In his 2021 novel “Termination Shock,” about a near-future Earth that is much warmer, science-fiction maestro Neal Stephenson imagined that in the hottest and most humid parts of the world—including Texas—people would don spacesuits, but for Earth, called “earthsuits.”

That science-fiction future is, for millions of Americans, our present. Heat waves are more intense and longer thanks to climate change. For people who work outside in hotter regions or in broiling indoor spaces like large warehouses without air conditioning, heat injury, illness and even death are a growing concern. READ MORE