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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now, our "Climate Story of the Week", which we're doing on Tuesdays every week this year on the Brian Lehrer Show. Our "Climate Story of the Week" on Tuesdays. You probably have an idea of what summer vacation looks like for children, at least some children. Packed parks and playgrounds, swimming pools overflowing with kids, ice cream trucks swarmed by wide-eyed kids and their parents.

Well, one of our next guests writes that these might be soon relics of the past, to some degree, because of global warming. So with us now to discuss how extreme heat is altering the way children experience the summer, our climate journalist Emma Pattee, who recently wrote a story in The Atlantic, titled "Summer Vacation is Moving Indoors," and Dr. Aaron Bernstein, Director of the National Center for Environmental Health and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry at the Centers for Disease Control. Dr. Bernstein also formally led the Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment at Harvard's Chan School of Public Health, and he practiced pediatrics at the Boston Children's Hospital for nearly 20 years. Emma and Dr. Bernstein, welcome to WNYC.

Emma Pattee: Hey Brian, thanks for having me.

Dr. Aaron Bernstein: Great to be back on the show with you, Brian. Nice to speak with you again, Emma.

Brian Lehrer: Emma, I'm wondering what prompted you to write this story? I see you have children of your own, and so did their summers look different from the summers of your childhood?

Emma Pattee: Yes, I am a parent, and therefore I'm part of a local parents Facebook group. I started to see during the summer, these groups would just explode. They would be pictures of sweaty little kids, "Is this heatstroke?" "It's 95 degrees, should I send my kid to soccer camp?" or "Camp is canceled but I have to work. What do I do with my kid?" As a climate writer, this is very interesting to me. I had this realization that I was seeing climate adaptation in real time and it was messy.

Brian Lehrer: On camp is canceled, you're right that many summer camps across the country have closed their doors on particularly sweltering days, I guess those must be day camps, because a sleepaway camp can't close its doors, whereas others have adapted to this new reality in other ways. Can you give us a couple of examples of how the camps you reported on have moved indoors?

Emma Pattee: Absolutely. Here in Portland, where I'm from, the largest summer camp recently--

Brian Lehrer: Is that Oregon or Maine, just to be clear?

Emma Pattee: Thank you for clarifying that. Portland, Oregon, the largest summer camp just recently rented out a department store in a shopping mall as a backup for hot days, because they were having to cancel camp so much that they needed to have a backup. I think because looking forward, that is the future that all summer activities need to prepare for.

Brian Lehrer: I can't resist but to point out that you wrote about a nature camp inside a former Marshalls department store?

Emma Pattee: It was alarming and it was fascinating, but I don't think that we can shy away from that.

Brian Lehrer: Dr. Bernstein, for you as a pediatrician and a climate-related medical expert, what are the dangers to kids as we pass what points? It's always been hot in the summer, we've always had some 95 degree days in the summer in this part of the country. What's actually changing?

Dr. Aaron Bernstein: It's a great question, Brian. I want to emphasize that first and foremost, we need to maintain the outdoor world for children in the summer. The ability of children to be outside in the summer is just so important for their physical and mental health and for having a different set of expectations for the world than the school year. I think the focus needs to be on how we can make sure that children can enjoy the kinds of summers that you so well described, Brian, in your opening, the bucolic summers that we all envision for our children. I think that means we need to be prepared, and so we need, obviously, to pay attention to weather forecasts.

Every parent and every camp owner wants the number that we'll say, "Well, if it's above this number, we need to be inside, if it's below that number we're okay." I think it's fair to say that we can't make it that black and white. What we can say is, first and foremost, everyone has access to good weather forecasts. I'm heartened to say that we'll be seeing, we've already seen today, and we'll see coming out later this year, more and more forecasts that will give us more understanding of what specific temperatures mean to the health of people living in specific places, because of course, 95 degrees in Houston is not the same as 95 degrees in Portland, where Emma is.

Brian Lehrer: Because of humidity?

Dr. Aaron Bernstein: Well, great question. It's not just the humidity, it's about people's behavior. People in places like Oregon, we saw this with a heat dome a few years ago, there's less air conditioning, they may not be as able to adjust their behavior to the heat. People might not say, "Oh, it's the middle of July. I'm not going to be outside between the hours of noon and four," because we know that's the hottest part of the day. Whereas people in in southern states might be more aware to the reality that that's just not what you do in the summer. Then there's a whole bunch of other factors that can affect what the same temperature means in different places, as well.

