Cultivating Resilience
Adaptation to the challenging impacts of global warming, especially extreme weather events such as intense heat waves and hurricanes, is much more effective when the members of a community look out for each other. As we will see in the case example from the great Chicago Heat Wave of 1995, among the poor communities that were hardest hit, the neighborhoods that had social cohesion fared far better than those whose members were socially isolated. Social networking cultivates resilience, which protects vulnerable populations before, during, and after emergencies. In addition, the use of technologies is vital to address the impacts of extreme weather events; this chapter demonstrates how technologies aid in addressing heat waves and other natural hazards by providing a platform for database management, dispensing health and emergency information rapidly, and providing timely, effective medical relief.