In this week’s newsletter: Coroners can’t agree on how to count heat fatalities – and the dismantling of climate investments is leaving fragile communities exposed
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Donald Trump’s decision to boycott Cop30, withdraw the US from the Paris agreement and illegally terminate a slew of investments in renewable energy will not change the reality of climate breakdown for Americans.
In what has become an annual reporting tradition, I found myself in Arizona reporting on heat-related deaths during yet another gruelling heatwave, when temperatures topped 43C (110F) on 13 out of 14 straight days in Phoenix. Before embarking on this trip, I spent weeks combing through hundreds of autopsy reports, which I obtained from two county medical examiners using the Freedom of Information Act. Each death report gave me a glimpse into the person’s life, and I used clues from the case notes to track down friends and loved ones in the hopes of better understanding why heat is killing people in the richest country in the world.
How cyclones and monsoon rains converged to devastate parts of Asia – visual guide
The environmental costs of corn: should the US change how it grows its dominant crop?
‘Those who eat Chilean salmon cannot imagine how much human blood it carries with it’
Americans are dying from extreme heat. Autopsy reports don’t show the full story
‘Deeply demoralizing’: how Trump derailed coal country’s clean-energy revival
‘It happened so fast’: the shocking reality of indoor heat deaths in Arizona
