‘It’s unbearable’: in ever-hotter US cities, air conditioning is no longer enough
G loria Gellot, 79, takes a careful seat in a kitchen chair in front of her only air-conditioning unit, massaging her knees. She’s hung a sheet in the doorway to keep the cool air in the kitchen, and drawn shades to keep the sun – already blazing in May – out of her second-floor New Orleans apartment. Her home was badly damaged by Hurricane Ida in 2021, and heat leeches in through the gutted walls.
Gellot’s sweltering apartment is not just uncomfortable; it’s dangerous. Extreme heat was linked to some 11,000 deaths and 120,000 emergency room visits last year. Heat injuries don’t just happen in sun-soaked fields – older adults like Gellot who live alone and cannot escape stifling, poorly insulated units are among the most at risk.
Conventional wisdom and public policy have long operated on the assumption that, no matter how bad the heat gets, air conditioning will be enough to keep people safe. But the last few years of record-breaking temperatures are shattering that myth.