To your point, Brian, I think in addition to looking at the temperature, which is critical, and the humidity, we need to know what the signs of heat stress are in children so that any grown-up can look at a child and be more able to say, "Yes, this is a child who we need to maybe think about getting out of the heat." I think those include, obviously, sweating a lot, skin color changes, whether that's looking more red or more pale. Certainly, if the child is saying, "I'm feeling a little nauseous, I've got a headache. I feel uneasy or unsettled."

Those are really important signs to get that child out of the heat, make sure they are well hydrated. I think we also have in our mind that we don't give children when they're outside exercising fluids until they say they're thirsty. Of course, by the time they're thirsty, they're already dehydrated. I think being prepared is critical here.

Brian Lehrer: Those are great tips. Listeners, parents, camp counselors and camp directors, anyone else relevant to this story, help us report it. How are you navigating keeping your children safe in the heat, while also keeping them entertained and active this summer? 212-433-WNYC. Of course, not just this summer, but recent summers as the world has become warmer and warmer and warmer. I've mentioned on the show a number of times in our recent climate stories of the week that the last nine years are the hottest nine years on record, globally, according to the US and the EU, so this is progressing year-by-year.

How has some or changed for your kids as they've gotten older, for your camp, if you've run a camp for a while? Tell us the story from your point of view, or a piece of it. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692 for Emma Pattee, who's written about this in The Atlantic recently, and Dr. Bernstein from the National Center for Environmental Health. 212-433-9692 or text to that number or tweet @BrianLehrer.

Emma I'm curious if you reported on any historical context for this. Dr. Bernstein was just talking about the difference between experiencing 95 degree heat in Houston and where you are in Portland, Oregon, but they didn't always have air conditioning in Houston. You know what I mean? They always had hot summers, relative to what we're used to in New York or in Portland, say. Is there a historical-cultural component? Is something with the new extreme heat returning to what it used to be a few generations ago, when there was still heat in the summer in the south, but there was no air conditioning yet?

Emma Pattee: I grew up in Oregon, so I grew up without air conditioning. I can't really speak to what it was like growing up in the South, but I can say that I think it becomes very dangerous when you have cultural traditions around being outdoors and then the weather stops being able to accommodate that. It's almost like we are the last to accept it. In Portland we have an understanding of our city as being very temperate. We grew up being outdoors all the time, and planning around heat was just unthinkable.

Then now as parents, we're clinging to that idea of summer, but the temperatures are saying something different. This is actually very relevant to me, because I just had to reschedule my kid's birthday party last night because it's just going to be too hot, and that's just unthinkable. It's so rare that you would see a kid's outdoor party rescheduled in Portland, and this probably is the first summer that I'm starting to see people moving birthdays to the morning, moving them indoors.

That, of course, is such a small anecdote, but if you think about that in the sense of danger to kids, peer pressure plays a huge role. Cultural expectations play a huge role. I'm sure there's plenty of parents who are going to think we're crazy for canceling that birthday party. I think that when things get really dangerous, is when they exist in a gray area and when we're all the last to know that this is a problem.

Brian Lehrer: Anything on that historical context from the South, Dr. Bernstein?

Dr. Aaron Bernstein: I'll give some historical context from my own family, Brian. One of my grandfather's first cousins was a founder of the American Camping Association. Camping has been a part of our family's history from long time. I went to summer camp in the very northern part of Wisconsin for a decade, my brother went there and these places were chosen to get out of the heat. We see, to Emma's point, the cultural history of Americans who could afford it, taking spaces, whether it's in Maine, in northern states, to move to get out of the heat. This isn't even from the South. These are from the Midwest.

To me, one of the issues that Emma is describing is people who have resources will find ways to protect themselves from the heat, whether that's at summer camp or elsewhere. What I think we need to focus primarily on, and again, especially for our children, and I'm thinking particularly about children who have chronic medical problems, and also importantly, children with mental health challenges, is how do we ensure that they have access to safe and enjoyable summers? How do we make sure that they aren't left behind in conditions that are unsafe?

