For desert dwellers, there is more to staying safe during intense summer heat than just drinking water. It helps to understand exactly how the body reacts.
For desert dwellers, there is more to staying safe during intense summer heat than just drinking water. It helps to understand exactly how the body reacts.
To see what the effects of extreme heat may be like on a large scale if things don’t change, look no further than the unhoused people in your own city "You’ll see guys sleeping under blankets, and they won’t move for a few hours. So, you go to check on them and you realize ‘Oh, he’s dead,’” says Santiago, his face drawn, as he sits with a small group of other men on the sidewalk outside Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada’s main campus. He’s describing what being unhoused is like in Las Vegas a city with increasingly extreme temperatures because of climate change and a growing homeless population, exacerbated by pandemic-related evictions and a rising cost of living. This combination of factors is leading to a startling increase of deaths among the unhoused: According to reporting done by the Review-Journal, Clark County saw an 80 percent increase in heat-related fatalities among the homeless community from 2020 to 2021. Santiago’s story illustrates the d