Human-caused climate change is fueling the hottest summer in recorded history, sending thousands of people to emergency rooms for dehydration, heatstroke — and burns from touching hot pavement. Even in regions where high temperatures are nothing new, people were unprepared for the deadly nature of this summer, Ariel Wittenberg writes in a deeply reported story on the rising toll. Take Ramona and Monway Ison, a retired couple on a fixed income in Baytown, Texas, whose air conditioner broke in June. It took three days for Ramona Ison to secure a $1,600 loan from a credit union to hire a repair technician. The money came too late. The couple were found dead, along with their terrier, Belle, just days into what has since become a two-month-long heat wave in the Southwest with few signs of relief. Global warming — largely driven by burning fossil fuels for power — is colliding with the Pacific weather pattern El Niño to fuel dangerous heat waves in North America and across the world this summer. The Pacific Northwest is the latest region in the country to bake. The deadly combination of heat and humidity that blanketed the southern United States starting in June has sent people to emergency rooms across the region at higher rates than in previous years. In Phoenix, doctors are treating heatstroke by dunking patients in body bags full of ice. When heat and humidity are too high, the human body stops being able to cool itself, which can prove deadly, especially for the elderly or those with underlying medical conditions. The week after Monway and Ramona Ison died, emergency rooms in Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arkansas logged 847 heat-related illnesses per 100,000 emergency department visits, according to data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. During the same week a year ago, ERs recorded 639 heat-related illnesses. The year before, the figure was 328, Ariel writes. That kind of strain on hospitals and health clinics has public health officials worried that cities simply aren’t prepared to handle the heat. Experts say the death toll is likely to reach into the thousands by summer’s end.
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