[✔️] September 1, 2023- Global Warming News Digest | Rx behavior for heat, Doctors notified, Opinion Burning Man, Bill Rees & Overshoot, Eliot Jacobson on catastrophic thinking, Economist Lisi Krall, 2002 US ignored Kyoto
Richard Pauli
Richard at CredoandScreed.com
Fri Sep 1 09:04:12 EDT 2023
/*September 1*//*, 2023*/
/[ Basic advice for physicians - from the New England Journal of
Medicine - how we should face the heat ]/
*Advice for Patients *
Acclimatize (new workers should begin slowly, starting at about 20%
of daily work effort and adding 20% each day); take more frequent
breaks.
Recognize and respond to symptoms of heat stress: headache and
nausea; rest and drink cool water.
Recognize and respond to signs of heat stroke in others: hot and dry
to the touch or sweating but confused; call 911, remove from heat,
and apply ice.
Self-monitor.
Have a buddy.
Wear light-colored and lightweight clothes.
Wear a hat with a brim. Frequently drink water, rest, and use shade.
Take breaks in air conditioning, if available.
Drink 6 oz of cool water several times per hour.
Keep urine light yellow. Avoid overexertion as temperature climbs,
especially when new to a job, when returning after time away, or
during a heat wave.
Consider using apps to check heat index and air quality periodically...
https://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMp2307850?articleTools=true
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2307850?query=TOC&cid=NEJM+eToc%2C+August+31%2C+2023+DM2280944_NEJM_Non_Subscriber&bid=1767666366#figures_media
- -
/[ New England Journal of Medicine //-- FOSSIL-FUEL POLLUTION AND
CLIMATE CHANGE//]/
*Preventing Heat-Related Illness among Outdoor Workers — Opportunities
for Clinicians and Policymakers*
Rosemary K. Sokas, M.D., M.O.H., and Emily Senay, M.D., M.P.H.
August 30, 2023
DOI: 10.1056/NEJMp2307850
Dressed in black, Mr. R., a 60-year-old worker hired through a temporary
agency by an Ohio roofing company, started work at 6:30 a.m. on a sunny
August day. The foreman assigned him a relatively light task and told
all the workers that water, rest, and shade were available when needed,
but Mr. R. received no training or acclimatization, according to a
government inspection. Coworkers later noted that Mr. R. appeared to be
“clumsy”; at approximately 11:40 a.m., when the ambient temperature was
82°F, with 51% relative humidity, he collapsed and was then transported
to a hospital, where his core body temperature was 105.4°F. Three weeks
later, he died from complications of heat stroke. His preexisting
conditions included congestive heart failure.
Mr. R.’s death was preventable but not unique; mortality from heat
stroke among outdoor workers has risen over the past two decades as
temperatures have climbed. Approximately 32 million people in the United
States work outdoors in industries such as construction, transportation,
sanitation, agriculture, groundskeeping, and emergency and protective
services. Farm workers in particular are 35 times as likely as the
general population to die of heat exposure.1 Many other workers face
serious heat exposure inside buildings, including warehouses, bakeries,
and foundries. Yet federal and state data substantially underestimate
heat-related mortality owing to underrecognition, misclassification, and
failure to capture heat-associated exacerbations of underlying
conditions and increases in traumatic injuries. Advocacy organizations
suggest that heat causes up to 2000 worker deaths per year in the United
States.1
Information is also emerging about long-term health problems associated
with heat injury, including renal failure, cardiovascular disease,
ischemic stroke, and death.2 But efforts to implement heat-safety
protections are falling short. There are no federal heat-safety rules,
and the handful of existing state regulations have important
shortcomings, leaving workers at risk. Failure to protect workers as the
climate crisis worsens will have consequences for families, communities,
the economy, and the food and other resources on which society depends.
The climate is warming faster than previously predicted by climate
scientists. The global mean temperature has increased more than 1.1°C
(2.0°F) since preindustrial times. Heat is the most common cause of
weather-related deaths. The World Meteorological Organization has warned
that global temperatures will increase to record levels over the next 5
years because of ongoing greenhouse gas emissions and the climate
pattern known as El Niño.
