Arizona is no stranger to high temperatures, but many experts say last year’s record-shattering summer is only the beginning.
With the hottest June on record now behind us, President Joe Biden announced Tuesday that he’s proposing new federal standards for workers.
Biden pointed to the above-average temperatures states like Arizona have been seeing for months.
“I quite frankly think it’s not only outrageous, it’s really stupid,” he said. “Everyone who willfully denies the impacts of climate change is condemning the American people to a dangerous future. And either is really, really dumb or has some other motive.”
If finalized, the Department of Labor’s latest proposed rule is expected to help roughly 36 million workers reduce or avoid heat injuries, illnesses, and deaths at work
“Extreme heat is the number one weather-related killer in the United States,” said Biden. “More people die from extreme heat than floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes combined.”
The new measures will help better protect people on the job in- and outdoors.
“This includes things like developing response plans to heat illness,” Biden said. “Training employees and supervisors, implementing rest breaks, access to shade and water.”
Despite a recent investment in projects partially dedicated to combating extreme heat, advocates continue to push the Federal Emergency Management Agency to classify extreme heat and wildfire smoke as major disasters.
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Watching the wildfires devastate a major U.S. city has many of us wondering: Could it happen here? Research shows our ecosystem is changing, making us more at risk to wildfire than ever before. -
In the course of Kyle Paoletta defending why people live in the southwest, he found himself making the case that, pretty soon, a lot of Americans are going to find themselves living in harsh conditions. -
Via KJZZ's Q&AZ reporting project, one listener asked: What happens if climate change makes Phoenix uninhabitable? As it turns out, it's not exactly unprecedented. -
We were breaking heat records all summer long. But now that it’s winter, it can be easy to forget that it’s actually way hotter than it usually is this time of year. -
One listener asked how the advent of air conditioning affected Arizona’s population growth. As it turns out, the answer isn’t as easy to pin down as it seems.
