Of all natural disasters, heat waves are, by far, the biggest killers. Heat kills more people than floods, wildfires, tornadoes, hurricanes, and earthquakes combined. But heat leaves infrastructure largely intact, so on the level of news coverage, it goes relatively unnoticed. There are no scenes of devastation, no uprooted trees, no wrecked houses, no flooded streets. Just kids playing in pools and fountains. The dead bodies are quietly whisked away. (It's unseemly to stare at dead people, right?)

And let's just note, for the record, that the same process that's making heat waves hotter is making all the other natural disasters (except earthquakes) more deadly with every passing year.

Meanwhile, the Republican candidate for president says climate change is a hoax.

Remember how Trump sat on the information about COVID-19 for months, doing nothing (even though his own national security team warned him it was THE biggest threat the nation would face during his presidency? (Listen to the recordings of Trump's interviews with Bob Woodward if you need your memory jogged.) And remember when Trump said it was nothing, just a little sniffle? And that it would just magically "go away"? How did that work out?

There were over 200,000 deaths that could have been avoided, that's how.

Well climate change will make the recent pandemic look like a walk in the park. And Donald Trump is again engaging in denial and delay. He is a climate science denier. He recently promised the fossil fuel industry free reign in return for a billion dollar donation. While in office, he de-funded the EPA. He pulled the USA out of the Paris Climate Accord. He made no investment in green energy. He's in the pocket of Big Oil.

Got kids? Grandkids? How lucky do you feel?

[vox.com]