Heated Arguments: Debates About Heat Wave Mortality and the Need to Act Nonetheless

As the Earth heats up, heat waves have become an all-too-familiar threat to public health around the world. Heat-related mortality is on the rise. Heat waves have now attracted considerable attention from epidemiologists, sociologists, physicians, urban planners, and historians. This scholarship has been characterized by vigorous debate and fiercely contested narratives. This essay examines the controversies that have swirled around two prominent heat waves-Chicago in 1995 and Paris in 2003. Given the complexity of heat-related mortality, it is no surprise that researchers have argued about the nature of risk, the role of climate change, and the phenomena of mortality displacement. One risk, however, is that ongoing debate about the intricacies of epidemiology and sociology will foster confusion about the danger of heat waves and undermine the consensus that is needed to motivate action against the threat of heat. Scholars face a difficult challenge: how to acknowledge ongoing and healthy scientific debate while also recognizing that there are large areas of consensus that justify public health action. The health and environmental humanities, fields that have long been interested in questions of unstable and contested narratives, offer valuable perspective on meeting this challenge.