Japan’s heat wave: How the world’s most elderly country is fighting heat in a deadly double crisis

https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/19/asia/japan-climate-heat-elderly-crisis-intl-hnk-dst?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=missions&utm_source=reddit

by cnn

4 comments

  1. Whenever he’s home, 84-year-old Toshiaki Morioka carries an alarm device that measures temperature and humidity, which can summon emergency responders at the press of a button. He takes it to bed, to the kitchen, even to the bath.

    That’s because he knows he could easily fall victim to heatstroke – which kills hundreds of elderly Japanese people each year, and which has impacted tens of thousands this summer amid record-breaking temperatures.

    The alarm device is part of a government push to [combat a deadly double emergency](https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/19/asia/japan-climate-heat-elderly-crisis-intl-hnk-dst?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=missions&utm_source=reddit): the collision of Japan’s climate crisis and its aging population.

    While elderly people everywhere are especially vulnerable to the effects of extreme heat, Japan’s problem is exacerbated by isolation and other cultural factors.

  3. If you look at the mass of concrete, asphalt, sad parks and treeless streets or streets with pollarded street trees (that provide little to no shade) in many of Japan’s cities, you’ll realize Japan is in no way near ready for the challenge of extreme heat in its urban areas.

    Instead of taking this as a cue to try and cool cities by reducing the heat island effect, they tell you to sit next to an air conditioner, drink lots of water and carry a parasol. These individualized solutions are not enough. We need to redesign our cities with more greenery and shade instead of just monitoring people and carting them off to the hospital in ambulances when they get heatstroke.

  4. Japan is fighting climate change by burning more fossil fuel and stubbornly ignoring the problem.

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