How extreme heat hits our most vulnerable communities the hardest

Heat already kills more Americans than any other weather-related disaster, and climate change is making these extreme events even more dangerous.

The Northwest's record-breaking heat wave in June, which scientists say would have been "virtually impossible" without human-caused climate change, for instance, killed hundreds of people in Oregon, Washington and British Columbia. When Hurricane Ida pummeled Louisiana early this month, a heat wave exacerbated the impacts of the storm. The compounding consequences of extreme heat don't fall equally across communities. A recent study from the University of California, San Diego, found that low-income neighborhoods and communities with high Black, Hispanic and Asian populations experience significantly more heat than wealthier and predominantly white neighborhoods.