Fwd: Europe broils, U.S. bakes

[Loretta Lohman]

Plus, how your community can keep people safe during heat waves.

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A major heat wave is on the way for the Eastern U.S., on the heels of a separate heat wave that has killed at least 1,300 people in Europe.

“Extreme heat is already reaching the limits of our societies’ ability to cope,” the scientific group World Weather Attribution said of the European heat wave.

In the coming days, U.S. East Coast residents can expect “a miserable and potentially record-setting heat wave that will run from midweek into the Fourth of July holiday across much of the U.S. east of the Appalachians,” writes meteorologist Bob Henson. “Heat indexes – reflecting air temperature plus humidity – may exceed 110 degrees across much of the extreme-heat watch area.”

These temperatures are dangerous for everyone, but especially for babies, pregnant people, kids, pets, older adults, people without reliable housing, and outdoor workers, so check on your people this week.

What else you can do: Ask your elected officials how they’re protecting your neighbors. There’s a lot that can be done to save lives during heat waves, as Sam Harrington outlined in this 2025 article:

1. Help residents experiencing homelessness find safe, permanent housing.

2. Offer public communication and resources during heat waves.

3. Require heat safety protections for outdoor workers.

4. Reduce air pollution from city buses and trucks

– Sara Peach, Editor-in-Chief

P.S. I loved this old video of Japan’s men’s soccer team facing off against 100 elementary schoolers.

A champion soccer team is taking on climate change, too

Bridgett Ennis reports:

Just a few years after its founding, Vermont Green Football Club has already made a name for itself in American soccer. Competing in USL League Two – a preprofessional summer league with 144 teams – the club captured national attention last year with an undefeated championship run.

The team aims to become a net zero club, which means reducing its climate pollution to as close to zero as possible and offsetting any remaining emissions. Fans are encouraged to bike or take public transit to games, and each match highlights a local nonprofit organization.

Yale Climate Connections spoke with Vermont Green FC cofounder Patrick Infurna about the team’s mission and goals and how the community has stepped up to amplify the team’s impact.

Yale Climate Connections: Could you introduce us to your environmental mission and what inspired it?

Patrick Infurna: We wanted this to be something that had a mission and an identity and a purpose that went beyond the game. We always knew that to be successful and to be a club that actually mirrored and reflected the community in Vermont, it had to be something that had a purpose that went beyond the game.

For us, that was initially “How do we build a club that raises awareness of climate change?” And that evolved to something deeper with our environmental justice mission: If we’re going to address the climate crisis, we need to do it at the local level, at the human level, and we needed to build something that brought people together to discuss these issues.

YCC: Can you tell us a little bit about your work to become net zero?

Infurna: Net zero is our north star, and we’ve learned over time that it’s really a difficult task.

The typical sports experience is going to the stadium, having a drink, having a hot dog, throwing it out, and leaving. We wanted to transform that and encourage fans to be a bit more thoughtful with the food, the drinks, encouraging fans to recycle, using our staff to sort through the garbage at the end of every game to make sure things are recycled and sorted in the right way, and being an example, even if it’s a small one, to fans to say that we can be a bit better.

We’re still bound to traditional transportation when we take a bus for an away game. But when it comes to our home matches on the campus of the University of Vermont in Burlington, we encourage public transportation, and if you can bike to the game, walk to the game, use public transportation, that’s really important to us. We encourage fans to bike to every game, and if you bike to the game and use the bike valet parking, you’re automatically entered into a raffle for small prizes.

But ultimately, we’ve tried to be clear that net zero is a target that we want to achieve, while understanding that it’s not the easiest task. So for us, this process of getting to net zero has really been about that journey and in educating our fans on what they can do at the stadium and outside of the stadium to make that little bit more of an impact.

YCC: Can you talk about some of the ways that you’re communicating these issues and getting information out to fans?

Infurna: We want to be a leader, and we want to be an example in addressing the climate crisis through the game of soccer. But we also don’t come to our fans saying that we – the Vermont Green Football Club – have all the answers. So we give multiple ways for our fans to access local partners, whether that’s tables in the concourse where people can gather information, sign petitions, get gear, things like that. We also have match-day spotlights where we’ll welcome an organization to speak at halftime.

YCC: Can you describe what it’s like at the stadium on a home game day?

Infurna: Game days at Virtue Field are really fantastic. You walk into the concourse, and you see the nonprofits tabling, you see the local food trucks, you see Ben and Jerry’s handing out free ice cream – every single Vermont Green FC game has mini-scoops of free Ben and Jerry’s for everybody. It’s a joyous occasion, and it certainly helps that our team has been really good and we win a lot of games, but I don’t think it’s just that. I think people love to get together. I think they love to celebrate being Vermonters. I think they love to celebrate our community, the city of Burlington, and the state as a whole.

We’ve been sold out of our season tickets for the last couple of seasons, and we sold out every regular-season game last year.

We have such an engaged fan base that actively cheers on the team in this visceral, vocal way. But they also know that when they do all of this, and they build this identity for the club and for the fan base, it’s an expression of this community’s pride, this team’s pride, and pride that our football club – our community – is this incredible thing on and off the field. And I think that is ultimately what people are looking for at these Vermont Green games.

And I hope this is a glimpse at a different way to approach sport anywhere in the world. We’re not the first people to attach a mission to our team, but when you can gather at a local soccer game and you feel like everything is a reflection of who you and your neighbors and your city are, I think this is what people want from sports. They don’t want to just be customers, they don’t want to just go consume athletics that they can watch on TV or on their phone or wait for the highlights. They want to have a fully engaging experience alongside their neighbors with a team that reflects and represents them. And I think that is why we’ve had sold-out games and people asking for more seats, because it’s just a good time.

And the way that people are deciding to support this team – to enjoy the game, to become obsessed with soccer, but to continue to recognize it as something that can bring people together to face larger issues – has been a testament to Vermont culture.

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