Crypto News: Life at 110F

Today's newsletter looks at life in Phoenix, ground zero for extreme heat in the US. You can read and share a full version of the lead story on Bloomberg.com. For unlimited access to climate and energy news — and to receive the Bloomberg Green magazine — please subscribe.

Also, check out our recent Big Take on the rapidly warming planet. Heat is accelerating faster than attempts to counteract it, so we asked experts on carbon pollution how to go about catching up.

By Ira Boudway

When Robert Chaffeur moved his worldly possessions into storage on July 19, Phoenix was experiencing its 20th consecutive day of temperatures above 110F. Chauffeur, who schlepped his stuff wearing a wet handkerchief to keep cool, was gearing up for an extended road trip, but not to beat the heat — or at least not forever. In October, he'll return to Phoenix, sell his camper and move into Culdesac Tempe, a car-free community in a city of scorching summers.

Led by co-founders Ryan Johnson and Jeff Berens and fueled by $47 million in venture capital, Culdesac aims to show that car-free living is not just greener but better, even in high heat. The startup's plan is to build about 700 apartments on a 17-acre lot in Tempe — a suburb of nearly 200,000 on Phoenix's southeast edge — along with a restaurant, grocery store, coffee shop and other retail. There will be shady courtyards, ample bike parking and a stop on the Valley Metro light rail. There will not, however, be a single parking spot for residents.

"I bought the concept hook, line and sinker," says Chaffeur, 74.

In a sprawling metropolis known for its scorching hot summers and endless strip malls, Culdesac aims to be an oasis for 1,000 people ready to live without a car. Photographer: Rebecca Noble

Like many American cities, Phoenix and its suburbs were built for drivers. Public transit is treated as a last resort and to walk the city sidewalks is to be exposed to speeding traffic and, during months like this one, increasingly dangerous heat. Cars, one of the main engines of climate change, also serve as a refuge from its effects — allowing drivers to whiz between air-conditioned destinations in pockets of air-conditioned comfort. Culdesac is a bet on breaking this vicious cycle.

The project has also become a poster child for the movement to abolish parking minimums, rules in many US cities that force housing developers to include space for cars. In Tempe, Culdesac marked the first time the city agreed to a housing development without parking for residents. According to the development agreement, residents must "disclose and register any car they own, control, or purchase," as a condition of their lease, and cannot park on surrounding streets within a block in any direction.

With no need for garages, Culdesac breaks its housing into three-story, white stucco walk-ups arranged around interior courtyards. The buildings are set at odd angles to create distinctive crannies and views — a design the project's master planner calls "Mykonos desert modern." The white stucco reflects heat, while the courtyards and narrow pathways provide shade and help tunnel breezes. (There's not a single drop of heat-trapping asphalt.) Eliminating garages also saves about $20,000 per space in construction costs.

"When you take parking out of the equation, you're able to design for people first," Anders Engnell, Culdesac's director of planning and construction, said during a tour of the site in May.

The master planner on the project calls its design "Mykonos desert modern." Photographer: Rebecca Noble

The development's inaugural residents agree. Chauffeur picked Culdesac because it's warm, walkable and not a retirement community. Vanessa Fox, 31, who left behind a townhouse in Phoenix, was thrilled to find a car-free community in the same region. Sara Hoy, 40, who moved to Culdesac from Pennsylvania, said it reminded her of experiences living outside the US.

But hurdles remain for the $200 million Tempe complex, including that it's far from complete. The first Culdesacians moved into 16 apartments this spring, after years of delays. Another 98 units will open later this year, followed by 174 more by the end of 2025. Berens says nearly 10,000 people have put down their names as interested in living at Culdesac, and close to 400 have made $100 refundable deposits. But it will be years, if ever, before the site houses a thousand non-parking residents.

Then there's the heat. Phoenix has hit 122F in the past, and it likely will again. Hoy, though relieved to discover that a dry 96F isn't too hot for a morning stroll, has already found herself hailing a car instead of biking or walking. She plans to deal with Arizona summers by minimizing time outdoors.

David King, a professor of urban planning at Arizona State University, says that high-density projects like Culdesac can in that sense actually facilitate climate adaptation. "The trick to managing the heat, and this is something that Phoenix has not been good at, is to reduce exposure," he says. "We want to put more people close to the places that they want to go."

Read and share a full version of this story on Bloomberg.com.

For unlimited access to climate and energy news, original data and graphics reporting and to receive the Bloomberg Green magazine, please subscribe.

During Phoenix's fourth consecutive week above 110F, heat-related illness calls for emergency services spiked by 50% over the same period in recent years. And that was with zero blackouts. If a multi-day blackout were to strike during a heat wave, half of Phoenix's population would land in the ER, one study found. Nearly 13,000 people would die.

