[✔️] April 14 , 2024 Global Warming News | Climate employee benefits, Canada wildfires, Midwest wildfires, Denial maps to geography, Global tipping points, Florida block heat rules, 1964 Rachel Carson dies

[Richard Pauli]

/*April 14*//*, 2024*/

/[ follow the money - from CNBC ]/
*How climate change is beginning to be built into employee pay and benefits*
SAT, APR 13 2024
Trevor Laurence Jockims

    -- Though still on the margins of the labor market, the concept of
    “green perks” is being added to compensation packages and employee
    benefits.

    -- Commuting benefits are an example and companies including Walmart
    have invested in e-bike chargers, bicycle racks and showers for
    workers working up a sweat on the way into the office.

    -- Other ideas on the vanguard include employer financial support
    for home upgrades, EV purchases, and paid leave for weather-related
    events.

More workers in today’s labor market want to take action on climate 
change in some way as part of their jobs, yet many encounter a major 
stumbling block: lack of understanding when it comes to their employer’s 
own commitment to the issue. So-called green perks, also referred to as 
climate change benefits, could help to bridge that gap. A rising, though 
still marginal trend in the job market, employee enticement and 
compensation packages tied to climate change can help to make these 
abstractions clearer and more actionable in the workplace.

Environmental commitments from major companies have tended to focus on 
major operational efficiency targets, such as Google’s carbon-free data 
centers, and from the supply chain to the consumer end market, such as 
Apple’s carbon-neutral smartwatch. There are some companies all-in, as a 
brand, in fighting climate change, such as Patagonia. And at the C-suite 
level, it’s already a norm on the compensation side of the equation, 
with executive bonuses at companies, such as Apple, tied to ESG 
performance metrics.

But for most rank-and-file employees, benefit packages in recent decades 
have had essentially two main categories — health and retirement. Now 
there are indications that green benefit packages may become more 
common. One potential spearhead for the nascent movement is commuter 
benefits, particularly benefits that facilitate healthier, eco-friendly 
modes of transportation, allowing employers to facilitate and promote 
lifestyles that appeal to an increasingly environmentally-conscious 
workforce, while lowering the company’s own net carbon footprint.

Walmart, the nation’s largest employer, has been factoring the 
environmental impact of employees’ daily commutes into the company’s 
carbon footprint in an example of a shifting corporate culture, while in 
recent years the retailer has been promoting alternative forms of 
commuting that were integral to design of its headquarters in 
Bentonville, Arkansas.

With Walmart saying “multi-modal and alternative transportation is a big 
part of the future of commuting,” it has facilitated bikes as a green 
lifestyle perk for employees, investing in chargers for e-bikes and 
e-scooters, bike racks, and showers for cyclists arriving to work, while 
it has deliberately reduced design space allocated for parking lots.

Walmart has a stated a goal of having 10% of its workforce biking to 
work in Bentonville — but the goal has been difficult to reach, and has 
been pushed back from 2023 to 2025 when the corporate headquarters are 
set for completion. Still, similar to the challenges of wider adoption 
of electric vehicles, infrastructure plays a major role in getting 
employees on bikes, and Walmart has gone all-in on this in Bentonville.

Across the 500 employers representing over 8 million workers that 
respond to an annual survey from management consultant WTW, the topic of 
green benefits is beginning to register, says Caroline Mangiardi, 
associate director, health & benefits at the firm. While its annual best 
practices survey focuses on health-care benefits, it began to include a 
section on climate-related benefits in 2022 and she says employer 
attitudes are shifting. Increasing priority is to be given to 
climate-related benefits in the years ahead, according to the survey. 
Half of employers had considered this concept a low priority over the 
past three years, but only a third now see climate benefits as a low 
priority.

*Employer-funded home upgrades, EV purchase perks*
The trend is not limited to the bikes for commuting to work. “What is 
exciting are innovative benefits such as reimbursements specifically 
deemed for sustainable home upgrades, providing leave for 
weather-related events, and bike programs,” said Mangiardi.

Bank of America pledged to more than double the availability of 
EV-charging stations at its financial centers. As part of this plan, it 
has provided eligible employees with up to $4,000 for a purchase or 
$2,000 for a lease of a qualified new all-electric passenger car or truck.

