People are dying from unpaid energy bills
- Author: Rebecca Leber
- Full Title: People are dying from unpaid energy bills
- Category: articles
- Document Tags: #planet
- URL: https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/23274788/heat-wave-ac-energy-bill-utilities
Highlights
- The human body can’t withstand extra-hot temperatures for very long. A healthy person can tolerate 95 degrees Fahrenheit of combined heat and humidity for a few hours, but prolonged exposure causes weakness, cramps, confusion, dizziness, and dehydration. After a certain point, vital organs like the brain begin to swell. (View Highlight)
- The US has managed to do better when it comes to helping people get through the winter. The vast majority of states have policies that forbid power shutoffs during a winter freeze. Most states also require heating for multifamily homes. But policy governing cooling in the summers is a patchwork that lets the most vulnerable slip through the cracks. Federal buildings, housing, and prisons have standards for heat, but no guarantee of AC. And only a handful of states have any kind of requirements that utilities keep the power on during a heat wave (View Highlight)
- In the US, Climate Central identified 126 locations that now have an extra week of extremely hot days annually compared to 1970 (places like Phoenix and Austin are worst off, now seeing weeks above 100 degrees). And summer nights are warming nearly twice as fast as daytime temperatures, leaving people with no respite from the heat. (View Highlight)
- Right now, only 18 states have any protections that prevent utilities from shutting off a customer’s power in a heat wave because of missed payments, while 41 states have these protections for the cold. That leaves most of the population vulnerable to utility shutoffs during the deadliest extreme weather window of the year. (View Highlight)
- In New York City, Black residents in New York City account for half of heat-related fatalities despite being 22 percent of the population. Access to air conditioning is a key factor, but so is the green spaces and tree cover that can make a neighborhood cooler. (View Highlight)