Human-caused climate change is fueling the hottest summer in recorded history, sending thousands of people to emergency rooms for dehydration, heatstroke — and burns from touching hot pavement.

Even in regions where high temperatures are nothing new, people were unprepared for the deadly nature of this summer, Ariel Wittenberg writes in a deeply reported story on the rising toll.

Take Ramona and Monway Ison, a retired couple on a fixed income in Baytown, Texas, whose air conditioner broke in June. It took three days for Ramona Ison to secure a $1,600 loan from a credit union to hire a repair technician. The money came too late.

The couple were found dead, along with their terrier, Belle, just days into what has since become a two-month-long heat wave in the Southwest with few signs of relief.

Global warming — largely driven by burning fossil fuels for power — is colliding with the Pacific weather pattern El Niño to fuel dangerous heat waves in North America and across the world this summer. The Pacific Northwest is the latest region in the country to bake.

The deadly combination of heat and humidity that blanketed the southern United States starting in June has sent people to emergency rooms across the region at higher rates than in previous years. In Phoenix, doctors are treating heatstroke by dunking patients in body bags full of ice.

When heat and humidity are too high, the human body stops being able to cool itself, which can prove deadly, especially for the elderly or those with underlying medical conditions.

The week after Monway and Ramona Ison died, emergency rooms in Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arkansas logged 847 heat-related illnesses per 100,000 emergency department visits, according to data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

During the same week a year ago, ERs recorded 639 heat-related illnesses. The year before, the figure was 328, Ariel writes.

That kind of strain on hospitals and health clinics has public health officials worried that cities simply aren’t prepared to handle the heat.

Experts say the death toll is likely to reach into the thousands by summer’s end.

It’s Thursday — thank you for tuning in to POLITICO’s Power Switch. I’m your host, Arianna Skibell. Power Switch is brought to you by the journalists behind E&E News and POLITICO Energy.

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Today in POLITICO Energy’s podcast: Hailey Fuchs breaks down how Louis DeJoy, who leads the United States Postal Service, has transitioned from one of Democrats’ biggest enemies during the Trump administration to a key player in President Joe Biden’s environmental agenda.

Inside the nation’s leading green groups
Robin Bravender reviewed workplace satisfaction ratings for 29 major national environmental and conservation groups. Such organizations are often instrumental in swaying federal and state policies on everything from climate change to land conservation.

Earthjustice and the Nature Conservancy are among the top rated workplaces. Employees had fewer nice things to say about Defenders of Wildlife and Environment America, among others.

Central Valley climate reckoning
One of California’s thirstiest and Trumpiest water districts is going through a political transformation, writes Ry Rivard.

After years of aggressively fighting for more water, Westlands Water District, which occupies some 1,100 square miles of the arid San Joaquin Valley, is planning to cover a sixth of the district with solar panels to start “farming the sun” instead of thirsty crops like almonds and pistachios.

Devil in the oil well details
As the Interior Department works to distribute $4.7 billion from the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law to plug abandoned oil wells, the agency is running into a problem: definitions, writes Shelby Webb.

The infrastructure law prevents Interior from mandating how states define a well as “orphaned.” This means some won’t be eligible for funding because states have reclassified them — creating the potential for an uneven distribution of funds.

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Top officials within EPA were ecstatic to the point of blurting out expletives last year as Biden’s trademark climate law push was resurrected after a change of heart by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.).

The landmark court ruling Monday finding that Montana is violating kids’ right to a clean climate could pave the way for the state to reshape its historically coal-heavy electricity mix.

Top lawmakers in Congress are aiming to permanently incorporate nearly $20 billion in new climate-related agriculture funds into the farm bill, which is revised every five years.

That’s it for today, folks! Thanks for reading.