Lost productivity — an inevitable result of the effects of heat on
stroke volume, heart rate, and maximum oxygen uptake — can further
impoverish low-wage workers and their families. One analysis of the
likely results if minimal or no global action were taken on greenhouse
gas emissions found that the number of days per year with a heat index
higher than 100°F in the United States could increase by a factor of
four by midcentury, which would reduce safe work time for more than 18
million outdoor workers and could result in $55.4 billion in annual
income losses.3 Annual employer costs associated with heat-related lost
productivity are estimated at $100 billion.
Older age is associated with greater vulnerability to heat, and the U.S.
workforce is aging rapidly: the average age of workers is now roughly 42
years, and people must work until they are 67 to qualify for full Social
Security benefits. Because of systemic racism, Black and Latinx workers
are disproportionately represented in low-wage, high-risk jobs; they are
also more likely than White workers to sustain heat-related injuries.
Labor shortages and harmful immigration policies result in substantial
numbers of undocumented people working in agriculture (by some estimates
accounting for 50% of the agricultural workforce), residential housing
construction, and transient clean-up after climate disasters. At $7.25
per hour, the federal minimum wage for workers keeps families below
federal poverty levels, and the United States is the only advanced
industrial country where labor laws don’t require paid sick leave and
where “at will” employment policies mean employers can fire workers
without reason.4 Among low-wage workers and those who are living
paycheck to paycheck or are paid by the amount of work they complete,
the incentive is to avoid taking breaks.
In 2021, after decades of advocacy by workers, unions, and occupational
safety organizations, President Joe Biden called for the Occupational
Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to develop a federal heat-safety
standard, a process that could take years because of complex
requirements previously imposed by congressional roadblocks and
unfavorable court decisions. Trade-group opposition to rules deemed
unfriendly to business could further undermine prospects for swift
progress. Although Congress could enact legislation forcing OSHA to act
more quickly, attempts to do so have failed in successive congressional
sessions. In early 2023, attorneys general from seven states petitioned
OSHA to issue an emergency temporary standard. OSHA has declined similar
requests in the past.
OSHA has used a temporary National Emphasis Program to increase
outreach, education, training, and resources for employers in this area;
the announcement of a heat “hazard alert” in July 2023 furthered such
efforts. Under its General Duty Clause, which requires employers to
provide worksites that are reasonably free of known serious hazards,
OSHA has attempted to increase enforcement activity. Without a federal
heat-safety standard, however, citations can be easily overturned, as
occurred in Mr. R.’s case, when the Occupational Safety and Health
Review Commission determined that his employer couldn’t have reasonably
anticipated his risk of heat stroke.
Although OSHA sets and enforces national standards, about half of states
have their own worker-safety programs. Rules in these “state-plan
states” must be at least as protective as OSHA’s standards but can
provide additional protections. California was the first state to adopt
a heat-illness–prevention standard for outdoor workers and is adopting a
standard for indoor workers. Oregon and Washington have outdoor heat
standards that detail required protections (e.g., water, shade, and rest
provisions at trigger temperatures, as well as first-aid procedures) and
penalties for employer noncompliance. Minnesota has an indoor heat
standard, and Colorado has passed a law containing outdoor-worker
protections. Texas, the state with the highest number of heat-related
fatalities, however, recently passed legislation nullifying local
ordinances that required water and rest breaks for outdoor workers.
Even in states with heat-safety rules, there are two important gaps in
protections. First, there is a need for more careful medical oversight,
particularly of high-risk workers. Although regulations call for
training of workers to prevent heat-related illness, the list of
conditions that exacerbate risk is complex. No rules require clinical
evaluation of workers or management of their care. Cost concerns have
precluded even basic approaches such as worker-completed,
clinician-reviewed questionnaires to identify workers needing a
face-to-face visit to determine reasonable work accommodations (which
wouldn’t involve clinicians telling low-wage workers they can’t work).5
Second, although acclimatization and modified work–rest cycles as
temperatures rise are critical to preventing heat-related illness,
regulators have avoided interfering with work rates or organization.