I think we're seeing some progress in that regard, but I want to make sure that we pay attention to that because, again, people who have resources, we're going to protect our children. We're going to make sure they're wherever they need to be to stay out of the heat. I want to make sure that families that have less resources, their children deserve absolutely the ability to enjoy a summer. Again, this isn't just about pleasure, Brian, as you pointed out. This is about our children's health. It's about their long-term physical and mental health. I think we need to be careful not to underestimate the importance of protecting summers for them.

Brian Lehrer: We're in our "Climate Story of the Week", which we do Tuesdays on The Brian Lehrer Show. Today, talking about how global warming is moving summer indoors for children and how to protect their safety in the global warming era. We have a couple of callers with a big structural reform idea. I'm going to let Susie in Maplewood represent. Susie, you're on WNYC. Hi, there.

Susie: Hi there. I'm starting to wonder if something I wished for as a kid as a fantasy might turn out to be a necessary paradigm shift as this all changes, which is maybe what we should be doing is air conditioning our schools, and not trying to preserve summer per se, but sending kids to school in the summer and instead of having 12 weeks off in summer, maybe we give them six weeks off in the spring and six weeks off in the fall when it's much nicer out and there's a lot less baking sun and horrible humidity and mosquitoes and ticks.

I guess there's going to be ticks no matter what we do these days, but mosquitoes and humidity and all that, and let them be out when it's beautiful outside and much more pleasant than it is in the baking depths of summer.

Brian Lehrer: Susie, thank you for raising that. Dr. Bernstein, I don't know if this is anything that you've ever considered, but we've talked about it on the show before in other contexts sometimes, when people object to daylight savings time or standard time changes or other things. I have some family in Indiana in a school district where they actually do this in the public schools. Tather than summers off, which maybe was originally created because of the agricultural lifestyle that more people in this country lived once upon a time. Let's go a few months on, a few weeks off, a few months on, a few weeks off all year.

Dr. Aaron Bernstein: Brian, I think you hit the nail on the head, there, and Susie's point to me underscores that when the climate changes on the planet, when all the rules of the game, whether it's how we grow our food, how we transport ourselves, when the climate is forcing us to change, from Emma's point of a birthday party onto everything we can think of, we have to think about our norms. I think Susie raises a fair question. Now, how that's going to play out in every community, I don't know and I don't pretend to say that I have any unique wisdom there, but I think the reality is that we can't keep playing the game of life in the same way with different rules.

If we do so, we're going to wind up getting surprises we don't like. I do think adaptation and resilience to climate has got to be a major part of how we think about everything from summer camp to school vacations and everything in between so that we can do our best to stay ahead. The challenge we face is if we remain set in our ways, we're going to have a harder time recovering from the climate shocks that are already here, let alone coming down the road.

Brian Lehrer: Emma, have you thought about this question at all, either as a parent or as a journalist? The downside would be what do I do with two weeks off in January or February or March if I'm a kid or a parent with a kid and summer is still more of the delightful time to be off, or maybe that's just a sentimental nostalgic view, considering the climate. Have you thought about it as a parent or as a journalist?

Emma Pattee: I would say as a feminist I've thought about, it because summer vacation unfairly falls on the shoulders of women and is also very expensive. I think that there's something to be said there. I think that what's so interesting about this is that it requires AC in our schools. That certainly is a topic for another time, but that is a challenge that a lot of communities are still struggling to meet, that we really need adequate AC in schools. I certainly think if we could look into a magic ball and see 10 years from now, it is likely that summer vacation will have shifted drastically. You already see that globally, that they're shifting spring breaks and summer breaks to accommodate extreme heat.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a caller who's raising a particular added heat source, I think he'll describe it as, that was originally intended as an adaptation in urban spaces. Jack in East Orange, you're on WNYC. Hi, Jack.

Jack: Hey, how y'all doing? I just was wondering how you feel the reliance of municipalities on artificial synthetic turf for city parks contributes to the inability of children to be able to fully enjoy summer outside activities at their parks. We have a park here where I live that was just turned from a grass field, tree lined park into a synthetic turf field. It's in the middle of a city block, too. Temperature rise is 20 to 30 degrees. It's unbearable at certain points of the day. I know this is an issue in a lot of places, and I'm just wondering if that's something at a policy level that should maybe be addressed by states and counties.