Younger workers from the Gen Z demographic may be front-and-center when 
it comes to including social and environmental consciousness in 
corporate benefit programs, but Mangiardi said, “It’s important to note 
that employees of all generations support sustainability.”

Some niche benefits firms are embedding the green perks concept into 
their business model. Lauren Schneider, a spokeswoman for Compt, which 
provides employee expense management that replaces or consolidates 
existing perks with stipends designed around employee lifestyle 
spending, says these incentives can be green focused. Though she also 
said it’s still early days for the idea. “There’s a nascent but growing 
interest in climate change benefits,” Schneider said, pointing out that 
Google searches for commuter benefits, as an example, are trending up.

Early adopters among employers could benefit. “From our more direct 
experience in the benefits space, the lack of widespread implementation 
suggests a significant opportunity for companies to innovate and lead in 
this space,” Schneider said. “By aligning employee benefits with 
environmental sustainability, companies not only address a talent demand 
(more people want CSR focused and environmentally conscious employers) 
but also more holistically support that talent,” she said.

Recent data from benefits consultant Mercer indicates that facilitating 
green and healthy commutes continues to rise as a benefits priority. 
Nearly one-third of companies aim to promote and facilitate eco-friendly 
modes of commuting for their employees, according to its 2023 Mercer 
Transportation Trends report.

*A ‘carbon savings account’ for work*
Lizzy Kolar, co-founder & CEO of Scope Zero, which offers a carbon 
savings account (CSA) as a method for distributing green perks to 
employees, likened it to a health savings account. “But for home 
technology and personal transportation upgrades that drive corporate ESG 
efforts,” she said. Stipends for commuter benefits, biking, and EV 
discounts, as well as work-from-home expenses, are key components to the 
program.

Employer financial contribution to each employee’s CSA and the discounts 
from its vendor marketplace significantly reduce the upfront costs of 
home tech and personal transportation upgrades, Kolar said. Providing a 
platform designed for this type of perk also allows for customized 
upgrade recommendations, direction of employees to top products and 
vendors, and identification of relevant utility and government rebates.

With green perks, the headlines are smaller than the operational and 
supply chain commitments from major corporations, and the impact is not 
yet sufficiently studied. But as back-to-work mandates continue to gain 
momentum, there is the opportunity to incorporate the concept into a new 
work-life balance. Green perks are a benefits arena where the demand 
would seem to outstrip supply, and green commuter benefits may be the 
first indication of a wider adoption wave.

That’s Kolar’s bet. “This demand stems from growing individual interest 
in sustainability and from the priorities within the 70% of Fortune 500s 
that have already made formal climate commitments,” she said. “Our 
prediction is that within the next few years the standard benefits will 
no longer only include healthcare and retirement, but also 
sustainability,” she said.
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/13/how-climate-change-is-beginning-to-be-added-to-employee-pay-and-perks.html

- -

[ CNBC video interview ~5 mins ]
*Cummins CEO on SEC's Climate Rules*
https://www.cnbc.com/video/2024/03/07/cummins-ceo-on-driving-ev-adoption-you-need-incentives-and-the-right-regulatory-framework.html



/[ news from Canada - stage 4 wildfire ]/
*Canada wildfires: Indigenous communities sound alarm as evacuations 
already underway*
Global News
Apr 13, 2024  #GlobalNews #Indigenous #Wildfires
Indigenous communities are sounding the alarm as the wildfire season 
gets underway.

On Wednesday, the federal government announced new funding to help the 
48 First Nations in Alberta hire emergency management coordinators, 
promising that more funding would be on the way.

But with wildfires already sparking evacuation orders, several chiefs 
tell Global News that the announcement is both too little and too late.

Heather Yourex-West reports.