Most folks in the US don't worry about blackouts — they're infrequent and typically brief. But that's not a sure thing going forward. In recent years, as extreme weather driven by climate change collides with an aging grid, blackouts have been happening more often and lasting longer. Adjusting for them will require more city planning, more generators (which means more burning of fossil fuels), and more resources for low-income and unhoused people.

Phoenix's growth is making hot days hotter. The city's population has nearly doubled since 1990, to 1.6 million. That influx of people — and the buildings, cars and cooling systems that come with them — is exacerbating the heat island effect.
More people means more people in harm's way. Phoenix is struggling to meet demand for affordable housing, and energy costs can be exorbitant. Homelessness in Maricopa County, meanwhile, is up 70% since 2017.
Body bags have become a life-saving technology. When patients with heat stroke show up at Valleywise hospitals in Phoenix, they're placed in body bags filled with ice and water. It's a quick-cooling method ER doctors are having to turn to more frequently.

By Brian K. Sullivan

For a large part of the US, the next two weeks will mark the hottest time of the year, based on the 30-year temperature trends, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information's map.

While the the US weather map is relatively benign for Monday — the worst bits are the heat advisories and excessive heat warnings across the South, focused on eastern Texas and Louisiana — the respite from blistering heat may only last a few days.

Phoenix may end its streak of high temperatures at or above 110F degrees, the National Weather Service said. The city, which has had readings reach that mark for a record 31 days, is forecast to halt that streak with a high of 106F on Monday. The temperatures, however, are predicted to reach 110F again by Thursday.

Firefighters and paramedics from Phoenix Fire Station 18 wheel a resident to an ambulance from a bus stop on July 20. Photographer: Caitlin O'Hara/Bloomberg

California's fire season is still months away from its traditional peak sometime in October or November. The US has another month or so before the first freeze happens across the western parts and about 8 to 10 weeks in the Northeast, according to maps tweeted out by Brian Brettschneider, a climatologist.

Despite quite a few fires breaking out across the western parts, air quality is relatively good across most of North America. There is a marginal threat of severe thunderstorms across the Great Plains, Southwest and South.

The Atlantic hurricane season will enter its peak around Aug. 20 and run in high gear through September. Usually the worst in the Atlantic happens between those two mileposts on the calendar.

In other weather news:

Spain: The focus of Europe's heat is switching to Spain, with a high risk of wildfires in southern parts of the Iberian peninsula.

China: Beijing urged residents to consider working from home as heavy rain bears down on the Chinese capital and other northern regions, threatening to knock down power lines and inundate crops.

Philippines: Storm Khanun developed into a typhoon, flooding parts of the Philippines and its capital city amid forecasts from the weather office for it to strength further.

The Rhine River has been a reliable shipping lane for centuries, helping spawn industrial giants along its banks. But those days are coming to an end. With water regularly receding to levels that impede shipping from late summer through the fall, companies up and down Europe's most important trade route are rushing to adapt, underscoring how the climate crisis is hitting even advanced industrial economies. BASF SE is re-routing logistics to trains and trucks. Plastics maker Covestro AG has contingency plans that include shifting some production to Belgium. Manufacturers are stockpiling supplies, utilities are storing extra fuel, and freight operators have started overhauling fleets with barges able to navigate shallow water.

Coal barges being unloaded at the Thyssenkrupp AG area of the inland harbor in Duisburg, Germany, on July 20. Photographer: Ben Kilb/Bloomberg

There is new tech to combat the heat. As extreme heat blankets the globe from Phoenix to Athens, entrepreneurs are responding with an array of personal cooling devices that can help reduce health risks for everyone from infants to outdoor workers.

Extreme weather is exposing US insurance gaps. In 2020, just 60% of the $165 billion in total economic losses from climate-related disasters were covered by insurance, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Friday.

A climate rift persists among G-20 ministers. A meeting in India ended without an agreement on key issues such as the energy transition, cutting emissions, green border taxes and phasing down fossil fuels.

Britain is backpedaling on its climate goals. The UK was an influential climate leader under former Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Now his conservative party is trying to distance themselves from green policies.

According to projections from researchers at Climate Action Tracker, all of the existing emissions-cutting policies in the world would result in the global average temperature increasing about 2.7C by 2100. A UN team pegs it at 2.8C, while a report from the World Meteorological Organization says we're likely to exceed 1.5C of warming for a single year at some point in the next five years. On a recent episode of Zero, Akshat Rathi and Oscar Boyd unpack why global average temperature is so important.