climate change

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. 

By staff - La Via Campesina, November 1, 2023

We, La Via Campesina, the international peasant movement with over 182 local and national organisations in 81 countries from Africa, Asia Europe and Americas stands in solidarity with the Kenyan Peasants League (KPL) our member organization in their legal struggle to continue the ban on GMOs in Kenya. In October 2022 the Kenyan Government lifted the ban on importation and cultivation of genetically modified organisms (GMO) that had been in place for ten years.

The conservatory orders maintaining the GMO ban by the High Court in December 2022 and the decision of the Court of Appeal to uphold the conservatory orders due to a lack of adequate public participation in the decision by the government to lift the GMO ban gave a temporary relief to the struggle.

The legal struggle will start at the High Court soon. We call upon all social movements and activists to mobilize and support the Kenya Peasant League in their continued struggle against the lifting of the ban on importation and cultivation of genetically modified organisms (GMO) in Kenya.

We call on the government of Kenya to respect the rights of peasants to determine their future. Lifting the GMO ban goes against the rights of the peasants (article 10 – Right to Participation; 15- Right to Food and Food Sovereignty; 19 – Right to Seeds and 20 – Right to Biological Diversity) enshrined in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP).

Again, lifting the GMO ban contravenes Article 9 of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA), also known as “Seed Treaty”, which affirms that no law(s) should “limit any rights that farmers have to save, use, exchange and sell farm-saved seed/propagating material”. We know from experiences in many countries that have allowed GMO production that the local seed systems suffered a lot. The local biodiversity and the environment suffered too due to excessive use of toxic agro-inputs required to guarantee GMO crops maximum yield. People’s health suffered too.

We, thus believe that if the ban on GMOs is lifted, this will not only be a direct attack on the peasants way of life in Kenya, but the East African region and the African Continent as it will unleash the untold destruction of the peasant managed seeds systems. The continent is already under enormous pressure to reformed seed legislations in favour of commercial seed companies and big agribusinesses.

Peasants’ organizations and other social movements will continue to mobilize so that the general GMO ban in Kenya prevails.

By Shaye Wolf, Ph.D., et. al. - Center for Biological Diversity, November 2023

A report from the Center for Biological Diversity demonstrates what many of us have feared—that carbon emissions from Biden-approved fossil fuel projects will cancel out the expected CO2 reductions from the Inflation Reduction Act.

“Approving more fossil fuels not only torches our climate future, but it also harms people’s health, degrades ecosystems, and threatens wildlife,” writes Shaye Wolf, the lead author. “The potential carbon emissions from 17 massive fossil fuel projects approved by the Biden administration are larger than the projected emissions reductions from the IRA and other climate policies.”

Those 17 projects have the potential to release emissions totaling 1,642 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent per year, or the same as the annual emissions of 440 coal-fired power plants.

Download a copy of this publication here (link).

By staff - Climate Justice Coalition and The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, November 2023

The role of climate change in both forced displacement and wider migration is increasingly apparent, with climate impacts on people in marginalised communities becoming more severe and more people being forced to leave their homes, the majority of whom are moving within or between countries in the Global South. At the same time, countries and corporations in the Global North profit from the increased militarisation and proliferation of racist border policies. A militarised response to a heating world, in the form of walls, camps and drones, will only increase suffering and prolong the climate emergency. Climate action must include justice for all people everywhere.

With COP28 taking place in the UAE, from 30 November until 12 December 2023, civil society will be talking about climate and migration. This briefing note aims to guide communicators and campaigners on how migrant justice intersects, and how to talk about climate-linked mobility in a way that is justice aligned and does not stoke fears and insecurities.

Download a copy of this publication here (PDF).

By Kristoffer Tigue - Inside Climate News , October 31, 2023

American farmworkers are increasingly at risk of heat-related illness and death as climate change drives temperatures around the world to record highs. That’s pushing more and more workers to harvest crops at night to avoid extreme heat, according to recent reports, which is creating a host of new risks that experts say need to be more thoroughly studied.

