This week, host Daniel Raimi talks with Kelly T. Sanders, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Southern California. With her coauthors, Sanders has recently published a series of studies on air conditioning use in southern California, with a focus on who does—and does not—have access to cooling on hot days. This work, which touches on issues of energy and environmental justice, has big implications for managing the COVID-19 pandemic this summer—and managing climate change in the decades to come.

References and recommendations:

"Utilizing smart-meter data to project impacts of urban warming on residential electricity use for vulnerable populations in Southern California" by Mo Chen, George A. Ban-Weiss, and Kelly T. Sanders; https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab6fbe/meta

"Growth: From Microorganisms to Megacities" by Vaclav Smil; https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/growth

"These Truths: A History of the United States" by Jill Lepore; https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393357424