Just turn up the AC yeah?

This is the wrong question:

America’s hottest city is nearly unlivable in summer. Can cooling technologies save it?

America’s hottest city shouldn’t be a city at all, because it’s in a desert. We shouldn’t be expanding cities in deserts as global warming gets worse, we should be shrinking them. It’s stupid to squander resources on cities that are doomed by global warming.

Phoenix, the capital of Arizona, is accustomed to a hot desert climate, but day and night temperatures have been rising due to global heating and the city’s unchecked development, which has created a sprawling urban heat island.

It’s the unchecked development that’s the problem. The development needs to be checked, starting yesterday.

“Phoenix is already unlivable in summer for far too many of our residents, who literally didn’t live because it was too hot. Every death is preventable and shows that there’s much much more for us to do to make the city livable and comfortable for everyone,” said David Hondula, the recently appointed director of Phoenix’s heat response and mitigation office.

There’s much more for them to do to discourage people from moving to Phoenix and to encourage people who have to move away.

Phoenix is the country’s hottest and fifth most populous city, where businesses and people began flocking when affordable air conditioning became available in the 1950s. The population growth has led to a huge expansion in concrete infrastructure (buildings, roads and carparks) and a reduction in green areas, which has created heat islands – dangerously hot urban areas that absorb and re-emit the sun’s heat more than natural landscapes.

In other words it was all a huge mistake and the goal now should be to undo the mistake as far as possible.

Another sensitive and critical area is the city’s property development gravy train, which for years has been forging ahead faster than its ad hoc mitigation efforts.

What I’m saying. Cut that whole thing off first, because trying to mitigate it when it’s already there is wasteful and stupid.

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