Heat deaths of people without air conditioning, often in mobile homes, underscore energy inequity

“Losing your air conditioning is now a life-threatening event,” said Texas A&M University climate scientist Andrew Dessler, who grew up in hot, humid Houston in the 1970s. “You didn’t want to lose your air conditioning, but it wasn’t going to kill you. And now it is.”

Almost 20% of very-low income families have no air conditioning at all, especially in places like Washington state where they weren’t commonly installed before climate-fueled heat waves grew increasingly stronger, frequent and longer lasting.

In the Pacific Northwest, several hundred people died during a 2021 heat wave, prompting Portland, Oregon, to launch a program to provide portable cooling units to vulnerable, low-income people.

Chicago, better known for its cold winters, saw a heat wave kill 739 mostly older people over five days in 1995. Amid high humidity and temperatures over 100 degrees (37.7 C), most victims had no air conditioning or couldn’t afford to turn on their units.