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“The changing climate along with urban heating are certainly exacerbating the warmer temperatures and making them more frequent,” Smith said. Such heat can hit Indian Country particularly hard. Jacobs said about 30% of the population of the Hopi and Navajo reservations lack running water and air conditioning and aren’t near cooling centers. That’s especially unfair because “tribal members have contributed very little to greenhouse gas concentrations,” she said. Another aspect of heat waves that disproportionately affects certain communities is the urban heat island effect, where cities are warming because of buildings and lack of trees and greenspace, said Dr. Jonathan Patz, a professor of health and the environment at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A study published two years ago in the journal Nature Communications found that people of color face more extreme temperatures compared to non-Hispanic white people. Phoenix’s majority Hispanic neighborhoods tend to have less tree canopy than other parts of the city. And one of the hottest neighborhoods in the city is Edison-Eastlake, a historically Black neighborhood that has become majority Latino, where in past years temperatures have reached as much as 10 degrees higher than other parts of the city.
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