A sign gives direction to a cooling center in Portland, Oregon, during another heatwave on August 14th, 2021. | Photo by MICHAEL HANSON / AFP via Getty Images
Record heat is leading to more emergency room visits in the US, according to national tracking tools.
July was the hottest month on record for the planet, with North American heatwaves that would have been ‘virtually impossible’ without climate change, a recent study says. That led to a 12 percent increase in emergency medical service responses to heat-related illness between July 13 and August 11, according to a new federal dashboard. But national numbers only give part of the picture.
Zooming in shows how health risks ballooned in the hardest-hit regions. The situation has been especially bad this week in the Pacific Northwest. The number of emergency department (ED) visits associated with heat-related illness was 16 times higher on…