‘It’s unbearable’: in ever-hotter US cities, air conditioning is no longer enough

Record-breaking temperatures in the last few years shatter the myth that air conditioning alone will keep people safe

Gloria Gellot, 79, takes a careful seat in a kitchen chair in front of her only air-conditioning unit, massaging her knees. She's hung a sheet in the doorway to keep the cool air in the kitchen, and drawn shades to keep the sun - already blazing in May - out of her second-floor New Orleans apartment. Her home was badly damaged by Hurricane Ida in 2021, and heat radiates from the gutted walls.

All the heat's up here," she says. I don't have to go out in the sun. I get a suntan inside."