'It's brutal': Las Vegas cooks amid blazing heatwave - and it's going to get worse

[marmar]

(Guardian UK) By midnight on Wednesday, two days into a scorching heat wave to hit the US west, the air in Las Vegas had barely cooled.

Throughout the day and for the days that followed, temperatures in the desert city hovered close to historic highs, peaking at 116 degrees Fahrenheit (46.6 Celsius), and setting a new record for such dangerously hot weather so early in the year. Meanwhile, dust and smoke from nearby wildfires hung in the stiff hot air, casting a brown haze over the valley.

Throngs of tourists still ambled along scorching-hot sidewalks on the Vegas Strip, and many others lined the labyrinths of slot machines, restaurants and shops inside air conditioned casinos. But not everyone is able to escape indoors.

“I am dying – I feel like I’m going to pass out,” said Violet, a woman clad in a denim thong and crop top.

....(snip)....

The changes are particularly pronounced in Sin City and its surrounding areas, which is warming faster than almost anywhere else in the US. Heatwaves are not only getting hotter, they are also becoming more frequent. Summer weather is increasingly encroaching on spring, with less and less room for relief. ..........(more)

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/19/las-vegas-heatwave-nevada-us-west-temperatures

[mn9driver]

1. The desert southwest is probably going to need to shrink its population.

Even if the world went net zero today, Vegas and Phoenix would continue to get warmer and drier for at least several more decades. The population increase was already pushing the limits of water and energy resources in these areas. Now, temperatures are going up and water reserves are going down, with no sign of a reverse in those trends.

In 30 or 40 more years, there will be times when uncooled areas in these cities will be lethal within a few hours. A major power outage would be a mass casualty event. It’s coming within another generation or two.

[pandr32]

3. +1

[Duppers]

5. TRUTH❗ Thanks for posting it.

It's brutal but folks better pay attention!!

Too many people/too high a population is the cause of this warming. It's fact.

[pandr32]

2. It is becoming uninhabitable

Without the help of unsustainable things a tourist mecca would be impossible. All those people will need relief further depleting resources.
Vegas, without changing its ways, is an energy and water sucking monster.

[Justice matters.]

4. In 2019, about 43.1 billion tons of CO2 from human activities were emitted into the atmosphere.

In 2019, about 43.1 billion tons of CO2 from human activities were emitted into the atmosphere. This was an all time high, breaking the previous record from 2018. The emissions could form a giant “CO2 cube” measuring 30 km on each side.

https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/climate-change/global-warming/global-co2-emissions/story



We lost at least 5 years during the terrorist reign...