Exposure to heat has killed more people in Australia than all other natural hazards combined. As the climate warms, temperatures are projected to rise substantially, increasing the impact of heat stress and heat illness nation‐wide. The relation between heat and health is profoundly complex, however, and is understood differently across multiple sectors. This paper thus provides a critical review of how heat is currently measured and managed in Australia, highlighting how humidity, exposure, and exertion are key elements that are not consistently incorporated into ‘problematizations’ of heat. The presence or absence of these elements produces different spatial and temporal geographies of danger, as well as different governance practices. In particular, the invisibility of humidity as having a significant impact on heat and health shapes whether Australia's tropical monsoon zone is visible as a region at risk or not, and whether prolonged periods of seasonal heat are treated as dangerous. Similarly, different populations and practices become visible depending on whether the human body (its exposure, exertion, cooling, and hydration) is included in accounts of what constitutes ‘heat.’ As a result, the outdoor, manual workforce is visible as a population at risk in some accounts but not others. A brief review of key policy areas including housing, public health and work health and safety is presented to demonstrate how specific problematizations of heat are critical to the identification of, and response to, current and future climatic conditions. This has implications for how populations, places, and practices are constituted in the region. WIREs Clim Change 2017, 8:e468. doi: 10.1002/wcc.468This article is categorized under: Perceptions, Behavior, and Communication of Climate Change > Behavior Change and Responses Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change > Values‐Based Approach to Vulnerability and Adaptation Policy and Governance > Governing Climate Change in Communities, Cities, and Regions

The COVID-19 pandemic started in the cold months of the year 2020 in the Northern hemisphere. Concerns were raised that the hot season may lead to additional problems as some typical interventions to prevent heat-related illness could potentially conflict with precautions to reduce coronavirus transmission. Therefore, an international research team organized by the Global Health Heat Information Network generated an inventory of the specific concerns about this nexus and began to address the issues. Three key thermal and covid-19 related topics were highlighted: 1) For the general public, going to public cool areas in the hot season interferes with the recommendation to stay at home to reduce the spread of the virus. Conflicting advice makes it necessary to revise national heat plans and alert policymakers of this forecasted issue. 2) For medical personnel working in hot conditions, heat strain is exacerbated due to a reduction in heat loss from wearing personal protective equipment to prevent contamination. To avoid heat-related injuries, medical personnel are recommended to precool and to minimize the increase in body core temperature using adopted work/rest schedules, specific clothing systems, and by drinking cold fluids. 3) Fever, one of the main symptoms of COVID-19, may be difficult to distinguish from heat-induced hyperthermia and a resting period may be necessary prior to measurement to avoid misinterpretation. In summary, heat in combination with the COVID-19 pandemic leads to additional problems; the impact of which can be reduced by revising heat plans and implementing special measures attentive to these compound risks.

Discourse describes our reality, at once depicting and delimiting our understanding of the world and our place in it. Discourse can also be de-scribed; the script unpicked to reveal the contingency of what it includes and excludes. The discourse of adaptation to climate change is one such description. This article uses critical discourse analysis to describe and de-scribe the discourse of adaptation as (re)produced through one UK Climate Impacts Programme report. It identifies within the report a core, techno-scientific problematization of adaptation and a series of supplementary moments that are in ontological and epistemological tension with the core problematization, particularly regarding the conceptualization of knowledge and uncertainty, actors and agency, and the practices and politics that are understood to constitute adaptation. This tension is used to de-scribe the discourse; the supplementary moments highlight the limits of the core problematization, revealing points of extension or departure f...