Deadly Heat Is Killing Americans

[marmar]

Deadly Heat Is Killing Americans
A decade of inaction on climate change has put even more lives at risk.

By Dean Russell, Elisabeth Gawthrop, Veronica Penney, Ali Raj and Bridget Hickey


(The Nation) PHOENIX—Charlie Rhodes lived alone on a tree-sparse street with sunburned lawns just outside this Arizona city. At 61, the Army veteran’s main connection to the world was Facebook; often, he posted several times a day. But as a heat wave blanketed the region in June 2016—with temperatures among the highest ever recorded—his posts stopped. Three weeks later, a pile of unopened mail outside his door prompted a call to police.

When officers arrived, they were overcome by the odor of rotting garbage, worsened by the still-searing heat. Inside the home, they found the air conditioner broken and its thermometer reading 99 degrees. Rhodes lay dead in the bedroom, his body decomposing. The cause, his autopsy shows: “complications of environmental heat exposure.”

Yearly heat-related deaths have more than doubled in Arizona in the last decade to 283. Across the country, heat caused at least 10,000 deaths between 1999 and 2016—more than hurricanes, tornadoes, or floods in most years.

Scientists link the warming planet to a rise in dangerous heat in the United States, as well as the spread of infectious diseases and other health conditions. Federal research predicts heat stroke and similar illnesses will claim tens of thousands of American lives each year by the end of the century. Already, higher temperatures pose lethal risks: The top five warmest years nationwide have all occurred since 2006. In the last six decades, the number of annual heat waves in 50 US cities has, on average, tripled. In contrast to a viral pandemic, this is a quiet, insidious threat with no endpoint. ..............(more)

https://www.thenation.com/article/environment/heat-climate-mortality/

[mucifer]

1. FYI in Chicago in 1995 over 3 days 739 people died in a heat wave

Laws were changed since then. Cooling centers in libraries and public buildings were set up. People are encouraged to do well being checks on the elderly.

Of course it was mostly elderly Black people who died from the heat. Daley (the son) was mayor then and really didn't suffer any consequences for his horrific negligence.

Here is a good oral history article about it:

https://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/July-2015/1995-Chicago-heat-wave/

[dalton99a]

3. +1. They had to use refrigerated trucks and mass graves

Chicago police vehicles transporting victims of the heat wave in line at the Cook County medical examiner's office on July 17, 1995.


Employees at the Cook County morgue move a body from a refrigeration truck inside for examination during the heat wave July 19, 1995.


Victims of the 1995 heat wave were buried in a mass grave at the Homewood Memorial Cemetery in Homewood on Aug. 25, 1995.

[I_UndergroundPanther]

2. Add the wet bulb

Temperature with the
rising heat,and it gets real clear we are fucked.

[appalachiablue]

4. What a tragic story about the vet in Arizona,

thanks for posting this Nation article.

In summer 2003 in France, the heat wave crisis was so bad and long that thousands died, space in morgues ran out in many cities and towns and bodies piled up.

It's painful times now & guaranteed in the near future worldwide, for humans & environment.

I think it was summer 2012 in D.C., during a dreadful heat wave with mid-high 90s temps AND a derecho storm that people resorted to spending time on public buses and transit with A/C for relief because community centers didn't have policies for extreme heat situations, only severe cold.

During that event, some friends in the burbs migrated to large, cooled malls.

[JmAln]

5. And the Trump administratiion is full of climate deniers.

We are truly fucked if no action is taken soon on climate change. I'm glad to be pushing 60 and not in my 20's. Younger people are really going to feel the effects of climate change in the future. People need to vote out Trump and all republican climate deniers!