News @lemmy.world FenrirIII @lemmy.world 6 mo. ago

Arizona is boosting efforts to protect people from the extreme heat after hundreds died last summer

apnews.com Arizona is boosting efforts to protect people from the extreme heat after hundreds died last summer

Arizona’s new heat officer said Friday that he is working with local governments and nonprofit groups to open more cooling centers and ensure homes have working air conditioners in a more unified effort to prevent another ghastly toll of heat-related deaths this summer.

44 comments

Meanwhile, in Florida...

"Wanna see how many folks we can kill? Let's repeal requirements for employers to provide adequate cooling!"
- What they did is so much worse than repealing something. They crafted a new law making it illegal for local city/county governments to enact their own protections for workers during extreme heat. They literally took away these people's agency to make decisions for themselves just to get some headlines before the election.
  
  The spirit that enabled slavery never died. Angry, hateful people gonna be angry, hateful people.
  
  And angry peoe will vote for them.
- Don't forget about eliminating water breaks!
- And Texas
Eventually they will realize that a major city in the desert is a bad idea.
- There is a reason it is named Phoenix. That valley has been settled and abandoned several times throughout history.
  
  The only reason it has survived this time is through the power of air conditioning.
  
  Horse shit.
  
  It was never abandoned. The valley was steadily habitated for thousands of years by a number of tribes before American settlers forces the Yaqui from the land.
  
  None of them had air conditioning, and they thrived until a foreign invader took their land by force.
- You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.
  
  Nerfherders!!
Even if global warming wasnt a thing, just dont live in a fucking desert.
- This city is a monument to man's arrogance.
  
  Peggy Hill
- I would but I was born here and don't know of anywhere better that has legal weed and not a completely out of control cost of living.
  
  Give Michigan a chance! Sure winter sucks but it doesn't really kill like the heat, I think?
It is no longer a signpost on the way to oblivion, but a neon billboard sitting in your living room
- I like to mention that even my Trump supporter coworker admits climate change is real. Can't deny it in our line of work.
  
  What do you do
If only there some way to keep it from getting so hot - oh, well.
- While I’m all for helping avert the inevitable disaster from human caused climate change. Most of the parts of Arizona where it gets hot AF have always been deadly and like this. The difference for a long time was less concrete and asphalt, and less people. Honestly a lot of the areas around here in the Nevada/California/Arizona desert regions were nomadic areas with people coming to live here during more pleasant winter months. Living here in the summer is still a bad idea.
- They water the air in Sedona. Let that sink in for a minute. They use machines to spray water into the air, and no, I’m not talking about a humidifier. Like over-the-door air conditioning units that just piss water all over the sidewalk, except it evaporates before it ever makes it to the concrete, just to keep people from passing out while walking to the corner store.
  
  That's not air conditioning, at all.
  
  That's evaporative cooling, and it's been used for hundreds of years in cultures worldwide to help reduce heat. Adding humidity into dry air naturally reduces the heat index. It's not supposed to make it to the ground, the entire point is for it to evaporate and increase ambient humidity in the air.
  
  It's extremely energy efficient, but is limited to very dry environments. Above about 30% ambient humidity it quickly stops being effective at cooling the air, and at around 60% ambient humidity it's just no longer noticeable. So for a desert area, it is an ideal, cheap and easy way to cool an area.
  
  There are evaporative systems designed for homes and businesses that use the same principle. A box with an opening on one side for airflow, a large wet pad and a fan combined with ducting, will cool an entire home. It uses remarkably little water, and power only to run a simple pump to keep the pad wet and the fan spinning. It uses a fraction of the power and air conditioner uses and is a lot more effective when humidity is low.
  
  For most of the summer an air conditioner isn't even needed to cool a home. Central ducting with an evaporative cooler will work for 90% of the summer. Only during the monsoons where the humidity is too high for it to be effective is an AC system really necessary.
  
  Source: I live in AZ and my home has both an evaporative cooler and an air conditioner.
  
  That's just evaporative cooling. People have been doing that for thousands of years. It's pretty damn effective at lowering the temperature a good amount in dry climates.
- Live underground
I hope these cooling stations are just something they are planning to buy and run, not something they are designing. Arizona has the second worst run infrastructure teams in North America in my experience dealing with them.

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