This article focuses on the overlap between communities that are vulnerable to extreme heat, susceptibility to severe cases of COVID-19, and vulnerable to experiencing energy insecurity, and discusses the inadequacy of current cooling solutions for these communities in the United States before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.
META: How are energy imaginaries—motivations, rationalities, methods, means, scales, etc.—being expressed, deliberated, and debated during COVID-19? What new forms of expression have these discourses engendered?
This artifact advocates for energy imaginaries that capitalize on this legislative moment in history to prioritize investment in and revitalization of energy vulnerable communities. It’s argued that $7 billion in funding should be allocated to LIHEAP, and that program guidelines must be updated to support both the purchase and operation of energy-efficient, HFC-free air conditioners or heat pumps, and that it’s reformed so that there are more accountability measures ensuring that funds are reaching low-income households. Additionally, it’s argued that $7 billion in funding needs to be allocated to WAP, in order to provide assistance to more households, but it’s also argued that WAP needs to be reformed to address and remove the barriers such as outstanding home repair that can make the cost of energy improvements too high. Although environmental justice groups advocating for reformed and more robust energy assistance programs are not new phenomena, this unprecedented moment in history and the amplified vulnerabilities and federal responses that are coming out of it provide conditions to make energy imaginaries become energy realities.
BIO: How have extant energy systems impacted different populations’ ability to avoid or fight off a COVID-19 infection? How have energy-system disruptions and responses related to COVID-19 created or exacerbated other bodily vulnerabilities? (How) Are these embodied inequalities naturalized, racialized, homogenized/masked/erased, and/or politicized?
Extended periods of high temperatures exacerbate chronic medical conditions such as diabetes, asthma, and hypertension, and additionally these health conditions make people more susceptible to more severe cases of COVID19. Racial disparities in chronic medical conditions, and therefore racial disparities in susceptibility to being severely impacted by COVID19, are a product of factors like degraded housing and poor air quality in communities of color. These communities also are at higher risk of experiencing extreme heat, due to communities of color often being within cities where natural cooling mechanisms like vegetation are less prevalent, and due to the cost of obtaining and using air conditioning being high and therefore a burden for low-income households. The lack of affordability of extant cooling systems therefore heightens low-income and communities of color vulnerabilities to COVID19. Vulnerable populations are traditionally advised to go to government sponsored cooling centers when experiencing extreme heat, however due to COVID19 many cooling centers are remaining closed, which is another element in extant cooling systems that heighten vulnerability to COVID19.
Elise Glout and Cathleen Kelly, "Extreme Heat During the COVID-19 Pandemic Amplifies Racial and Economic Inequities", contributed by Morgan Sarao, Disaster STS Network, Platform for Experimental Collaborative Ethnography, last modified 7 July 2020, accessed 29 November 2024. http://465538.bc062.asia/content/extreme-heat-during-covid-19-pandemic-amplifies-racial-and-economic-inequities
Critical Commentary
This article focuses on the overlap between communities that are vulnerable to extreme heat, susceptibility to severe cases of COVID-19, and vulnerable to experiencing energy insecurity, and discusses the inadequacy of current cooling solutions for these communities in the United States before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.
META: How are energy imaginaries—motivations, rationalities, methods, means, scales, etc.—being expressed, deliberated, and debated during COVID-19? What new forms of expression have these discourses engendered?
This artifact advocates for energy imaginaries that capitalize on this legislative moment in history to prioritize investment in and revitalization of energy vulnerable communities. It’s argued that $7 billion in funding should be allocated to LIHEAP, and that program guidelines must be updated to support both the purchase and operation of energy-efficient, HFC-free air conditioners or heat pumps, and that it’s reformed so that there are more accountability measures ensuring that funds are reaching low-income households. Additionally, it’s argued that $7 billion in funding needs to be allocated to WAP, in order to provide assistance to more households, but it’s also argued that WAP needs to be reformed to address and remove the barriers such as outstanding home repair that can make the cost of energy improvements too high. Although environmental justice groups advocating for reformed and more robust energy assistance programs are not new phenomena, this unprecedented moment in history and the amplified vulnerabilities and federal responses that are coming out of it provide conditions to make energy imaginaries become energy realities.
BIO: How have extant energy systems impacted different populations’ ability to avoid or fight off a COVID-19 infection? How have energy-system disruptions and responses related to COVID-19 created or exacerbated other bodily vulnerabilities? (How) Are these embodied inequalities naturalized, racialized, homogenized/masked/erased, and/or politicized?
Extended periods of high temperatures exacerbate chronic medical conditions such as diabetes, asthma, and hypertension, and additionally these health conditions make people more susceptible to more severe cases of COVID19. Racial disparities in chronic medical conditions, and therefore racial disparities in susceptibility to being severely impacted by COVID19, are a product of factors like degraded housing and poor air quality in communities of color. These communities also are at higher risk of experiencing extreme heat, due to communities of color often being within cities where natural cooling mechanisms like vegetation are less prevalent, and due to the cost of obtaining and using air conditioning being high and therefore a burden for low-income households. The lack of affordability of extant cooling systems therefore heightens low-income and communities of color vulnerabilities to COVID19. Vulnerable populations are traditionally advised to go to government sponsored cooling centers when experiencing extreme heat, however due to COVID19 many cooling centers are remaining closed, which is another element in extant cooling systems that heighten vulnerability to COVID19.