I have a complicated relationship with the sun.

Obviously, I understand that the sun makes all life on earth possible and we rely on it for survival, and I can even understand that some people enjoy it, but the sun also killed my father via metastatic melanoma. UV radiation causing cancer isn’t the only way the sun can kill you. Heat is deadly, too.

Some friends and I were talking about the deadliness of heat and whether or not it was responsible for more deaths than gun violence (“sun versus gun,” was how I put it). In the United States, with its mostly modern infrastructure and extremely modern firearm industry, guns kill far more folks than heat – 44,310 to 1,722 in 2022. But worldwide, heat can’t be beat. In 2019, the last year for which I was able to find data, there were about 250,000 gun deaths worldwide and 489,000 heat deaths.

My girlfriend recently persuaded me to buy a new window air-conditioning unit. For the two years I’ve lived in this house, I was using the decades-old unit that came with the home and could most generously be described as “technically in working condition.” It took 20 minutes to warm up – er, cool down?– and sounded like a jet engine preparing for takeoff. I haven’t seen the new one’s effect on my CMP bill, but so far, the only major downside is that the controls are so sensitive my dog has managed to change the house temperature several times with her nose.

I try to not run air conditioning and to make do with only fans unless it’s absolutely necessary, but several days in the past week alone have been above 90 degrees. And I’m lucky enough to live in a green, leafy area near a coast. I had to go to Portland for the first time in awhile for an appointment this week, and as soon as I stepped out of my car, I felt like what I imagine a Pop-Tart must feel like when it goes into the toaster. I feel a little guilty when I do use the air conditioning because I know it uses so much electricity, which is bad for the environment and adds more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, thus contributing to climate change, which is only going to make it hotter. Plus it’s putting strain on the electric grid, and CMP can’t manage its way out of a paper bag, much less unprecedented summer grid surges.

Part of the reason I took a fair amount of girlfriendly convincing to get a new air conditioner is because I didn’t grow up using one. We had an old house, well-insulated, built before the invention of electricity and good at keeping an internal temperature. A complex but cheap system of window blinds and fans on multiple floors always kept us in the mid-70s. But that’s not going to work for much longer. It’s not just me being nostalgic for my youth – the summers are getting hotter than they were when I was a kid.

According to the latest science update to the state climate action plan, the average daily temperature in Maine will rise between 2 and 4 degrees by 2050 and up to 10 degrees by 2100. Those don’t sound like terribly large amounts, but keep in mind those are averages. So some days will be much higher.

That scares me for two reasons. One, heat is often a silent killer. It can sneak up on you. A howling blizzard is pretty dangerous on its face, but a sunny day out on a boat can lull you into a false sense of security. And two, while anyone can fall victim to overheating or heatstroke, the people in the most danger from heat are older adults, babies, and folks with certain medical conditions or who are taking medications that may exacerbate their risk of dehydration or interfere with the body’s ability to regulate its temperature.

Maine has an aging population. Our state’s risk of sunstroke will only go up in the coming years, and most lifelong Mainers have the same relationship to air conditioning that I do – we didn’t grow up with it, we might not have it in our homes, and we might not recognize signs that our bodies are in danger from the heat.

In the short term, it’s important to know your risk factors and potential signs of heat injury. Prevent heat problems by staying in cool areas, limiting physical activity outdoors and drinking a ton of water. (Seltzer counts!) Symptoms of heat exhaustion include dizziness, thirst, nausea and weakness, while heatstroke symptoms may include confusion and lost consciousness. If you or someone you know start experiencing those symptoms, seek medical assistance immediately.

And in the medium to long term, we need to hasten our country’s transition to green, renewable energy. The sun may be trying to kill us, but with solar panels, we can channel its energy to keep ourselves cool and beat it at its own game.

Victoria Hugo-Vidal is a Maine millennial. She can be contacted at:
themainemillennial@gmail.com
Twitter: @mainemillennial