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A report was released today that states that if we don’t do something about global warming our cities are going to overheat like a car stuck on the side of the freeway with the hood up on a mid-summer day.

You don’t see that as much anymore but I remember those days. It was hot enough as it was and if you had a car that was prone to overheating you actually had to put the heat on in the car full blast to draw the heat away from the engine. In the mean time you and your passengers are hanging your heads out the window just to survive. Not fun.

Our cities are like to those cars of old. In a planet that is heating up, our cities, often with populations unable to deal with the stress are susceptible to overheating and all the health problems that accompany this stress.

One thing that struck me from the report is the fact that on hot days our bodies need the temperature to go down at night to recover from the heat of the day. If the cities aren’t able to cool down at night like the report warns, we will see many more heat-related deaths.

We got a preview of this a few years back when tens of thousands died during a heat wave in Europe. The culprit was the heat is conjunction with the fact that many of the areas hardest hit did not normally see this amount of heat and were ill equipped to handle the overload of their systems.

What does this all mean? This is another example why urgent action is needed. Please do your part to fight this crisis for those, like the children in the inner cities, who cannot fight for themselves.