We can hide from the heat in the desert in our air-conditioned homes, ours cooled by a heat pump powered by solar panels. With climate change heightening extreme temperatures, drought, fires and floods, we find ourselves entangled in a cascade of consequences. Further south, out Diné (Navajo) neighbors who have lived with desert heat through the generations are installing solar panels on their homes for greater efficiency, though some have no electricity and running water at all. Many throughout our desert communities are confronting the possibility that this untenable sustained heat and drought will force us to leave. Here in the Castle Valley blast furnace, we are sandwiched between red cliffs and mesas that absorb the heat and radiate it back to us.

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Persons: Say’s Organizations: U.S . Department, Reclamation, roosters Locations: Interior’s, Colorado