To Keep Deadly Heat Out and ACs on, Cooler Heads Must Prevail

Across the Atlantic, heat waves resulted in more than 50,000 deaths in 2003 and 2010. America has gotten a relative reprieve since 1988 when unrelentingly high temperatures claimed as many as 17,000 lives. Today more than nine in ten American households have air conditioning compared to less than five percent of German, French, and Austrian households.