Extreme Heat Ready
California is hotter than it used to be, and temperatures are expected to continue rising. An extreme heat event occurs when an area experiences two or more days and nights of unusually high temperatures. These periods of extreme heat are becoming more common and can increase the risk of heat-related illness.
While we cannot prevent extreme heat events, we can prepare for them.
Stay Safe during high temperatures
Did You Know?
-
Fans can help keep you cool, but only if indoor temperatures are below 90°F. When indoor temperatures rise above 90°F, fans may no longer provide effective cooling and can increase body heat.
-
If your home becomes too hot, use air conditioning or visit a free Cool Zone near you. Cool Zones are often located at public libraries, community centers, senior centers, and recreation centers, providing a safe, air-conditioned place to escape the heat.
Where Is the Heat Coming From?
high temperatures come from two connected sources:
1. The changing climate increases the frequency, duration, and intensity of extreme-heat events.
2. The built environment determines how much heat a neighborhood absorbs, produces, and traps. Asphalt, concrete, dark roofs, limited trees, vehicles, air conditioners, buildings, and industrial activity can make one neighborhood substantially hotter than another.
Extreme heat may arrive through the weather, but the way we build, travel, consume energy, and manage our neighborhoods determines how intensely we experience it.
.png)
Look Beyond What We See
Let’s examine a data center in Hilliard, Ohio. From the outside, a person might see only an enormous warehouse-like building. The full campus covers approximately 142 acres—an area comparable to about 108 football fields—and plans allow for up to 2 million square feet of building space. During a plan review, we might focus on the buildings’ height, width, construction materials, blocked views, or the number of trees removed during construction. These visible impacts matter, but they reveal only part of the story. The greater environmental impact may come after construction—from the energy, equipment, fuel, water, transportation, and other resources required to operate the facility every day.
Wearing this lens, we can look beyond the data center and apply the same thinking to the places we build and the things we use every day. Consider an apartment complex as a community-scale operation. Once it is built, how many people will live there, and how much additional water and electricity will they use? Can the existing utility grid support that demand? How much traffic and waste will be generated? Are there enough roads, parking spaces, schools, parks, playgrounds, and community services to support the additional population? The question is not simply whether the building can fit within the neighborhood, but whether the neighborhood and its infrastructure can support everything that comes with it for years to come.
Wearing this lens, we can apply the same viewpoint to almost anything—even something as ordinary as a shirt. Before it reaches our closet, what materials were needed to make it, and how much water, energy, land, and other resources were used? Where was it manufactured, what chemicals and processes were involved, and how far did it travel to reach us? Once we own it, how much water and energy will we use to wash and dry it over its lifetime? And when we no longer want it, will it be reused, donated, recycled, or thrown away? The question is not simply how much a shirt costs at the store, but what it takes to produce, transport, use, and eventually dispose of it.
consider something as small and temporary as a plastic fork. It may be used for only a few minutes, but what did it take to make it? Oil or natural gas had to be extracted, transported, processed into plastic, manufactured into a fork, packaged, and transported again before it ever reached our hands. After one short use, where does it go? Can it realistically be recycled, or will it be thrown away, buried in a landfill, or escape into the environment? The fork may be disposable, but the resources used to create it—and the waste left behind—do not disappear when we throw it away. Please provide an infographic to illustrate this
Things We Can Do
We cannot eliminate every environmental impact, nor can we stop building homes, traveling, eating, buying things, or using energy. The goal is not to stop living—it is to better understand the impact of our choices and make better decisions when we can.
Understand the impact. Look beyond what we immediately see. Consider where something comes from, what resources are needed to make and operate it, how it affects the surrounding community, and what happens when it is no longer needed. Looking at the full life cycle can reveal impacts that may otherwise be easy to overlook.
Use what we need. Water, energy, food, materials, land, and transportation all require resources. Using them thoughtfully and efficiently can reduce unnecessary demand while often saving money at the same time.
Make things last. Before replacing something, consider whether it can be maintained, repaired, reused, shared, borrowed, or donated. Extending the useful life of what we already have reduces both waste and the resources needed to manufacture and transport replacements.
Reduce what we throw away. Avoid unnecessary single-use products and excessive packaging when practical. Recycle correctly, compost organic materials where programs are available, and keep usable materials in circulation for as long as possible.
Build with tomorrow in mind. The choices we make about buildings and neighborhoods can affect a community for decades. Trees and vegetation, shade, energy-efficient buildings, reflective surfaces, permeable areas, and thoughtful planning can help create cooler and healthier places. New development should also consider whether existing roads, utilities, schools, parks, transportation, and other community services can support the additional demand.
Make informed choices. There is rarely one perfect choice. Cost, convenience, health, community needs, environmental impact, and available alternatives all matter. The purpose of this lens is not to tell everyone what they must choose, but to help us see more of the picture before we choose.
Small actions may seem insignificant on their own, but millions of everyday decisions shape how resources are used, how much waste we create, and what our communities will look like tomorrow. When we understand the full story, we can make choices that help build healthier, cooler, and more resilient communities.
Free Tree Program
Click here for County of San Diego (Equity-Driven Tree Planting Program): Offers free trees to property owners in unincorporated areas of San Diego County, prioritizing underserved regions with low tree canopy cover
Click here for City of San Diego (Free Tree SD): Provides free street trees to plant in the public right-of-way or parkway (the strip between the sidewalk and the street) adjacent to your property inside city limits
Click here for Tree San Diego: Regularly hosts seasonal campaigns like Plant It Forward, distributing free trees and holding community tree-planting and registration events across the county.
Click here for SDG&E Community Tree Programs: Offers regional community tree rebate or direct distribution initiatives depending on your specific zip code
as always...