For more info, please go to 
https://globalnews.ca/news/10414618/federal-wildfire-emergency-co-ordinators-alberta-first-nations/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5-e_rK7e64



/[ same place but with a new calendar ]/
*Unseasonal wildfires beset midwest: ‘The strangest winter I’ve ever seen’*
El Niño weather phenomenon has contributed to warm, dry conditions in 
US, leading to more fires much earlier in the year
Gabrielle Canon
Fri 12 Apr 2024
The US midwest typically spends the start of spring emerging from snow. 
But this year, after a warm winter left landscapes parched, the region 
instead was primed to burn. Hundreds of blazes ignited in recent months 
in states more accustomed to dealing with just dozens for this time of 
year, as extreme fire behavior defied seasonal norms.

Experts say the unusually early and active fire season was a symptom of 
El Niño, a climate pattern characterized by warmer surface temperatures 
in the Pacific Ocean that was predicted to supercharge global heating 
and extreme weather. But the climate crisis turned up the dial, and 
helped create conditions in the midwest where winter temperature records 
were not only broken – they were smashed.

“This was the strangest winter I have ever seen,” Stephen Marien, a 
predictive services fire meteorologist who works for the National Parks 
Service, said. Marien, a federal scientist based in Minnesota, added 
that he expected the season to trend warmer due to El Niño, but it was 
still shocking to see temperatures climb above 60F (16C) during the 
typically frigid months. For Marien it was a clear sign that “climate 
change has added fuel to the fire”.

The midwest – defined by the US census as Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, 
Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, 
South Dakota and Wisconsin – includes a range of landscapes, including 
grasslands, plains and forests, but the warmer weather had widespread 
impact.

The balmy start to the year left the region with a larger window for 
higher-risk fire conditions, which tend to peak in early spring after 
the snow melts but before trees and grasses “green up”. Vegetation that 
is normally hidden beneath the berms of snow was instead exposed to the 
sun weeks early and dried quickly. That unleashed unseasonal drought 
conditions and set the stage for the type of blazes that prove harder to 
contain.
In Minnesota, the agency responsible for coordinating fire suppression 
efforts said in a Facebook post that vegetation had dried out “roughly 
six weeks earlier than normal” and that firefighters in the state had 
already responded to 50 significant blazes in early March.

While the fires have mostly been small and numerous rather than 
catastrophic, they contributed to an early jump in burn totals across 
the country. More than 1.7m acres have already burned in the US, a 
number more than triple the 10-year average for this time of year, 
according to the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC).

These numbers were driven in large part by the explosion of fires across 
Texas and Oklahoma, including the Smokehouse Creek fire that burned more 
than a million acres in cattle country and left tens of thousands of 
livestock dead. The fires in the midwest, though small by comparison, 
laid siege to landscapes and communities where the means needed to 
battle big blazes are limited. The early onset of fire season is a 
troubling trend.

“We’re not really having fire seasons any more. We’re just having fire 
years,” Ben Bohall, public information officer for the Nebraska forest 
service, told KCUR, an NPR affiliate in Kansas City, adding that 
resources, as a result, were strained.

In Nebraska, a fire in late February scorched more than 71,000 acres 
(29,000 hectares) in just 24 hours destroying several buildings 
including two homes. In March, three people were injured when several 
fires blew across roughly 3,000 acres in Minnesota.
The dangers continued in April. Fueled by drought and heat, a prescribed 
burn reportedly escaped control in Kansas this week, prompting 
evacuation notices and road closures. It is one of three active fires 
burning in the state, which have collectively charred roughly 15,000 
acres. The danger is far from over.


“Calendar-wise it might seem like we are getting late into spring, but 
our fire season is still here in Kansas,” Chip Rebin, a meteorologist of 
the Kansas forest service, said in a broadcast update posted on 
Thursday. Temperatures are expected to soar in the coming week – 
potentially reaching 90F – with winds gusting at 40mph (65km/h) creating 
suppression complications and a high chance that contained fires will 
rekindle. “That’s a bad scenario,” he added, noting heat 20 degrees 
higher than normal “will rapidly dry out fuels”.

Fires burn differently in the region than those in California or other 
parts of the west, Marien said, and are typically snuffed out within the 
day. But intensifying fire conditions have created burns that are harder 
to contain. The local volunteer firefighters and state departments who 
battle these blazes can be quickly overwhelmed and may require outside 
resources, including aircraft, especially when embers are more difficult 
to extinguish.

