montreal Gazette
What heat will it be?
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“We are in an area that will experience more heat and a more severe climate, more often,” Montreal bioscientist Joanna Eyquem said.
In an average year, Montreal only experienced 11 days when the temperature reached at least 30 degrees Celsius between 1976 and 2005.
During the deadly summer of 2018, the city experienced 20 days of temperatures in excess of 30 degrees Celsius.
In the second half of the century, Montreal could suffer between 37 and 54 days of 30 C or a warmer climate, depending on greenhouse gas emissions.
Instead of heat waves lasting an average of three days, episodes could last six to eight days.
The projections, from the Climate Atlas of Canada, are in a recent report on the extreme heat of the Intact Climate Adaptation Center at the University of Waterloo, where Eyquem is the managing director of climate-resilient infrastructure.
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“Cities are the hotspots of global warming because their artificial surfaces (such as asphalt and concrete) absorb heat and re-emit it. Many of our cities can be 10 to 15 degrees warmer in terms of global warming. surface temperature compared to surrounding areas “.
Rising mercury is a major threat to human life, he added.
“Historically in Canada, we have focused a lot on fires and floods because they cause a lot of financial losses,” Eyquem said. “But it’s in the heat waves that I think we’ll see more fatalities because it has a direct impact on our health.”
Hence the title of the report by Eyquem co-author: Irreversible Extreme Heat: Protecting Canadians and Communities from a Lethal Future.
“Even if we reduce our carbon emissions now, a certain amount of heat is already cooked up in our future,” he said. “We will not avoid the impacts of extreme heat, so we must prepare.”
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Eyquem added: “We put the lethal word in the title to try to redirect the fact that heat kills and that these deaths can be prevented with the right information and the right actions.
“We can prepare ourselves and avoid death if we do the right thing. We need to focus on extreme heat along with the economically costly disasters we see occurring as well. Unfortunately, we do not feel this urgency in Canada at the moment. “
Last summer he took refuge from the heat under the shade of an overpass on the Lachine Canal. The extreme heat caused by climate change is already killing Montrealers, and it will get worse. Photo of Dave Sidaway / Montreal Gazette
Older people are among the most at risk during intensely hot weather.
“The problem is that as we age we tend to lose some of our thirst reflex so that older people don’t realize they’re dehydrating,” said Montreal cardiologist Christopher Labos, an associate in the Office of Science. and McGill Society.
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“And older people, especially if they have mobility issues, may not be able to rehydrate as easily as other people, so dehydration becomes a very serious concern.”
According to a retiree association, only 43% of rooms in Quebec’s long-term care homes (known as CHSLDs) had air conditioning last year, 19% more than two years earlier. He obtained the information through requests for access to the information because the province was unable to provide the figure.
All CHSLDs now have at least air-conditioned areas where residents can cool off, a Department of Health spokesman told the Montreal Gazette.
Older people are not the only ones at risk.
Dehydration caused by excessive sweating can cause several dangerous physiological changes, which affect the heart, kidneys and brain function.
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“The problem with dehydration is that especially if you don’t have a good thirst reflex and you start to get confused because of dehydration, you may not realize what’s going on,” Labos added.
Anyone can become dehydrated, which can lead to heat-related illnesses, including heat stroke, where the body can no longer regulate its temperature.
Aside from heat stroke, heat diseases include heat rashes, heat fainting, heat exhaustion, heat-related muscle cramps, and heat edema (swelling of the hands, feet, and ankles), Health Canada says.
People with medical conditions such as heart disease and diabetes are at greater risk of heat, as are those who work outdoors, low-income people, …