More than 2 million U.S. farmworkers, who typically toil outdoors under a hot summer sun, are exceptionally at risk of succumbing to heat-related illness, the Environmental Defense Fund warned in a July report, with heat-related mortalities 20 times higher for crop workers than in other private industries, as well as employees in local and state government. About three weeks of the summer harvest season are now expected to be too hot to safely work outdoors, the report’s authors added, and that number will only increase as global warming continues.

Government data and other studies have found that an average of 43 farmworkers die every year from heat-related illness. But top officials with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which oversees U.S. working conditions, say that number is significantly undercounted, largely because heat doesn’t get factored into deaths from cardiac arrests and respiratory failures. One advocacy group estimated that heat exposure could be responsible for as many as 2,000 worker fatalities in the U.S. each year.

In fact, this summer was the hottest on record for the entire northern hemisphere, federal scientists announced in September, in large part because of climate change. Parts of the Midwest and large regions of Europe are also experiencing record hot Octobers.

As the daytime heat has gone up, a growing number of agriculture workers—many of whom are Latino and undocumented—now work while it’s still dark out. But that could be trading one risk for a set of others, labor and safety advocates are warning.

By Isabella Escalona and Amy Stager - Workday Magazine, October 31, 2023

Minnesota unions have been planning for this moment for a decade.

Over the years they’ve meticulously coordinated their contracts to expire at the same time in order to maximize unity and bargaining power. Now, as these expiration dates are within sight, union organizers and rank-and-file members are beginning to prepare.

SEIU Local 26 has a contract expiring for 4,000 commercial janitorial workers on December 31. Their contracts for another 1,000 airport workers and 500 retail janitorial workers close on January 31, 2024. And the contract is up for 2,500 security workers on February 29, 2024.

In the world of public schools, the contracts for the St. Paul Federation of Educators (SPFE) Local 28, the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) Local 59, and SEIU Local 284 (which represents support staff), already expired on June 30, but those contracts remain in effect until an agreement is put in place due to the Public Employment Labor Relations Act (PELRA).

The contract for the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 1005 also expired over the summer, on July 31, but has been extended until a new contract is ratified. (The ATU is currently negotiating with the Metropolitan Council.)

Meanwhile, the Metro Transit bus and rail operators with the ATU and maintenance workers voted to authorize a strike in September. One of the ATU’s main demands is a cost of living adjustment plus 1%. 

While the unions are organizing and bargaining separately, the shared expiration timeline was no accident. After decades of communication and coalition, many Minnesota unions have been eyeing opportunities like this in order to pool resources, strategize around bigger demands, and build a synergy they hope will lead to major gains.

By collective - Earth Strike UK, October 2023

Our mission is to achieve a world in which humanity is not in constant competition with itself or with the environment, to halt the rapid deterioration of our biosphere and to live in a world that is not on the brink of ecological collapse. In order to do that we must end capitalism and all other forms of oppression and exploitation which are the cause of injustice and threaten the stability and viability of our environment.

We believe that collectively we have the ability to bring about that better world through the power of organised labour and the application of industrial action. Through strikes, occupations and other forms of industrial action over environmental issues in our own workplaces we can have a direct, tangible impact on the trajectory of our climate. By employing those same tactics on a massive scale, across industries and across countries, we can launch a direct challenge to capitalism and the institutions that are driving the climate and ecological crisis.

With this in mind, we aim to promote, support or initiate general strikes for the climate nationally and internationally, as well as employ industrial action in defence of the climate more generally, and to create foundations of solidarity and mutual struggle on which we can build a better and more sustainable society.

However, organising a general strike for the climate is no easy task. We could simply set a date and call a strike but without a broad base of support, a mandate given by all of the people actually striking, it is unlikely that enough people would be willing to take the risk and participate. To be able to build a general strike that is actually effective there are a few things that need to happen first. It is not enough to simply mobilise, first we must organise!

