While people around the world are increasingly reliant on air-conditioning, which could be holding down death rates while contributing to the emissions that heat the planet, climate change is also disrupting power grids, with failures increasing by 60 percent since 2015 in the United States alone. That means that the crutch of air conditioning could become less reliable over time. Ana Maria Vicedo-Cabrera, the lead author of the new paper and a researcher at the Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine at the University of Bern in Switzerland, said that the study showed that climate change was not just a problem for the future. “We are thinking about these problems of climate change as something that the next generation will face,” she said. “Climate change is already affecting our health,” she said, noting that “essentially, all heat-related deaths are preventable.” Much depends on decisions, she said; communities must adapt to heat through measures like cooling centers and heat action plans to help those most vulnerable.

Source: New York Times May 31, 2021 15:00 UTC