When Climate Change Falls on the Poorest: The Medical and Social Reality of Extreme Heat for Marginalized Groups

This 19-page, bilingual (English/German) report highlights the profound ethical and social injustice of climate change, emphasizing that its harshest impacts fall directly on those least responsible for greenhouse gas emissions. Rather than claiming to present cutting-edge climatological discoveries, this paper focuses on exposing the urgent warning signs of our current reality. The first section details the biological and medical toll of extreme heat on the human body, supported by data from the Lancet Countdown. It examines the physics of evaporation, the circulatory stress of failing thermoregulation, the severe cognitive and physical fatigue caused by consecutive tropical nights (above 20°C), and the medical dangers of improper hydration (such as hyponatremia and acute pulmonary edema in vulnerable patients). The second section contextualizes these medical realities within a socio-economic framework, focusing on how the ecological crisis widens the social divide in expensive Austrian urban centers like Salzburg and Vienna. It illustrates the daily, existential battle faced by individuals experiencing homelessness—who are trapped in urban heat islands, stripped of shaded public spaces by hostile architecture, and left vulnerable to sudden extreme weather. Finally, it addresses the plight of the long-term unemployed, trapped in poorly insulated housing that turns into unaffordable thermal traps. This report serves as a critical call to acknowledge climate change not just as an environmental shift, but as a direct attack on human biology and social equity.