Another summer, another record-breaking heat wave. The National Weather Service has issued excessive heat warnings for California, urging residents to stay out of the sun, drink fluids, and check on neighbors throughout the week. Meteorologists have their eyes on Death Valley National Park, the site of the highest temperature ever reliably recorded on Earth — 130 degrees Fahrenheit, in 2020 and again in 2021 — to see if this week’s scorcher will offer a new record. Last month, a heat wave on the East Coast broke dozens of local records.

Climate change means extreme heat events happen with greater frequency. That’s a dangerous development, as they are the deadliest weather-related events in the United States, causing more deaths than floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes combined. Last year was the hottest in recorded history, and it killed at least 2,300 people, with the real number likely much higher since extreme heat exacerbates other health issues that are often cited as a person’s cause of death.

Yet even as extreme temperatures require that people take it easy, many workers’ shifts go on as usual. Workers have little recourse for such employer endangerment, and the results are deadly. Stories abound with ever-greater frequency of workers dying on the job during hot days. No matter how young or healthy one might be, extreme heat kills, with the predictability of such deaths making them all the more damning.