“When you get longer-term droughts all the fuels on the ground can keep 
burning for quite a while,” he said, adding, “and that doesn’t happen 
often over here.”

While a spate of storms offered a reprieve in the northern states in 
recent weeks and the promise of rains returning in the coming months has 
cooled some of the dangers across the region in the short term, many 
states in the midwest are still experiencing dry conditions, which could 
worsen as the weather warms. The latest federal forecasts also show 
above normal temperatures are likely across much of the plains and 
Mississippi valley.

“It is the time of year when they are coming into their main wet 
season,” Andrew Hoell, a Noaa research meteorologist, said. But if those 
rains fail to appear, “you can fall into a drought and you can get some 
fires pretty quickly”.

As the climate crisis sets the stage for more extreme conditions, with 
climbing temperatures, sharper swings between wet and dry, and a thirsty 
atmosphere that evaporates moisture faster, the conditions that fueled 
these winter fires may arise more often.

“There’s no doubt that this is part of a trend,” Hoell said. “This part 
of the world is warming and it is warming during the winter time.” The 
extremes seen in the last season were boosted due to El Niño, so a 
repeat performance isn’t necessarily expected every winter. “But the 
background warming is there,” Hoell added, “and it’s here to stay.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/12/midwest-early-wildfire-season



/[ 5 min audio report.  We are not surprised - the echo chamber 
c//orrelates with political stance. //  ]/
*Climate denialism mapped to geography and political affiliation*
Paul Huttner and Ngoc Bui
April 11, 2024
A recent study shows nearly 15 percent of Americans “do not believe in 
climate change.”

So, what drives climate denialism in the U.S.?

Joshua Newell is a professor and co-director of the Center for 
Sustainable Systems. He was one of the authors of this research and 
broke down his findings.

To hear the full conversation, click play on the audio player above or 
subscribe to the Climate Cast podcast.
https://www.mprnews.org/episode/2024/04/11/climate-denialism-mapped-to-geography-and-political-affiliation



/[  part 2 on tipping points ]/
*What we know about Global Tipping Points*
Paul Beckwith
Apr 12, 2024
In this video, I continue to chat about the report “Global Tipping 
Points”: https://global-tipping-points.org/

I cover the Report Sections from Page 31 to 77. This includes sections 
on introducing Positive Tipping Points. I also cover the so-called 
Negative Tipping Points (Earth System Tipping Points) for the 
cryosphere, specifically for Greenland and Antarctica, Arctic and 
Antarctic sea ice, alpine glaciers, and permafrost (both on land and 
subsea, ice-rich and ice-poor).

I am delving into the details and the figures, since this report is 
vital to inform people from all walks of life about the huge risks of 
“negative tipping points” in the Earth system that we are fast 
approaching, some likely already crossed.

I find that making a detailed video really helps reinforce my own 
knowledge base on this very important topic.

Equally, or arguable more importantly humans have agency to transform 
society via “positive tipping points”, but these require governance and 
human agency to occur. At the moment, there is no global governance 
organization or even recognition by most governments and policy makers 
on the need for quickly establishing this global governance.

Time is a wasting…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qks-bnuwW1Q/
/

- -

/[ See the revised document ]/
*“Global Tipping Points”*
*Section 1*
Earth system tipping points
Considers Earth system tipping points. These are reviewed and assessed 
across the three major domains of the cryosphere, biosphere and 
circulation of the oceans and atmosphere.
*Section 2*
Tipping point impacts
Considers tipping point impacts. First we look at the human impacts of 
Earth system tipping points, then the potential couplings to negative 
tipping points in human systems.
*Section 3*
Governance of Earth system tipping points
Considers how to govern Earth system tipping points and their associated 
risks. We look at governance of mitigation, prevention and stabilisation 
then we focus on governance of impacts, including adaptation, 
vulnerability and loss and damage.
*Section 4*
Positive tipping points in technology, economy & society
Focuses on positive tipping points in technology, the economy and 
society. It provides a framework for understanding and acting on 
positive tipping points. We highlight illustrative case studies across 
energy, food and transport and mobility systems, with a focus on 
demand-side solutions.
https://global-tipping-points.org