Consequently, rules for acclimatization only require supervisors to pay
attention to new workers, despite evidence-based recommendations that
new workers increase their workload gradually over 1 week, and rest
requirements typically mandate only 10 minutes of rest for every 2 hours
of work, despite recommendations that workers have 45 minutes of rest
for every 15 minutes of heavy work in very hot weather (≥105°F).
Given these gaps, clinicians can help support their patients who may be
at risk for heat-related illness. All clinicians, but especially those
in primary care, could identify patients whose work may expose them to
heat, review medical histories for risk factors, and educate patients on
how to recognize and respond to heat exhaustion. Patients should
understand the need for a buddy system to recognize signs of heat stroke
in others — the person is either hot and dry to the touch or continuing
to sweat but confused — and understand that heat stroke is a
life-threatening emergency requiring rapid cooling with ice and
transportation to a hospital (see table).
For clinicians at safety-net clinics that often care for low-income or
immigrant workers, the Migrant Clinicians Network provides extensive
resources for both providers and patients. When possible, a staff member
familiar with local worker centers, advocacy groups, legal services, and
the local OSHA office could offer additional guidance to vulnerable
workers. Most important, clinicians could work with their member
organizations to advocate for meaningful regulatory and legislative
action to protect workers amid the escalating climate crisis.
Disclosure forms provided by the authors are available at NEJM.org.
This article was published on August 30, 2023, at NEJM.org.
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2307850?query=TOC&cid=NEJM+eToc%2C+August+31%2C+2023+DM2280944_NEJM_Non_Subscriber&bid=1767666366
/[ Opinion that perhaps this should be a NON-Burning event -- How about
learning purposeful migration? ]/
*Burning Man’s climate protesters have a point*
Building a temporary city of 80,000 people in the desert is actually bad
for the planet.
By Adam Clark Estes at adamclarkestesace@vox.com
Aug 30, 2023
Sunday was not a fun day for the thousands of people on their way to
Burning Man. In the days leading up to the bacchanal, traffic is
typically a nightmare on the two-lane highway that leads to the barren
former lake bed in the Black Rock Desert, a national conservation area
that, for a week every year, becomes known as Black Rock City,
population 80,000.
But this year, a small group of climate protesters parked a 28-foot
trailer across the road, causing miles of gridlock. Seven Circles, a
coalition of organizations that includes Extinction Rebellion and Rave
Revolution, made some simple demands of the Burning Man Organization,
which hosts the annual desert party: “Ban private jets, single-use
plastics, unnecessary propane burning, and unlimited generator use per
capita at the nine day event in Black Rock City, Nevada.” There were
also calls for the organization to mobilize its members “to initiate
systemic change.” But the ban on private jets — that seems pretty
straightforward.
“Burning Man should aim to have the same type of political impact that
Woodstock had on counterculture,” Mun Chong, an organizer with
Extinction Rebellion, said in a statement. “If we are honest about
system change, it needs to start at ‘home.’ Ban the lowest-hanging fruit
immediately: private jets.”
The protesters, it deserves to be said, had a point: Burning Man is
famously bad for the planet.
The many tens of thousands of people the event attracts must travel
through some of the most remote parts of the country to a destination
where there are few natural resources, where everything gets trucked in,
and where vast structures are lit ablaze on the last night of the
festival, pumping carbon-filled smoke into the atmosphere. But over 90
percent of the event’s carbon footprint comes not from the fires
themselves but from travel to and from Black Rock City, according to a
2020 environmental sustainability report from the Burning Man
Organization. Another 5 percent comes from gas- and diesel-burning
generators that keep lights and air conditioners on during the festival.
All things told, each Burning Man generates about 100,000 tons of carbon
dioxide. That’s more than about 22,000 gas-powered cars produce in a year.
But while the protesters had the moral high ground, the protest did not
go well. After an hour-long standoff, trucks from the Pyramid Lake
Ranger Station, a tribal law enforcement agency, showed up and promptly
drove through the barricade. The officer who destroyed the barricade
then yelled over a loudspeaker, “I’m going to take all of you out, you
better move,” before exiting the vehicle, drawing his weapon, and then
handcuffing protesters who said they were not armed. At least one
protester left with a bleeding head.