Brian Lehrer: Jack, thank you for that. Dr. Bernstein, do you have a medical take on artificial turf versus grass?

Dr. Aaron Bernstein: I don't know that I have a medical take, but I do think that urban heat islands are a real issue. I think the question is how that neighborhood is designed. Grass also takes tons of water, and there are many places in the country that are short on water right now. I know many communities have anguished over this decision, but there have been very thoughtful, engaged processes. I think that's what it comes down to, is knowing what the trade-offs are, getting people who are stakeholders in that space, making sure that people have the appropriate voice, and coming to a decision, but there are definitely trade-offs, here. It's not merely an issue of heat, although it is one of them.

Brian Lehrer: Lila in Rye, you're on WNYC. Hi, Lila.

Lila: Hi, this is Lila Smith from Rye, New York, and I'm a nurse at a summer camp up in Maine, a sleepaway camp. Definitely, on days that we know are going to be hot even up in Maine, we will provide Gatorade for the kids outside the health center, we will advise that they swim more in the lake, try not to do things in the sun in the middle of the day, and we'll really amend their schedule so that we can still give them that full camp experience in the heat.

Brian Lehrer: Have you worked at this camp for a number of years, and has the balance needed to change between indoor and outdoor activities?

Lila: I actually was a camper at the camp and then returned in my 40s to work in the health center, and I've worked there seven years, seven summers. We try to stay outside as much as we can, because we don't have air conditioning inside. Even if it's in the shade, going out of the sun is a huge relief for the kids and they can still do activities, archery, shaded by the trees. We are mostly outside, but I have noticed over the past couple of summers that Maine is still getting hit with these heat waves, just like New York, whereas when I was a kid, I don't think we ever had weeks upon weeks of just high heat.

Brian Lehrer: Lila, thank you for that reporting from two different phases of your life. Emma, what are the possible ramifications of having a new generation of kids spending so much of their time indoors? Is it too early to say what the effects of severing children's ties to the outdoors to the extent that it's necessary might be?

Emma Pattee: It's a chilling question, and I think you don't need a ton of data to know that if you bring kids indoors they're going to spend more time on screens. I don't think there's a parent in the world who wants that for their kids. Something that Dr. Bernstein said when I interviewed him for The Atlantic was just this idea that sometimes we try to fix for one thing but we end up causing a problem for something else because we've lost sight of what's most important, which is the well-being of our kids. I think that it's going to be really challenging in the future as we try to keep kids safe outdoors without just completely disconnecting them from nature, which I think everyone intuitively understands is not a good idea.

Brian Lehrer: Though there is that whole rest of the year. Dr. Bernstein, give us a last thought as we wrap up.

Dr. Bernstein: I'll underscore something that Emma said, and it's a point I raised earlier, is the solution to dealing with climate change in many cases is to do our best to protect the welfare of our children. They have the most at stake and they also have the most to gain. When I think about the actions that we need to take to address climate, whether it's the foods we need to eat more of, whether it's how we transport ourselves, even how we power our homes and communities, those actions are in many, if not most, cases exactly the things I would do as a pediatrician to benefit the challenges we have with obesity, mental health and a host of other concerns, asthma.

When it comes to this issue of summer, as Emma said, there is more and more science showing that children who grow up connected to nature have much healthier brains and much healthier bodies. I don't want us to start the conversation with simply the solution is, as Emma pointed out, keeping kids inside in air-conditioned rooms. I want us to think about how we create environments in summers that are as protected as we can. If communities get to the point where it's just too hot, then we're going to have conversations, and some places may already be having them, around the point that Susie raised, is do we need to change how we structure years? Those decisions are, obviously, in the places that they're happening. They need to happen there.

Brian Lehrer: That, listeners, is our "Climate Story of the Week". We thank Dr. Aaron Bernstein, director for the National Center for Environmental Health and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry at the Centers for Disease Control, and Emma Pattee, climate journalist whose article in The Atlantic is "Summer Vacation is Moving Indoors." Thank you both so much.

Emma Pattee: Thanks, Brian.

Dr. Bernstein: Great to be with you both.