- -

/[ video blurb 2 min]/
*Global Tipping Points: A Studio Silverback Production*
University of Exeter
  Dec 6, 2023
The Global Tipping Points Report is the most comprehensive assessment of 
the risks and opportunities of both negative and positive tipping points 
in the Earth system and society. This tipping points film has been 
produced by Studio Silverback from their Open Planet collection.
https://global-tipping-points.org/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2DBAtOIhqI



/[ Working in the heat without concerns for risk.   Where is OSHA ? ]/
*Florida blocks heat protections for workers right before summer*
APRIL 12, 2024
Alejandra Borunda

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed a law that prevents cities or 
counties from creating protections for workers who labor in the state's 
often extreme and dangerous heat.

Two million people in Florida, from construction to agriculture, work 
outside in often humid, blazing heat.

For years, many of them have asked for rules to protect them from heat: 
paid rest breaks, water, and access to shade when temperatures soar. 
After years of negotiations, such rules were on the agenda in Miami-Dade 
County, home to an estimated 300,000 outdoor workers.

But the new law, signed Thursday evening, blocks such protections from 
being implemented in cities and counties across the state.

Miami-Dade pulled its local heat protection rule from consideration 
after the statewide bill passed the legislature in March.

"It's outrageous that the state legislature will override the elected 
officials of Miami Dade or other counties that really recognize the 
importance of protecting that community of workers," says David 
Michaels, an epidemiologist at George Washington University and a former 
administrator at the federal Occupational Health and Safety 
Administration (OSHA).

The loss of the local rule was a major blow to Miami-Dade activists and 
workers who had hoped the county heat protection rules would be in place 
before summer.

In a press conference on Friday, DeSantis said the bill he signed did 
not come from him. "There was a lot of concern out of one county, 
Miami-Dade. And I don't think it was an issue in any other part of the 
state," DeSantis said. "I think they were pursuing something that was 
going to cause a lot of problems down there."

But extreme heat will only get worse. "Last year was the hottest summer 
in Florida's history. And this year will likely be the hottest summer in 
Florida's history," says Esteban Wood, director of the advocacy group 
We-Count, one of the organizations working on heat protections in 
Miami-Dade. The new law, he says, represents "a profound loss for not 
only the campaign but for all the families that have for many years been 
fighting for the minimum—which was just water, shade and rest, and the 
right to return home after work alive."

Lupe Gonzalo knows this reality well. She used to pick tomatoes in 
Florida during the summer and she'd find herself woozy from the heat. 
Sometimes she'd cramp up or get piercing headaches. Gonzalo shoved 
bottles of water into every pocket, but even that wasn't nearly enough 
to get her through the day. Some colleagues, she says, went to the 
hospital with heat exhaustion—and some even died.

"Without water, without rests, without shade, the body of a worker—it 
resents it," Gonzalo says in Spanish.

The heat has already caused problems this spring. Samuel Nava, a 
landscaper from Homestead, Florida, says in March his coworker collapsed 
with heat-induced cramps. Nava helped him get to the emergency room.

Nava says he's used to the heat working for months on end in high 
humidity, his clothes drenched in sweat.

"Es como una sauna," he says—it's like a sauna.

Patchy national protections against heat
Heat risks have grown dramatically in recent years. Globally, since the 
1980s, climate change has made heat waves last longer. They come more 
frequently and affect bigger areas. The worst heat waves are several 
degrees hotter now than they would have been without human-caused 
climate change.

The U.S. experienced its hottest-ever summer in 2023, and Florida 
recorded its hottest-ever July and August. The heat index, a measure 
that incorporates both temperature and humidity, stayed above 100 
degrees Fahrenheit for 46 days in a row in Miami.
Despite the increasing risks, there are no federal rules regulating when 
it's too hot to work, even though thousands of heat-related injuries and 
dozens of deaths are reported across the U.S. every year. There is a 
federal requirement that employers keep workers safe on the job, and 
recommendations for how to do so, including protecting workers from 
extreme heat. But the guidance doesn't say exactly what those 
protections are or what to do when limits are surpassed.

