{"id":455889,"date":"2026-07-16T06:23:45","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T13:23:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=455889"},"modified":"2026-07-16T06:23:47","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T13:23:47","slug":"heat-is-a-problem-governing-but-climate-change-isnt-making-it-worse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=455889","title":{"rendered":"Heat Is a Problem, Governing, but Climate Change Isn\u2019t Making It Worse"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From ClimateRealism<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By H. Sterling Burnett<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Governing<\/em>, a nearly 40-year-old publication focused on informing state and local policy makers, published an article blaming climate change for causing more extreme heat, and detailing ways for city governments to combat heat. The recommendations for mitigating peoples\u2019 heat exposure and limiting harm are pretty good, but its unjustified foray into false climate attribution is distraction from the valuable portion of the story. Climate change is not causing more days of extreme heat, but expanded urban development, and the associated urban heat island effect is raising nighttime temperatures, in some instances, causing problems for the elderly, the homeless, and vulnerable populations with pre-existing health conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Governing<\/em> article, \u201cA Toolkit for Surviving Extreme Heat<\/a>,\u201d author Carl Smith writes, \u201c[d]angerous heat is coming to more parts of the country than ever.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cExtreme heat . . . kills more Americans than any other weather event \u2014 more than floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes combined,\u201d Smith continues. \u201cVery hot days are a fact of life in states all over the country, but there have been more and more of them in recent years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Almost every sentence Smith wrote in his opening paragraphs is wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Real world data recorded by various agencies of the U.S. government shows that extreme heat has not become more frequent or intense in recent years (See the graph, below). As Climate at a Glance: U.S. Heatwaves<\/em><\/a> points out:<\/p>\n\n\n\n