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This is the WFHB Local News for Tuesday, August 29th, 2023.
Later in the program, Dana Habeeb, an architect and urban designer at Indiana University, discusses record-high heat waves this summer, causing drought, wildfires and other negative health impacts. More in today’s feature report.
Also coming up in the next half hour, we have Lil Bub’s Lil Show – a co-production between WFHB and Lil Bub’s Big Fund.
But first, your local headlines:
Monroe County Board of Commissioners
At the August 23 meeting of the Monroe County Board of Commissioners, the board approved Monroe
County jail improvements and rezoning requests. Lori Kelley, the Monroe County Health Administrator, reported on the continued increase in COVID cases and emergency room visits. The emergence of B.A. 2.86 earlier this month has raised concerns with experts over the new variant’s highly mutated genetic makeup and lack of information on the strain.
COVID test kits are available for free from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Health Services Building located at 119 West 7th Street and at the Monroe County Health Clinic located at 333 East Miller Drive. Jim Shelton, the government relations manager for the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce, spoke on behalf of the Court Appointed Special Advocates group (CASA), which represents those in juvenile court due to negligence or abuse. Applications to volunteer will be available to complete online and are due September 8th, 2023. Training will be from September 19th to October 19th on Tuesday and Thursday mornings
Jail Commander Kyle Gibbons requested an extension on their contract with Combined Public Communications and the addition of the program TextBehind, an offsite document scanning service that can be used to send mail and electronic messages directly to inmates. The addition will require no additional funding nor cost from inmates.
After concerns of an offsite facility potentially breaching attorney to client confidentiality, Gibbons assured the Commissioners that mail of legal matters will be sent directly to the jail to be opened in front of the inmates. The measure passed unanimously.
Daniel Brown of the Monroe County Planning Department, requested a rezone of property located at 3130 N Smith Pike. This rezone would reclassify a portion of the five acre lot into a Medium Density Residential (MDR) area. It would also rezone a portion of the lot to be considered a Limited Business (LB) area. The motion passed 3-0.
The next Monroe County Board of Commissioners meeting will happen on Wednesday, August 30 at 10 a.m. at Nat U Hill, located at 100 W. Kirkwood Ave.
Richland Bean Blossom Community School Corporation
During the August 21st board meeting of the Richland Bean Blossom Community School Corporation, Assistant Superintendent Matt Irwin gave his regular report.
Then, Irwin explained the 2024 budget forms for the school corporation and requested permission to advertise them.
The school board approved the permission to advertise the 2024 budget forms unanimously. The R-B-B-C-S-C will meet on September 18th for its monthly session.
‘This Summer Has Been Devastating Across the Globe with Extreme Heat’, Says IU Expert
Across the U.S., Americans have experienced record-high heat waves this summer, causing drought, wildfires and even death for people without air conditioning.
According to the Indiana Climate Change Impacts Assessment, the number of extreme heat events will continue to rise significantly in all areas of the state as a result of climate change.
Dana Habeeb, an architect and urban designer at Indiana University, looks at how climate responsive design can help mitigate climate change. Habeeb touched on the extreme heat this summer, attributing the causes to a variety of factors including climate change and El Niño.
“This summer has been devastating for the United States, but also across the world with extreme heat, we’re seeing record breaking events happening across the country,” said Habeeb.
Habeeb said that we should both mitigate climate change but also adapt to the impacts of its effects – saying that both are impactful when it comes to climate response.
“When we’re thinking about climate change, we think about it in multiple ways that we can respond. We can try to mitigate climate change, and we can try to adapt to climate change. And it’s important that we do both, that we try to mitigate our impact on climate change globally as well as locally,” she said.
She explained how human-related actions contribute to warmer weather and the changing climate.
“Humans definitely are having a huge impact on our climate. We are increasing our greenhouse gasses, which are going to increase our temperatures globally, across the globe,” said Habeeb.
Habeeb described who is most vulnerable during bouts of extreme heat – in particular, the elderly, the unhoused and people with preexisting health conditions, among others.
“We see that our elders in our communities are some of our most vulnerable, especially those who live in isolation. It’s really important that we build strong social networks and communities so that we’re checking on our elders who are living alone, making sure their ACs are working. And if they don’t have AC, they can get to a place that is in a cooling environment. We also see preexisting health conditions will impact our vulnerability to heat those with preexisting health conditions such as respiratory, cardiovascular diseases. The types of medication that we’re on can also inhibit our ability to cool our bodies. And so that’s important to recognize. We see the very young are vulnerable to extreme heat, as well as the housing insecure,” she said.
Habeeb is the principal investigator with Beat the Heat – in collaboration with the IU Environmental Resilience Institute and the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs started in 2021. Beat the Heat selected the Indiana cities Clarksville and Richmond as the program’s recipients. Through this project, both communities hired full-time heat relief coordinators to develop programs and projects to cope with the health impacts of extreme heat. Habeeb described her role in the initiative.
“We’re working with two local Indiana communities to help them tailor and develop heat response plans for their communities. It’s a program where we’ve worked with the communities to both understand their specific risk and vulnerability to extreme heat, and then to develop different plans to create different approaches and strategies specifically for their communities and their community’s needs and their risk and vulnerability,” said Habeeb.
She said that when looking at Clarksville and Richmond, they looked at cities such as Bloomington for comparison. She described how extreme heat has impacted the city of Bloomington, especially during last week’s heat wave.
“This past week, we saw that in one of the parking lots on campus, temperatures were getting up to 98 degrees or a heat index of over 118. And this is really high for Bloomington,” said Habeeb.
Stay tuned later this week on the WFHB Local News to hear the second part of our report on recent extreme heat with our guest Dana Habeeb – architect, urban designer and educator at Indiana University.
Lil Bub’s Lil Show:
Up next, we have Lil Bub’s Lil Show – a co production between WFHB and Lil Bub’s Big Fund. We turn now to that segment.
Credits:
You’ve been listening to the WFHB Local News,
Today’s headlines were written by Clayton Young, Kade Young and Noelle Herhusky-Schneider, in partnership with Cats – Community Access Television Services.
Our feature was produced by Kade Young.
Lil Bub’s Lil Show is produced by Christine Brackenhoff and Stacy Bridavsky.
Our theme music is provided by Mark Bingham and the Social Climbers.
Engineer and Executive producer is Kade Young.
Anchors are Ashley Voss and Kade Young.
