At least 150 heat-related deaths have been recorded across the United States this year, and that was before the fossil-fuel-turbocharged heat wave in late July. Hundreds of earlier deaths remain under investigation, and coroners will have to investigate many more following the heat dome that punished more than two hundred million people nationwide in recent weeks. Last week, the Southwest endured a heat wave made five times more likely by climate change, and this week millions of people around the country are facing dangerous temperatures.
Although less visible than tornadoes, wildfires, hurricanes, and floods, extreme heat is the leading cause of weather-related mortality. In this country alone, heat killed roughly 2,400 people in both 2023 and 2024, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Heat-related deaths, it’s worth noting, are notoriously undercounted and likely exceed 5,600 per year nationally. Given the lag in reporting, final data for 2025 are not expected prior to the end of the year.
The reactionary choices of President Donald Trump’s administration have all but guaranteed that more people will suffer heat-related illnesses and fatalities this summer and in the future.
“Under a Trump presidency, heat experts have been driven from the civil service, federal support for heat resilience investments have been curtailed with more proposed cuts on the way, and key technical assistance programs for communities have been cancelled,” Grace Wickerson, senior manager of climate and health at the Federation of American Scientists, told me.
Heat-related casualties have already been rising over the past decade and were projected to rise further before Trump and congressional Republicans threw gas on the…
Auteur: Kenny Stancil
