<
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/paris-staged-a-huge-stress-test-for-extreme-heat/>
"On a sunny Friday afternoon in October 2023, some 70 children filed into a
cool, dark tunnel in the south of Paris to help the city rehearse for its
increasingly hot future.
The tunnel, part of the abandoned Petite Ceinture railway encircling the city,
is always 64 degrees Fahrenheit (18 degrees Celsius), making it the perfect
safe haven from the potentially lethal heat imagined outside. Once underground,
each youngster was asked to simulate the effects of extreme temperatures that
might become reality in their lifetimes. Some pretended to have been poisoned
by food that spoiled during a power outage. Others faked the effects of carbon
monoxide leaking from a faulty generator. Meanwhile, Red Cross workers
scrambled to decide who to send to overwhelmed hospitals. Around them, dozens
of others — fire fighters, city officials, teachers — did their best to
simulate the chaos and cascading impacts a heat wave of unprecedented duration
and intensity might force them to confront.
The exercise, called Paris at 50 degrees Celsius, was designed to imagine what
might happen if the mercury hits 122 degrees F, something scientists warn is
increasingly likely by 2100. It combined live drills and a tabletop exercise to
help shape a plan to protect the city’s two million people from that kind of
heat. Once limited to a handful of cities, these exercises are spreading as
local governments stress test health services, emergency response, and
essential infrastructure before temperatures reach dangerous extremes.
What Paris is rehearsing could soon confront cities across the continent.
European governments are being urged to prepare for 5 to 6 degrees F (2.8 to
3.3 degrees C) of warming, a change that could push Paris toward dangerous
summertime temperatures by the end of the century.
Such heat is a global threat. Modeling suggests more than 1.6 billion people in
nearly 1,000 cities could regularly face perilous conditions within three
decades. Heat waves are already straining hospitals, causing outages and
paralyzing transit. In the complex systems that make up a city, even small
failures can lead to larger breakdowns.
But as cities invest time and money into these exercises, one question remains:
Do they actually improve preparedness?"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
