The heat waves that we’ve seen gripping the country this summer are the worst on record for those areas.
When I looked up the highest recorded temperatures on record, I was startled to see that all of the world records have been recorded in the last 12 years mostly.
If you need an indication for climate change, I can’t think of a better one. There are some places in the northwest that were recording temperatures as high as 116 degrees in the afternoon sunlight. This is absolutely critical and dangerous because some of these people have been living in these regions for generations without indoor air cooling. Regions like this are some of the last places to adopt air conditioning as a wide standard. If all of the extreme weather you get is cold temperatures, it’s obvious why you would forgo air conditioning for a robust heating system of some kind. My family that lives in this area finally had to get an air conditioner this summer. I talk to them on the phone occasionally and they were telling me about how miserable the weather was feeling. They were lucky that they found a window air conditioner on the internet with free shipping because all of the heating and cooling suppliers in their state were booked for weeks with air conditioner installations. Apparently thousands of people en masse started making calls to HVAC companies to get central air conditioners installed in their homes. Now there are waiting lists going for months, but hopefully the people waiting the longest will at least have an air conditioner for next year. I doubt temperatures are going to improve; realistically, these factors will only get worse from here on out.