Alaska Just Issued Its First-Ever Heat Advisory. It’s Probably Fine.

If you’re wondering how humanity is faring in its ongoing war against climate change, consider the fact that the National Weather Service office in Fairbanks, Alaska, issued the state’s first-ever heat advisory on Thursday, June 12.

Not only has Fairbanks never had to do that before, but up until this month, Alaska didn’t even have heat advisories.

Alaska has warmed at twice the rate of the rest of the U.S., with its average annual air temperature rising a startling 3°F over the last 60 years. The most recent heat advisory, effective from June 12 to 15, warned of temperatures reaching up to 86°F across the Fairbanks metro and Tanana Flats.

If you’re from Phoenix, that’s balmy. However, in Alaska, where homes are built to retain heat and central air is rarely considered when building homes, this kind of heat can be genuinely hazardous.

On top of that, the high heat triggered another climate-related warning. On the same day as the advisory, NWS Fairbanks issued a flood watch thanks to accelerated snowmelt. Rivers draining the Brooks Range and Central Arctic Plains could overflow, threatening roads, airstrips, and any structures built low and flat.

And if that weren’t enough, haze from Canadian wildfires drifted across Alaska’s interior, reducing visibility. Between the smoke and the heat, Alaskans are getting the barbecue brisket treatment right now. Fairbanks hit 75°F on June 12, but temperatures are expected to keep climbing.

There are probably a lot of people right now hearing about this whose knee-jerk reaction is to tell Alaskans to pick themselves up by the bootstraps and adapt to a rapidly changing world. The problem is, human civilization tailors itself to its surroundings. Alaska is synonymous with cold. Our actions have made Alaska a lot hotter than it should be.

It’s going to take billions, if not trillions of dollars, to retrofit all of the Alaskan infrastructure for higher temperatures in the future to protect its citizens, infrastructure, and wildlife from heat levels it’s not built for and that we caused.

This is why climate experts and the handful of American politicians who actually care about climate change often say that spending the money to fight climate change now will save us tons of money in the long run. Cleaning up the disasters caused by our own inaction will be exponentially more expensive than preventative measures — preventative measures that themselves will be quite expensive.

It’s not surprising or saddening to hear that Alaska had to issue a heat advisory. It’s jarring but unsurprising at this point. What’s sad is that it probably won’t be the last time, and the next time is probably going to happen sooner than you think.