There are several conditions that need to be met for a general strike for the climate to become a viable option in the struggle for climate justice. These conditions do not necessarily need to be fulfilled directly by Earth Strike UK. Our aim is not to be the banner under which all action should be taken, but to facilitate and encourage action that moves us towards a general strike. In fact, it is better if these conditions are fulfilled by a variety of groups, organisations and movements working independently and in parallel with one another, as this will lead to a more broad, dynamic and robust movement. There are several elements to our strategy.

None of them are mutually exclusive and any action that reinforces one is likely to reinforce others. Importantly, each strand of our strategy is also an end in itself; each will individually improve the world in a tangible way, even if they can’t all be brought together to materialise a general strike.

Download a copy of this publication here (PDF).

By Kalina Arabadjieva, et. al. - European Trade Union Institute, October 30, 2023

By Greg Harman - Truthout, October 27, 2023

Throughout the blazing summer of 2023, reporters dutifully marked prior heat records being demolished repeatedly across the nation. New record-setting high temperatures were noted almost daily, and in city after city, a raft of new hottest June, July and August monthlong records were marked in towering fonts. Far fewer stories, however, sought to document what that extreme heat meant for working people.

“I’m surprised I lived through it,” said Mark Moutos, 65, leaning back against shaded concrete beneath a dusty highway off-ramp on San Antonio’s west side. “I kept thinking, ‘I’m getting older; maybe I just don’t handle the heat as well.’”

Today we know that the Earth has just experienced its hottest summer in more than 125,000 years — a crisis being driven by the rampant release of heat-trapping gases through the burning of fossil fuels. In Texas, 2023 now ranks as the state’s second-hottest year, just a degree-average behind 2011. But in many parts of the state — including San Antonio — it was the hottest summer since record keeping began. Meteorologists here also marked the most triple-digit days and the most 105-plus degree days, according to Spectrum News. And with just two inches of rainfall, it was the city’s third-driest summer.

Moutos, who has been living unhoused since leaving a job at a car dealership years ago, said he drank as much water as he could, but that making the trips to the corner store to collect fluids and food became increasingly arduous beneath this summer’s punishing heat dome. He passed out twice on the sidewalk near his camp, he said, and had to be revived by EMS teams.

By Katie Myers and Siri Chilukuri - Grist, October 27, 2023

This story is part of Record High, a Grist series examining extreme heat and its impact on how — and where — we live.

On any given summer day, most of the nation’s farmworkers, paid according to their productivity, grind through searing heat to harvest as much as possible before day’s end. Taking a break to cool down, or even a moment to chug water, isn’t an option. The law doesn’t require it, so few farms offer it.

The problem is most acute in the Deep South, where the weather and politics can be equally brutal toward the men and women who pick this country’s food. Yet things are improving as organizers like Leonel Perez take to the fields to tell farmworkers, and those who employ them, about the risks of heat exposure and the need to take breaks, drink water, and recognize the signs of heat exhaustion. 

“The workers themselves are never in a position where they’ve been expecting something like this,” Perez told Grist through a translator. “If we say, ‘Hey, you have the right to go and take a break when you need one,’ it’s not something that they’re accustomed to hearing or that they necessarily trust right away.”

Perez is an educator with the Fair Food Program, a worker-led human rights campaign that’s been steadily expanding from its base in southern Florida to farms in 10 states, Mexico, Chile, and South Africa. Although founded in 2011 to protect workers from forced labor, sexual harassment, and other abuses, it has of late taken on the urgent role of helping them cope with ever-hotter conditions. 

It is increasingly vital work. Among those who labor outdoors, agricultural workers enjoy the least protection. Despite this summer’s record heat, the United States still lacks a federal standard governing workplace exposure to extreme temperatures. According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, the agency has opened more than 4,500 heat-related inspections since March 2022, but it does not have data on worker deaths from heat-related illnesses.