Climate Point: In East Coast cities, scorching 'heat islands' are becoming unlivable

Welcome to Climate Point, your weekly guide to climate, energy and the environment. I’m Erin Rode in Palm Springs, California.

Record-breaking heat continued around the U.S. this week, with Boston, Philadelphia, and Providence, Rhode Island among the cities that set new daily heat records this weekend.

For the predominantly low-income communities of color that live in heat islands within East Coast cities, the scorching summer temperatures are becoming unlivable. Escalating heat is causing health and financial stress for residents of these hotter-than-normal heat islands, with their wide stretches of concrete and a lack of green space. This additional stress isn’t being felt equally in wealthier and majority white suburban areas with landscaping and plentiful indoor cool spaces, as Joyce Chu, Eduardo Cuevas, and Ricardo Kaulessar report for the Staunton News Leader. 

Petersburg, Virginia for example — a wealthy and tree-lined neighborhood —  was recently more than 13 degrees cooler in the shade than the area around the Carriage House, an income-based apartment complex for the elderly located on the edge of a city heat island. A difference of just a few degrees in extreme heat can affect the body’s ability to regulate its temperatures, sending residents to the emergency room. The locations of these city heat islands mirror formerly redlined neighborhoods, pointing to decades of discriminatory decision-making that contribute to the unequal impacts of heat today.

ICYMI: In a possibly unprecedented protest, congressional staffers held a sit-in on Monday in the office of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to push him to keep negotiating on a climate change bill, Nick Sobczyk reports for E&E News. The sit-in follows a letter anonymously signed by more than 200 staffers earlier this month demanding clean energy and climate legislation. 

"Our country is nearing the end of a two-year window that represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to pass transformative climate policy," stated the letter, as reported by CNN. "The silence on expansive climate justice policy on Capitol Hill this year has been deafening. We write to distance ourselves from your dangerous inaction."

Keep reading for other environment and climate stories from across the U.S., including how climate change is outpacing the models we use to plan for fires, floods, and droughts, and what researchers suggest to cut back on Colorado River water use. 

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