Record Heat Is Here. The EPA Page Showing the Risk to Black America Is Gone
(Clement Eastwood/Pexels)
(ABNN) - If it felt like the hottest summer ever, trust those feelings. Not only did the United States record its hottest summer, but around the world, August tied the hottest month ever recorded.
According to the Copernicus Climate Change Service, August tied July 2023 as the hottest month ever recorded worldwide.
The United States and Western Europe recorded their hottest summers. Sea-surface temperatures outside the polar regions also tied the record for the highest monthly average.
The average global surface air temperature during August was 1.53 F above the 1991-2020 average for the month.
The data also found some of the largest positive temperature anomalies in Antarctica, Central Asia, eastern Africa and western Siberia.
Why does this matter? Because record heat does not hit everyone the same.
A 2021 Environmental Protection Agency report found that Black Americans were projected to face disproportionate effects across all six climate impacts it examined.
Black Americans were projected to be 34% more likely to live in areas with the highest increases in childhood asthma diagnoses caused by climate-related particulate pollution.
They were also projected to be 40% more likely to live in areas with the highest increases in deaths caused by extreme temperatures.
The problem now? The EPA webpage that once presented the report is gone.
The report itself remains available as a PDF on an EPA server. The webpage disappeared amid the Trump administration's broader removal of climate change and environmental justice resources from federal websites.
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