How Labor Rights and Infrastructure Improvements May Limit This Silent Killer

By Adam Mahoney - Capital B News, November 2, 2023

It was just his second day on the job at the Modesto Junk Company in California’s Central Valley — but it was the region’s 34th consecutive day of 90-plus-degree weather.

Feeling dizzy, he asked for a break around 2 p.m. The 40-year-old never received one. Later, a co-worker found him unconscious and sprawled across the concrete. 

The nameless man in the U.S. Department of Labor’s July 2021 accident report database is one of more than 275 linked to heat-related cardiovascular deaths, like heart attacks and strokes, between May 2018 and December 2022. A 2014 report found that nearly half of these deaths happen on a worker’s first day on the job. 

Extreme heat takes a heavy toll on the heart, and Black people are particularly vulnerable.

A new report released this week reveals how much more deadly the effects of climate change may become in the United States. By 2053, 13 times as many Americans will be regularly exposed to extreme heat compared to 2022 rates. So the prevalence of these deadly events is only going to get worse, according to the new study.

Published in the American Heart Association’s scientific journal, the study found that even if the U.S. successfully implements all of its plans to curb climate change and rising temperatures, annual heat-related cardiovascular deaths in the U.S. will more than double between 2036 and 2065 compared to the last decade.

If we fail to implement all of our plans to lower greenhouse gasses, which are attributed to rising global temperatures, these deaths will triple. 

In either scenario, the increase will be most acute among Black adults over 20 and for all adults over 65. 

Read the rest of the article here.

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author.