After it was all done, Burning Man attendees, also known as Burners, got
back in their cars and RVs, stepped on the gas, and headed to the
festival gate.
“Non-violent climate protesters are ordinary people exercising a basic
democratic right, in an attempt to protect us all from catastrophe,”
said Margaret Klein Salamon, executive director for the Climate
Emergency Fund, which has funded some of the groups involved in the
Burning Man protest. “They deserve our respect and support, but instead,
they were met with violence and repression.”
At a time when climate protests are becoming increasingly stunt-based
and even aggressive, this one feels a little different. Groups like
Extinction Rebellion are known for unexpected protests, like gluing
themselves to famous paintings, planes, or historic buildings. This
action, however, set out to disrupt what was once a mecca of progressive
art and creativity. You might even argue that the typical Burner — say,
someone from the Bay Area who works in tech and enjoys feeling free
spirited — would be quick to stand up for climate change in normal
circumstances. But these days, Burning Man couldn’t be further from normal.
The explosive growth and popularity of the festival in the past three
decades mirrors an entire history of humans favoring their own version
of progress over the consequences it produces. What started out as a
gathering on a beach in San Francisco has grown into a destination for
celebrities and the ultra rich, especially tech billionaires. That’s why
private jets have become an issue. There are now fancy camps, meals
prepared by private chefs, and VIP parties. Bear in mind, all of this is
built just for the weeklong festival at the end of the summer, and it
all has to be disassembled and taken away after. One of the founding
principles of Burning Man is “leave no trace,” but even the event’s
organizers were stunned by how much trash got left behind in the desert
last year...
Burning Man 2022 was also a telling reminder of how our warming world is
changing. The weekend of the event, a string of wildfires burned just
north of Black Rock City. Meanwhile, in the desert, temperatures veered
into the triple digits, causing Burners to retreat to air conditioned
tents and RVs powered by gas-burning generators. Solar setups could be
found sporadically in different parts of the festival, and at least one
— but maybe only one — camp was completely run on solar power.
The Burning Man Organization has committed to becoming carbon negative
by 2030, but it’s very unclear how this can happen without completely
rethinking the concept. That solar-powered camp required $200,000 worth
of equipment to keep the lights on. And because the event takes place
about three hours from a major city, all of this infrastructure needs to
be hauled in by gas-powered trucks. Even if electric trucks were
available, there would be no way for them to charge up for the drive back.
“Despite all the green technology being discussed, Burning Man will get
dirtier before it gets cleaner — and will miss its own goal of being net
negative on emissions by 2030 — unless the Org makes big changes,” Alden
Wicker reported last year in Wired, referring to the Burning Man
Organization.
So you can see how the climate protesters arrived at their list of
demands. For Burning Man to exist in its current form and radically
reduce its carbon footprint, major changes need to happen, and it’s not
clear if or how the event’s organizers will meet their own environmental
sustainability goals. And again, the protest itself did not go well for
anyone. Thousands of cars idling in the middle of the desert didn’t
exactly improve the greenhouse gas emissions situation. People got hurt.
But the festival did go on, and those air conditioners and their
generators will keep rumbling until September 4, when they burn it all
down again.
https://www.vox.com/technology/2023/8/30/23852215/burning-man-climate-protest-block-road
/[ William Rees adopts the role of a wise, mildly agitated curmudgeon in
this difficult discussion with the young Rachel Donald - the two
grumbled, - yet agree about human future 1:11 video ]/
*Overshooting Earth's Boundaries | Bill Rees*
Planet: Critical
Aug 30, 2023 #politicalcrisis #climatecrisis #energycrisis
Humankind’s footprint threatens to squash life under its heel.
Our impact on the planet cannot be understated. We have thrust Earth
into a new geological period, destroyed the majority of the world’s
wildlife, razed her forests, and rendered innumerable species extinct.
We are expert consumers with no limits to our appetite, it seems. Unless
the climate becomes so unstable our own systems break down. This, of
course, is what we’re already seeing.
