Who Heat Actually Kills
New York City counts roughly 500 heat deaths a year. Eighty percent fall on days between 82 and 94 degrees — temperatures that don't trigger advisories, don't open cooling centers, don't make the news. Nearly half of those with detailed records died at home. None were using air conditioning. A Harvard study tracking 73.7 million people found Black individuals bear nearly three times the heat-wave mortality burden of white individuals, in neighborhoods made measurably hotter by investment patterns set ninety years ago. The deaths mostly never appear on a death certificate as heat-related. The counting infrastructure and the killing happen in different registers.
Who Heat Actually Kills
New York City counts roughly 500 heat deaths a year. Eighty percent fall on days between 82 and 94 degrees — temperatures that don't trigger advisories, don't open cooling centers, don't make the news. Nearly half of those with detailed records died at home. None were using air conditioning. A Harvard study tracking 73.7 million people found Black individuals bear nearly three times the heat-wave mortality burden of white individuals, in neighborhoods made measurably hotter by investment patterns set ninety years ago. The deaths mostly never appear on a death certificate as heat-related. The counting infrastructure and the killing happen in different registers.
The Word for It
A Pew survey this spring found that 62 percent of Americans now believe countries won't do enough to avoid the worst effects of climate change. The share who believe human activity causes it has barely moved in a decade. The knowing stayed. The expecting left. This essay moves through the gap between them — testing grief, resignation, pragmatism, anxiety against the specific domestic moments where each word fails. A generator purchased after three weeks of research. Hydrangeas replaced with lantana. A six-year-old's summer structured around cooling. The feeling underneath all of it doesn't have a name yet.
The Word for It
A Pew survey this spring found that 62 percent of Americans now believe countries won't do enough to avoid the worst effects of climate change. The share who believe human activity causes it has barely moved in a decade. The knowing stayed. The expecting left. This essay moves through the gap between them — testing grief, resignation, pragmatism, anxiety against the specific domestic moments where each word fails. A generator purchased after three weeks of research. Hydrangeas replaced with lantana. A six-year-old's summer structured around cooling. The feeling underneath all of it doesn't have a name yet.
HEAP Closure Sidebar
The HEAP Cooling Assistance benefit provides eligible low-income households with one air conditioner or fan, installed. On June 5, the program closed for the year. The NYC Health Department called it the earliest closure on record. Summer hadn't officially started.
Demand outran funding, but the shortage is older than any single budget cycle. LIHEAP, the federal source, was designed around heating. From 2001 to 2019, 5% of national energy assistance went to cooling. Allocation formulas still weight states by winter severity.
Congress secured $4.045 billion for FY2026. All federal LIHEAP staff were fired in April 2025 and have not been rehired. The FY2027 budget proposes eliminating the program for the sixth consecutive year.
After the closure, NYC's Essential Plan Cooling Program still accepts applications from members with qualifying health conditions, though its own funding may close early. Cooling centers activate when the heat index reaches 100°F. For households that need cooling at home, overnight, the program that provided it won't reopen until spring 2027.
