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Climate

Heat Killed More Than 2,000 ​People in the U.S.​ Last Year

On deadly temperatures, geothermal deals, and rising sea levels

Heat Killed More Than 2,000 ​People in the U.S.​ Last Year
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Current conditions: Typhoon Shanshan is headed toward southwestern Japan with the power of a Category 3 hurricane • Flooding in Bangladesh has killed 23 people and stranded 1.24 million families • Australia just experienced its hottest winter temperature ever recorded.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Midwest heat wave intensifies

Excessive heat warnings and heat advisories are in place across much of the Midwest as a heat wave intensifies across large swathes of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Ohio. In Chicago, the heat index could climb to 115 degrees Fahrenheit today before temperatures begin to come down Wednesday. But the shifting weather is likely to be accompanied by intense thunderstorms across the Midwest tonight and tomorrow.

HeatRisk/NOAA

2. U.S. heat-related deaths on the rise

Extreme heat killed 2,325 people in America last year, the highest number in nearly 25 years, according to a new study published in the journal American Medical Association. The data shows 21,518 heat-related deaths since 1999, with the number of deaths remaining steady until 2016, when they began to rise noticeably. Last year the number surpassed 2,000 for the first time in the recorded time period. The age-adjusted rate of heat deaths per capita has also been rising. It stood at 0.17 deaths per 100,000 people in 2015, and reached 0.63 last year. “As temperatures continue to rise because of climate change, the recent increasing trend is likely to continue,” the researchers wrote. “Local authorities in high-risk areas should consider investing in the expansion of access to hydration centers and public cooling centers or other buildings with air conditioning.”

U.S. heat-related mortality rates over time.American Medical Association

3. Meta taps geothermal startup to power data centers

Geothermal startup Sage Geosystems will supply Facebook parent Meta with 150 megawatts of geothermal power in a new deal announced yesterday. The zero-carbon electricity will be used to power Meta’s data centers, starting in 2027, according to a press release. The facility will be built somewhere “east of the Rocky Mountains.” Earlier this month Sage Geosystems became the first geothermal energy storage project to connect to the grid, storing excess clean energy to be used by Texas’ grid operator. This deal with Meta, however, marks Sage’s first move into actually generating around-the-clock, zero-emission electricity by pumping water into the hot rocks that sit beneath the Earth’s surface to create steam. Another geothermal startup, Fervo Energy, is working with Google to power the tech giant’s data centers.

4. Canada hits Chinese EVs with 100% tariffs

Canada announced yesterday it will impose 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs starting October 1 in an effort to prevent cheap cars from flooding the market and threatening Canadian auto manufacturing. New levies might also be applied to other clean technologies, including batteries and solar panels, after a 30-day consultation period. “Actors like China have chosen to give themselves an unfair advantage in the global marketplace, compromising the security of our critical industries and displacing dedicated Canadian autos and metal workers,” said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Last year Canada imported $1.6 billion worth of Chinese EVs, up from just $74 million in 2022, according toBloomberg. The jump coincided with Tesla’s move to ship Model Y vehicles from Shanghai to the port of Vancouver. But as Reutersnoted, “Ottawa is trying to position Canada as a critical part of the global EV supply chain and had come under pressure from domestic industry to act against China.” Canada’s move puts it in alignment with the U.S. and the European Union, which have both taken steps to hike tariffs on Chinese EVs.

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  • 5. Guterres sounds the alarm about sea level rise

    United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned yesterday at the Pacific Island Forum Leaders Meeting in Tonga that the “surging seas are coming for us all.” The comments come as two new reports – from the World Meteorological Organization and the U.N. – underscore the growing threat of rising seas for coastal communities and low-lying island nations. Oceans have risen by approximately 9 inches since 1880, and the rate of sea level rise has more than doubled over the past 10 years, driven by melting land ice and the expansion of sea water as it warms.