Bill Rees, bio-ecologist, ecological economist, and originator of the
ecological footprint analysis, joins me to discuss this breakdown—how we
got here, where we’re going, and why he has little hope for humankind to
make it through. We discuss systems change, potential outcomes, and how
to create “lifeboats” in a crisis. We also go head-to-head on the
framing of some of these issues before finding common ground towards the
end of the episode.
Bill Rees: https://www.postcarbon.org/our-people/william-rees/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ID-P1_AwczM
/[ Dr Eliot Jacobson - in YouTube video interview ]/
*Doomer Dr. Eliot Jacobson talks Hurricane Hilary, Phoenix Heat,
Canadian Fires, Ocean Heat Rise*
Santa Barbara Talks with Josh Molina
Aug 20, 2023
Doomer Dr. Eliot Jacobson returns to Santa Barbara Talks to discuss the
potential catastrophic impacts of Hurricane Hilary and why we are seeing
a tropical hurricane on the West Coast. Jacobson also talks about rising
heat records in Phoenix, increasing ocean temperatures, and the
wildfires in Canada. Jacobson is a doomer who believe that it is too
late to save the planet for humans, but to think about saving the planet
for whatever species is able to survive. He also talks about climate
change, fossil fuels, electric and solar power and the inconsistent
discussion around environmentalism.
After our first podcast, Jacobson appeared on CNN and a variety of other
media platforms. Check out this latest episode for his compelling views.
Find Jacobson online at https://climatecasino.net/ or his twitter at
https://twitter.com/EliotJacobson
Joshua Molina is a journalist and college instructor who interviews a
variety of individuals on topics such as housing, environment and
culture. Consider a contribution to his independently owned podcast at
www.santabarbarapodcasts.com or santabarbaratalks.com. Also please
subscribe to this podcast if you enjoy conversations with people from
all perspectives.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjeBg-l9XHM
/[ Economics of our conundrum - YouTube or audio,
https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/86-lisi-krall and
transcript. ]/
*Lisi Krall: "Agriculture, Surplus, and the Economic Superorganism" |
The Great Simplification #86*
Nate Hagens
Aug 30, 2023 The Great Simplification - with Nate Hagens
On this episode, ‘Superorganisms’ converge as Nate is joined by
economist and anthropologist Lisi Krall to discuss the evolutionary
origins of our current systemic predicament. Starting with the
Agricultural Revolution, the evolutionary conditions of surplus and
ultrasociality have combined to shape the way humans interact with their
environment, ultimately leading to our current out of control global
economy. Is this global system an inevitable emergent phenomenon of the
human condition? Does surplus inherently breed inequality and hierarchy,
such as the current capitalist system? What type of social evolution
will we experience as we meet the limits of an expansionary system and
move towards a Great Simplification?
About Lisi Krall:
Lisi Krall is a professor of economics at State University of New York,
Cortland. Dr. Krall engages a heterodox and transdisciplinary approach
to understanding economic systems, their etiology, structure, dynamic,
and the relationship between humans and the more-than-human world that
is contextualized through them. She incorporates evolutionary biology,
anthropology, history, heterodox economics, and deep materialism to
understand how we arrived at this paradoxical moment where humans appear
trapped in an economic system that functions as if it is not of this
Earth at the same time it is clearly a material system. Her latest book,
Bitter Harvest: An Inquiry into the War Between Economy and Earth,
explores the formation and evolution of the economic system (the
economic superorganism) that took hold beginning with the cultivation of
annual grains and is now embodied in global capitalism.
For Show Notes and more:
https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/86-lisi-krall
https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/86-lisi-krall
#thegreatsimplification #natehagens #superorganism #evolution
#anthropology #economics
/[The news archive - looking back failing to join Kyoto Protocol ] /
/*September 1, 2002*/
September 1, 2002: British Prime Minister Tony Blair laments the failure
of the United States to join the Kyoto Protocol, even though the treaty
is quite moderate relative to what the science demands in
terms of worldwide emissions cuts.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/2228741.stm
http://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/africa/09/01/blair.climate.glb/
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