A handful of states or local jurisdictions like Miami-Dade have 
attempted to create some protections. Some have succeeded, but more have 
stalled or failed.

California was the first to establish regulations in 2006. They require 
employers to provide shade, rest breaks, and access to cool, clean water 
for outdoor workers. After the rules were implemented, heat-related 
workers compensation claims dropped, according to a 2021 study from UCLA.

More recently, after several farm workers died in the deadly June heat 
wave in the Pacific Northwest in 2021, Washington and Oregon created 
worker protections from heat.

Political headwinds have blocked other efforts. Proposals in state 
legislatures including Virginia and Nevada failed. In Texas, Austin and 
Dallas created ordinances that required employers to provide paid water 
breaks to outdoor workers. But last year Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a 
"preemption" law that blocked local jurisdictions from making such 
rules. The goal, Abbott's office said, was to prevent a "patchwork" of 
differing local rules, which they contended would cause confusion for 
businesses in the state.

Florida's new law is similar to the one passed in Texas, though it is 
more narrowly focused on preventing heat protections. Lobbyists cited 
similar concerns to Texas, saying they wanted clarity and consistency 
statewide.

"Predictability and certainty is what we look for," says Carol Bowen, 
chief lobbyist for the Associated Builders and Contractors of Florida, 
an industry group. "You want a set of consistent guidelines so you know 
the road map." Right now, she says, the federal recommendations provide 
a clear-enough outline.

But Shefali Milczarek-Desai, a labor law expert at the University of 
Arizona, says "If the legislature is really concerned about having a 
patchwork of heat standards, then why doesn't the legislature itself 
pass a heat standard regulation?" Proposed heat legislation has come up 
before the Florida legislature several times in recent years but it has 
not moved forward.

OSHA began working on national rules targeting heat in 2021, but the 
process could take years. Creating a new OSHA rule takes on average 
seven years from start to implementation, according to the Governmental 
Accountability Office.

In the meantime, the state-by-state patchwork of rules leaves tens of 
millions of workers at risk, says Michaels. "We need a solution that 
protects all workers, and that's what the federal standard will do," he 
says.

*High heat risks in Florida*
Nationally, the Bureau of Labor Statistics recorded 436 heat-related 
worker deaths between 2011 and 2021. The true number is likely much 
higher, says Juley Fulcher, a policy expert at Public Citizen, an 
organization focused on worker health and safety. Public Citizen 
estimates 2,000 workers die, and more than 100,000 are injured, from 
heat-related issues each year.

The discrepancy could come from counting technicalities. Only injuries 
or deaths that can be directly linked to heat usually get recorded in 
official statistics—when someone passes out from heatstroke, for 
example, and falls off a ladder. But heat can affect people in less 
obvious ways that still lead to injury or death. Heat draws blood away 
from the brain, affecting people's ability to think clearly. That can 
lead to clumsiness or dangerous mistakes.

Heat also puts extra stress on the body, increasing the chance of other 
health problems developing. Medical providers are seeing people with 
kidney problems from heat exposure, or strokes, or "because their heart 
symptoms are worse after people experienced extreme conditions in their 
homes if they couldn't run air conditioning," says Shauna Junco, an 
infectious disease pharmacist and board member of Florida Clinicians for 
Climate Action.

Absent federal rules protecting workers from heat, a few states like 
California, Oregon, and Washington have made their own. Others like 
Texas and now Florida have blocked local attempts to create protective 
rules.
Chameleonseye/Getty Images
In a 2020 study, climate scientist Michelle Tigchellar and her 
colleagues looked at the heat risks to agricultural workers across the 
country. Under good working conditions—with regular breaks, shade, and 
water access—most workers, they found, can stay relatively safe up to a 
heat index of about 83 degrees Fahrenheit. The risks build quickly 
beyond that threshold. In one Florida county, they analyzed, working 
conditions are already hotter than that for 113 days out of the year. 
That number could rise to 148 days if global temperatures rise further.

"In places like Florida where there's a lot of humid heat, the entire 
growing season will be unsafe to work," Tigchelaar says...
- -
In 2020, after the heat-related death of 16-year-old football player 
Zachary Martin-Polsenberg in 2017, Florida lawmakers unanimously passed 
a law requiring schools to protect student-athletes from heat illness.