    The Pacific islands are uniquely exposed, the reports say, but the problem is global. Under a scenario in which temperatures rise by 3 degrees Celsius, by 2050 New York City, Boston, New Orleans, and Atlantic City are all expected to see sea levels rise between 9 and 16 inches. “Across the world, around a billion people live in coastal areas threatened by our swelling ocean,” Guterres said. “Yet even though some sea level rise is inevitable, its scale, pace, and impact are not. That depends on our decisions.”

    THE KICKER

    A typical customer of PG&E will see their electricity bills rise by more than $400 this year to help pay for the California utility’s wildfire risk mitigation efforts.

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    Economy

    AM Briefing: Liberation Day

    On trade turbulence, special election results, and HHS cuts

    Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ Tariffs Loom
    Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

    Current conditions: A rare wildfire alert has been issued for London this week due to strong winds and unseasonably high temperatures • Schools are closed on the Greek islands of Mykonos and Paros after a storm caused intense flooding • Nearly 50 million people in the central U.S. are at risk of tornadoes, hail, and historic levels of rain today as a severe weather system barrels across the country.

    THE TOP FIVE

    1. Trump to roll out broad new tariffs

    President Trump today will outline sweeping new tariffs on foreign imports during a “Liberation Day” speech in the White House Rose Garden scheduled for 4 p.m. EST. Details on the levies remain scarce. Trump has floated the idea that they will be “reciprocal” against countries that impose fees on U.S. goods, though the predominant rumor is that he could impose an across-the-board 20% tariff. The tariffs will be in addition to those already announced on Chinese goods, steel and aluminum, energy imports from Canada, and a 25% fee on imported vehicles, the latter of which comes into effect Thursday. “The tariffs are expected to disrupt the global trade in clean technologies, from electric cars to the materials used to build wind turbines,” explained Josh Gabbatiss at Carbon Brief. “And as clean technology becomes more expensive to manufacture in the U.S., other nations – particularly China – are likely to step up to fill in any gaps.” The trade turbulence will also disrupt the U.S. natural gas market, with domestic supply expected to tighten, and utility prices to rise. This could “accelerate the uptake of coal instead of gas, and result in a swell in U.S. power emissions that could accelerate climate change,” Reutersreported.

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    Podcast

    The Least-Noticed Climate Scandal of the Trump Administration

    Rob and Jesse catch up on the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund with former White House official Kristina Costa.

    Lee Zeldin.
    Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

    The Inflation Reduction Act dedicated $27 billion to build a new kind of climate institution in America — a network of national green banks that could lend money to companies, states, schools, churches, and housing developers to build more clean energy and deploy more next-generation energy technology around the country.

    It was an innovative and untested program. And the Trump administration is desperately trying to block it. Since February, Trump’s criminal justice appointees — led by Ed Martin, the interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia — have tried to use criminal law to undo the program. After failing to get the FBI and Justice Department to block the flow of funds, Trump officials have successfully gotten the program’s bank partner to freeze relevant money. The new green banks have sued to gain access to the money.

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    Adaptation

    Funding Cuts Are Killing Small Farmers’ Trust in Climate Policy

    That trust was hard won — and it won’t be easily regained.

    A barn.
    Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

    Spring — as even children know — is the season for planting. But across the country, tens of thousands of farmers who bought seeds with the help of Department of Agriculture grants are hesitating over whether or not to put them in the ground. Their contractually owed payments, processed through programs created under the Biden administration, have been put on pause by the Trump administration, leaving the farmers anxious about how to proceed.

    Also anxious are staff at the sustainability and conservation-focused nonprofits that provided technical support and enrollment assistance for these grants, many of whom worry that the USDA grant pause could undermine the trust they’ve carefully built with farmers over years of outreach. Though enrollment in the programs was voluntary, the grants were formulated to serve the Biden administration’s Justice40 priority of investing in underserved and minority communities. Those same communities tend to be wary of collaborating with the USDA due to its history of overlooking small and family farms, which make up 90% of the farms in the U.S. and are more likely to be women- or minority-owned, in favor of large operations, as well as its pattern of disproportionately denying loans to Black farmers. The Biden administration had counted on nonprofits to leverage their relationships with farmers in order to bring them onto the projects.

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    Green