For someone who has spent her entire life in Northern cities, my perception of life in the South has been largely shaped by the media – images of MAGA hats everywhere and headlines of Southern governors like Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and Greg Abbott (R-TX) banning books and changing the way Black history is taught in schools.
Hot weather is poised to kill many more Americans every year if current trends hold, recent research suggests. It estimates that the U.S. could see 200,000 temperature-related deaths annually by the end of the century in a bad but possible climate scenario—about five times the number of deaths seen today. We might still be able to significantly reduce the death toll by making cities more heat-adapted, though, particularly in the Northern U.S.