Opinion: We name hurricanes. Why not heat waves?

Good morning. I’m Kerry Cavanaugh, assistant editorial page editor, filling in for Paul Thornton. It is Saturday, July 29. Let’s look back at the week in Opinion.

Hot enough for ya?

The Southwestern U.S. is experiencing a record-breaking heat wave, with nearly a month of extreme temperatures. Phoenix has seen 28 consecutive days of temperatures of 110 degrees or higher, with heat so intense that people have gone to the hospital with pavement burns.

How will you remember this heat wave? Will you think of it as the heat storm of 2023? What if there’s another one next month? (It’s pretty likely, unfortunately.) You’ll have to differentiate between the July and August 2023 heat waves. Or maybe the painfully hot days will blur together, and become a vague memory of how climate change gradually turned us into the proverbial frogs in the warming pot.

But what if heat waves had names, like hurricanes or wildfires? The Times’ editorial board says it’s a worthy idea to try out. Climate resilience experts say that naming and categorizing severe heat waves can help the public grasp the threat, take action and save lives. Older adults are especially vulnerable to extreme heat and need to know when to take precautions. Naming heat waves also makes it easier to keep track of these kinds of climate-change-driven events and to hold authorities accountable when they fail to respond appropriately to the disaster. (Think Hurricane Katrina.)

Meteorological groups are cool to the idea, arguing that names could confuse people or cause “alarm fatigue.” But, really there’s an alarm deficit; extreme heat is an underestimated and silent killer. Bolder messaging is what’s needed to wake people up to the immediate risk of extreme heat and the existential risk to humanity if the world doesn’t stop burning fossil fuels.

Hoping fossil fuel giants will see the light on climate hasn’t worked. Remaining frenemies with fossil fuel companies in the naive hope they will see the light on climate change is a losing proposition for humanity, The Times’ editorial board argues.

Elon Musk just X’d out the sharing, caring ethos of the internet once and for all, writes Virginia Heffernan. The user-friendly design that has defined tech from the first smiling Macintosh in 1984 is being replaced by user-frightening design.

Want more diversity in elite colleges? With affirmative action off the table, Stephen Handel and Eileen Strempel suggest Ivy League and other prestigious schools need to do something they’ve never done with any consistency or devotion: widen their enrollment pipeline to welcome transfer students from community colleges in substantial numbers.

Can Taylor Swift fans save public transit? Maybe, the editorial board says. Fans going to Taylor Swift’s concerts are fueling a city-by-city transit boom that points the way to reviving slumping ridership by improving service for leisure travelers and non-9-to-5 commuters.

Homeless, when you just can’t afford the rent. Robert Karron continues his series of interviews with men and women living on the streets of the Westside. This time he talks with three men whose stories show just how quickly one can be forced out on the street.

More from this week in opinion

From our columnists

• Jackie Calmes: Republican racism has finally weaponized Kamala Harris
• Robin Abcarian: The Menendez brothers have been behind bars for 33 years. Is that long enough?
• LZ Granderson: Emmett Till and his mother are icons. DeSantis is just another politician wooing white supremacists

From the Op-Ed desk

• So what is ‘Bidenomics’ anyway? Certainly not the key to President Biden’s reelection
• How we can create a student loan system that doesn’t crush Americans — without canceling the debts
• Why do I hoard more books than I could possibly read? An investigation

From the Editorial Board

• California has to rethink building homes in climate-threatened areas
• 50 Cent and prosecutors are wrong about cash bail. L.A. courts get it right
• Get the ‘forever chemicals’ out of our drinking water

Letters to the Editor

• I was a closeted gay teacher. Textbooks with LGBTQ+ figures matter to gay students
• History is untidy. So is the truth about the atomic bomb in World War II
• Fossil fuels powered the Industrial Revolution. Their time is over