Most Americans underestimate their local heat risk: People rely on past weather and lived experience, but climate change is pushing heat risk beyond what many communities recognize. Many rural, older, and higher-poverty US counties face serious heat risk with little public awareness

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WanderInTheTrees@reddit

The amount of people taking their kids to the pool when it's a heat index of 115 and UV index of 11 and saying "I went to the pool every day when I was a kid growing up here! I was fine!" is overwhelming. You can't say anything to them to convince them that things are not at all the same.

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KnowledgeMediocre404@reddit

Also the lack of shade at those places drives me NUTS. ITS MAN MADE, MAKE SHADE!! As someone who is severely melanin challenged I literally can't take my kid and be blasted the whole time. I end up having to sit way too far away.

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s0ngsforthedeaf@reddit

Its mad how people simply...ignore the temperature happening to them, lol.

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wwaxwork@reddit

Everyone just cranks up their airconditioning and pretends it's not happening.

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OffToTheLizard@reddit

Shifting Baseline Syndrome is a real problem. People think the world is going to keep spinning like it was does.

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s0ngsforthedeaf@reddit

The earth spinning is the one thing we can probably rely on, lol.

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OffToTheLizard@reddit

That's why I used it, people think things are just as consistent!

Excluding flat earthers of course! Unless, does their flat earth spin like a frisbee?

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s0ngsforthedeaf@reddit

https://youtube.com/shorts/TaAscDLH_KU?si=4nP4gEv1F5L_kRL0

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OffToTheLizard@reddit

Lmao, that's about right

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springcypripedium@reddit

😂

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Lena-Luthor@reddit

c'mon man don't jinx it

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TheHistorian2@reddit

We’d have nothing to worry about if it stopped.

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DodgsonKaputnik@reddit

So, Coos county on the Oregon Coast is red, but the other coastal counties aren't? And Eureka has NO gap at all?

I am not buying this. It completely contradicts years of lived experience. The entire Oregon coast should be burgundy, or none of it should.

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Konradleijon@reddit

Beat is deadly

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03263@reddit

I heard some prediction for my area (NH) that the future climate will resemble pre-industrial North Carolina.

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Competitive_Shock783@reddit

Well I sure hope those people vote for more climate focused leadership.

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Complex_Confusion552@reddit

I wonder who they voted for.

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rematar@reddit

The Karmic Thinning 2026

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winston_obrien@reddit

I’m sure the government will do something about this.

/s

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RainbowandHoneybee@reddit

When you hear the news about people getting heatstrokes, it sounds like they underestimated impact of it most of the time. I've heard people die even inside the house, without aircon. especially the elderly people don't realise their body functions aren't the same as it used to be, and recent heat is nothing compared to the past.

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wwaxwork@reddit

With the elderly it's that their skin dries out as part of aging and the skins thermoreceptors function declines. They literally don't feel the heat so their body isn't cued to react like it's hot to cool them down. Throw in that most older people don't drink enough liquid or are on medicines that mess with temperature regulation or cause fluid loss. Every old person I know is on something for high blood pressure pretty much all of which mess with thermoregulation.

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wwaxwork@reddit

Also most people do not comprehend how serious heat stroke is, they think oh it's just getting hot have a Gatorade and you'll be fine.

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_NormalHumanStuff@reddit

In my area (Midwest) aging infrastructure cannot support the increase of electricity being consumed when everyone is running their AC more. Frequent power outages on hot days are occurring.

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Nathan-Stubblefield@reddit

Now factor in data centers suddenly consuming 15% of the present electric supply with several years of lead time for permitting and construction to add more utility generation and transmission reinforcement.

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s0ngsforthedeaf@reddit

It's time to play survival of the fittest^(shouldn't joke though, death by heatstroke is horrible)

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HerefortheTuna@reddit

Same here, especially common when thunderstorms come and the solar cuts out

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sg_plumber@reddit (OP)

O_o

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miklayn@reddit

Make no mistake - this ignorance is expected, it is part of their plan. They being the Epstein class. They are counting on people dying out in greater numbers, so they can purchase more of the world for themselves while the rest of us burn. They're the same people who are engineering the general cognitive decline (think YouTube shorts, Facebook reels and the like shortening our attention span and our capacity for deeper, more nuanced understanding of reality, as well as the broad rollout of AI for every purpose imaginable, despite it's inefficacies- such "cognitive offloading" literally means people get dumber. Use it or lose it (your mind)).

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Purple_Puffer@reddit

Keeping the public unaware until it's too late is key to this not becoming a bigger problem for the people in charge.

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Glitter-Pear@reddit

Compared to other natural disasters, I've never really heard much about what one is supposed to do during a heat wave. How are people supposed to prepare?

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sg_plumber@reddit (OP)

https://www.ready.gov/heat

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StatementBot@reddit

The following submission statement was provided by /u/sg_plumber:

Extreme heat risk is rising faster than public awareness, and past experience alone is a poor guide to future danger. The RAP framework provides a practical, data-driven way to identify “danger zone” communities—places where heat risk is high but concern is low—and to target climate risk communication, public health outreach, and adaptation investments where they are most needed.

Demographic and socioeconomic factors play a major role in shaping these gaps. Counties with higher poverty rates and older populations are more likely to underestimate heat risk relative to assessments, while counties with higher levels of education tend to show closer alignment with, or greater awareness of, assessed risk levels. We also find important racial and ethnic patterns that reflect underlying structural vulnerabilities and lived experience, underscoring that misalignment is not merely a matter of information deficits.

Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1tjo0qh/most_americans_underestimate_their_local_heat/on2om7q/

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sg_plumber@reddit (OP)

Extreme heat risk is rising faster than public awareness, and past experience alone is a poor guide to future danger. The RAP framework provides a practical, data-driven way to identify “danger zone” communities—places where heat risk is high but concern is low—and to target climate risk communication, public health outreach, and adaptation investments where they are most needed.

Demographic and socioeconomic factors play a major role in shaping these gaps. Counties with higher poverty rates and older populations are more likely to underestimate heat risk relative to assessments, while counties with higher levels of education tend to show closer alignment with, or greater awareness of, assessed risk levels. We also find important racial and ethnic patterns that reflect underlying structural vulnerabilities and lived experience, underscoring that misalignment is not merely a matter of information deficits.