Luis Rodriguez holed up in his kids’ bedroom last month as a brutal heatwave baked his Los Angeles neighbourhood and the rest of the southwestern United States. The space was their only room with an air-conditioning unit, and the safest place in the house when temperatures outside soared above 40 °C.
All day, Rodriguez tapped on his computer, working remotely as a volunteer manager for TreePeople, a non-profit environmental organization in Beverly Hills, California, that plants and cares for trees across Los Angeles. His two young sons crammed into the bedroom with him to avoid the dangerous heat.