"In the same way high-school athletes should be protected, outdoor 
workers should too," says Esteban Wood from We-Count.

*But heat protections for workers will take time.*

Meanwhile, this summer's heat is projected to be another hot one in a 
string of record-breaking years. Wood is already worried about how bad 
things could get in the coming months. He and his colleagues are trying 
to figure out what they can do to help people stay safe in the continued 
absence of stricter rules protecting them.

One strategy, says Lupe Gonzalo, is to find alternative solutions while 
the policy-making slowly moves. She and her colleagues at the Coalition 
of Immokalee Workers, a farmworker organization based in south Florida, 
have developed a community-led effort called the Fair Food Program.

Their organization has agreements with major food brands like Walmart 
and Chipotle—enormous buyers of the fresh produce their workers pick and 
prepare. The buyers require the agricultural growers to provide safe 
working conditions, including water, shade, and rest breaks on a 
schedule dictated by heat conditions. So far, the program has been 
working effectively, Gonzalo says—doing what the state has not.

Jessica Meszaros with member station WUSF contributed to this story.
https://www.npr.org/2024/04/12/1244316874/florida-blocks-heat-protections-for-workers-right-before-summer 




/[The news archive -  ]/
/*April 14, 1964 */
April 14, 1964: Writer and biologist Rachel Carson, whose 1962 book 
"Silent Spring" galvanized a generation to take environmental concerns 
seriously, passes away at 56.

    *Rachel Carson Dies of Cancer; 'Silent Spring' Author Was 56*
    By JONATHAN NORTON LEONARD
    Rachel Carson, the biologist and writer on nature and science, whose
    book “Silent Spring” touched off a major controversy on the effects
    of pesticides, died yesterday in her home in Silver Spring, Md. She
    was 56 years old.
    Her death was reported in New York by Marie Rodell, her literary
    agent. Miss Rodell said that Miss Carson had had cancer “for some
    years,” and that she had been aware of her illness.

    With the publication of “Silent Spring” in 1962, Rachel Louise
    Carson, the essence of gentle scholarship, set off a nationally
    publicized struggle between the proponents and opponents of the
    widespread use of poisonous chemicals to kill insects. Miss Carson
    was an opponent.

    Some of miss Carson’s critics, admiringly and some not so
    admiringly, compared her to Carrie Nation, the hatchet-wielding
    temperance advocate.

    This comparison was rejected quietly by Miss Carson, who in her very
    mild but firm manner refused to accept the identification of an
    emotional crusader.

    Miss Carson’s position, as a biologist, was simply that she was a
    natural scientist in search of truth and that the indiscriminate use
    of poisonous chemical sprays called for public awareness of what was
    going on.

    She emphasized that she was not opposed to the use of poisonous
    chemical sprays--only their “indiscriminate use,” and, at a time
    when their potential was not truly known.

    Quoting Jean Rostand, the French writer and biologist, she said:
    “The obligation to endure gives us the right to know.”

    On April 3, 1963, the Columbia Broadcasting System’s television
    series “C.B.S. Reports” presented the program “The Silent Spring of
    Rachel Carson.” In it, Miss Carson said:

    “It is the public that is being asked to assume the risks that the
    insect controllers calculate. The public must decide whether it
    wishes to continue on the present road, and it can do so only when
    in full possession of the facts.

    “We still talk in terms of conquest. We still haven’t become mature
    enough to think of ourselves as only a tiny part of a vast and
    incredible universe. Man’s attitude toward nature is today
    critically important simply because we have now acquired a fateful
    power to alter and destroy nature.

    But man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is
    inevitably a war against himself. The rains have become an
    instrument to bring down from the atmosphere the deadly products of
    atomic explosions. Water, which is probably our most important
    natural resource, is now used and re-used with incredible recklessness.

    “Now, I truly believe, that we in this generation, must come to
    terms with nature, and I think we’re challenged as mankind has never
    been challenged before to prove our maturity and our mastery, not of
    nature, but of ourselves.”

