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The fatal flaw in how America handles heat waves

The US has built its homes, schools, and hospitals so thoroughly with AC in mind that most buildings have no built-in defense against the heat at all. | Angela Weiss/AFP It was not the postcard-worthy aesthetics that prompted Greek islanders to first drench their cliffside-carved homes, churches, and pathways in a thick layer of pearly white paint. Much like wearing a white tunic on a hot sunny day, painting your house a shade of reflective white is a fine way to keep an ancient island cool, bouncing some of the sun’s heat back into space instead of absorbing it into the structure of...