Abcarian: Dying from the heat is not a political statement

As the world grows hotter thanks to the burning of fossil fuels, humans will try to cope but won’t always succeed. In the last few years, in response to the growing recognition that health and heat are intertwined, several American cities, including Los Angeles, have created the position of “chief heat officer.” This year, the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously to study whether all the city’s rental units should be required to have air conditioning. “Every summer, heat waves inevitably hit the U.S. and other parts of the world, causing climate alarmists and left-leaning media outlets to demand dramatic, disastrous changes to the global energy system,” wrote one conservative commentator on the Fox News website. If you want to get a handle on the dangers our increasingly warm world presents, I highly recommend climate journalist Jeff Goodell’s terrifying new book, “The Heat Will Kill You First.” “If there is one idea in this book that might save your life,” writes Goodell, “it is this: the human body, like all living things, is a heat machine. Greg Abbot enshrined his own ignorance in June when, during one of his state’s hottest summers, he signed a law repealing local regulations that require 10-minute water breaks every four hours for construction workers.