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By Anita Snow

The Associated Press

PHOENIX 鈥� Reggie Carrillo knows firsthand that temperatures can be vastly different among neighborhoods in the same community.

The environmental activist and educator resides in a largely Mexican American area of south-central Phoenix, where segregation once forced Black and Hispanic people to live south of the railroad tracks. More than a half century later, the historic lack of investment means fewer trees and subsequent temperatures 13 degrees Fahrenheit higher than those in wealthier, leafier neighborhoods just a few miles away.

鈥淭o understand climate change, to understand the urban heat island effect, you have to understand the history,鈥� said Carrillo, who wants to share that knowledge with his neighbors and help cool the community.

Carrillo has benefited from one of several nonprofit initiatives popping up around the United States to educate and engage residents about climate-fueled heat that disproportionately affects low-income neighborhoods of color.

Among the most ambitious is the聽Urban Heat Leadership Academy聽鈥� an educational effort spearheaded by The Nature Conservancy, the Phoenix Revitalization Corporation, and others. Better known for preserving natural areas, the nonprofit global conservancy is now also doing more in urban areas 鈥� like聽planting hundreds of trees and overseeing community gardens聽in Atlanta’s South River neighborhood.

Held virtually on Saturday mornings with experts in various aspects of climate change, the course teaches residents like Carrillo not only why their communities are becoming so hot but also how they can organize and advocate for cooler, greener, healthier neighborhoods. Other topics include water, air quality and environmental equity for poorer Black, Latino and Indigenous neighborhoods.

As climate change leads to more intense, frequent and longer lasting heat waves across the United States and around the world, historically temperate and even cold areas are grappling with the effects of high temperatures.

Gray, cool and drizzly much of the year,聽the Pacific Northwest in 2021 saw triple-digit temperatures聽during an unusual heat wave that was blamed for numerous deaths.

In Philadelphia, where temperatures typical fall into the 20s and 30s (Fahrenheit) in the winter, summers are becoming increasingly hotter with more summer days pushing over 90 degrees.

The Trust for Public Land, a national nonprofit, recently wrapped up in Philadelphia a two-year initiative that used public art to raise awareness about the growing dangers of urban heat and spark conversation about extreme temperatures in low-income communities of color.

Initiatives聽like the Heat Response project in Philadelphia are now under way or proposed in places around the U.S., including New York’s Harlem neighborhood, Miami, Seattle and California’s Ventura County.

Owen Franklin, director of the Trust for Public Land in Pennsylvania, said the Philadelphia project sparked conversations about crowded, aging neighborhoods that lack parks or tree canopy and subsequently experience temperatures up to 20 degrees hotter than those in nearby neighborhoods.

鈥淭here is a lot of learning all of us need to do, and not just people living in these neighborhoods,鈥� said Franklin, noting that organizers learned from community members that they often sleep with closed windows on hot summer nights due to concerns about crime.

鈥淭he rest of us need to know what people experience so we can combat the problem,鈥� he said.

In Phoenix, Carrillo is working with several other graduates of the five-month academy to design a 鈥渃ool corridor鈥� 鈥� a pedestrian path that will be lined with plants native to the Sonoran Desert like mesquite trees, cactus, and creosote to be purchased with a grant from the Nature Conservancy and planted this fall. The team also plans to hold related community meetings with residents.

鈥淲e want people to have their voices be heard about what their neighborhoods look like,鈥� Carrillo said.

In last year’s edition of the academy, about 40 neighborhood residents joined the weekly gatherings online to hear subject experts explain such things as transpiration, a process that聽allows plants to cool off surrounding areas, and the聽impacts of extreme heat on people.

鈥淲e are trying to help people to work on solutions that will cool down their neighborhoods over the long term,鈥� said Anna Bettis, the healthy cities program director for The Nature Conservancy in Arizona. 鈥淪hade is a resource. If you just look around, you can see how unequally it is distributed in some neighborhoods.鈥�

And it’s critical in places more accustomed to extremely high temperatures like Phoenix’s Maricopa County, where the mercury hit 115 degrees Fahrenheit in July and 339 people died of heat associated causes last year.

Carrillo discussed his team’s plans for a cool corridor with people who attended an informal event organized in late September by an Arizona State University class of graduate design students at Academia del Pueblo, a K-8 charter school in his neighborhood.

鈥淲e don’t have proper sidewalks here and a lot of our students have to walk five or more blocks without shade in more than 100-degree heat,鈥� said Teresa Silva, who teaches at the school. 鈥淲e don’t have transportation and their parents often work several jobs and can’t pick them up.鈥�

Neighbor Carlos Ramirez stopped by with his son Alexis, 13, to learn how the ASU students are examining ways to improve shade in the area.

鈥淚t can get hot here,鈥� the elder Ramirez said. 鈥淚t would be good to have more trees.鈥�

In another Phoenix neighborhood with sparse shade, heat academy graduate Curtis Merritt, a disabled Navy veteran, is working with his team to plant up to a dozen fig, apple, pear and citrus trees in an area considered to be a food desert, without adequate access to nutritious food.

The public-school student body in Merritt’s rundown neighborhood north of the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport is working class and about 80 percent Latino, and the local Prentice Park has become home to scores of homeless people in recent years.

鈥淲hat’s great about this project is that I not only get to help cool down my neighborhood by teaching and engaging,鈥� Merritt said. 鈥淪omeday with those trees I’ll be able to feed my neighbors, too.鈥