Arizona’s new heat officer said Friday that he is working with local governments and nonprofit groups to open more cooling centers and ensure homes have working air conditioners in a more unified effort to prevent another ghastly toll of heat-related deaths this summer.
There is a reason it is named Phoenix. That valley has been settled and abandoned several times throughout history.
The only reason it has survived this time is through the power of air conditioning.
Horse shit.
It was never abandoned. The valley was steadily habitated for thousands of years by a number of tribes before American settlers forces the Yaqui from the land.
None of them had air conditioning, and they thrived until a foreign invader took their land by force.
They were also nomadic, and left when it got too dry/hot. Which goes to show they were a lot smarter than most people living there now.
I don’t know the history here, but wouldn’t a nomadic people that leave when the heat / drought gets bad, still count as “abandoning”, in a sense? Or were they more or less a permanent settlement?
I think they were talking about the Anasazi, but that was a different part of Arizona.