    *3 Earlier Works*

    Miss Carson, thanks to her remarkable knack for taking dull
    scientific facts and translating them into poetical and lyrical
    prose that enchanted the lay public, had a substantial public image
    before she rocked the American public and much of the world with
    “Silent Spring.”

    This was established by three books, “Under the Sea Wind,” “The Sea
    Around Us,” and “The Edge of the Sea.” “The Sea Around Us” moved
    quickly into the national best-seller lists, where it remained for
    86 weeks, 39 of them in first place. By 1962, it had been published
    in 30 languages.

    “Silent Spring,” four-and-a-half years in preparation and published
    in September of 1962, hit the affluent chemical industry and the
    general public with the devastating effect of a Biblical plague of
    locusts. The title came from an apocalyptic opening chapter, which
    pictured how an entire area could be destroyed by indiscriminate
    spraying.

    Legislative bodies ranging from New England town meetings to the
    Congress joined in the discussion. President Kennedy, asked about
    the pesticide problem during a press conference, announced that
    Federal agencies were taking a closer look at the problem because of
    the public’s concern.

    The essence of the debate was : Are pesticides publicly dangerous or
    aren’t they?
    *
    They Should Be Called Biocide*

    Miss Carson’s position had been summarized this way:

    “Chemicals are the sinister and little-recognized partners of
    radiation in changing the very nature of the world--the very nature
    of life.

    “Since the mid-nineteen forties, over 200 basic chemicals have been
    created for use in killing insects, weeds, rodents and other
    organisms described in the modern vernacular as pests, and they are
    sold under several thousand different brand names.

    “The sprays, dusts and aerosols are now applied almost universally
    to farms, gardens, forests and homes--non-selective chemicals that
    have the power to kill every insect, the good and the bad, to still
    the song of birds and the leaping of fish in the streams--to coat
    the leaves with a deadly film and to linger on in soil--all this,
    though the intended target may be only a few weeds or insects.

    “Can anyone believe it is possible to lay down such a barrage of
    poison on the surface of the earth without making it unfit for all
    life? They should not be called ‘insecticides’ but ‘biocides.’”

    The chemical industry was quick to dispute this.

    Dr. Robert White-Stevens, a spokesman for the industry, said:

    “The major claims of Miss Rachel Carson’s book, ‘Silent Spring,’ are
    gross distortions of the actual facts, completely unsupported by
    scientific, experimental evidence, and general practical experience
    in the field. Her suggestion that pesticides are in fact biocides
    destroying all life is obviously absurd in the light of the fact
    that without selective biologicals these compounds would be
    completely useless.

    “The real threat, then, to the survival of man is not chemical but
    biological, in the shape of hordes of insects that can denude our
    forests, sweep over our crop lands, ravage our food supply and leave
    in their wake a train of destitution and hunger, conveying to an
    undernourished population the major diseases scourges of mankind.”

    The Monsanto company, one of the nation’s largest chemical concerns,
    used parody as a weapon in the counterattack against Miss Carson.
    Without mentioning her book, the company adopted her poetic style in
    an article labeled “The Desolate Year,” which began: “Quietly, then,
    the desolate year began. . .” and wove its own apocalyptic word
    picture--but one that showed insects stripping the countryside and
    winning.

    As the chemical industry continued to make her a target for
    criticism, Miss Carson remained calm.

    “We must have insect control,” she reiterated. “I do not favor
    turning nature over to insects. I favor the sparing, selective and
    intelligent use of chemicals. It is the indiscriminate, blanket
    spraying that I oppose.”

    Actually, chemical pest control has been practiced to some extent
    for centuries. However it was not until 1942 that DDT, a synthetic
    compound, was introduced in the wake of experiments that included
    those with poison gas. Its long-term poisonous potency was augmented
    by its ability to kill some insects upon contact and without being
    ingested. This opened a new era in pest control and led to the
    development of additional new synthetic poisons far more effective
    even than DDT.

    As the pesticide controversy grew into a national quarrel, support
    was quick in going to the side of Miss Carson.

    Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, an ardent naturalist,
    declared, “We need a Bill of Rights against the 20th century
    poisoners of the human race.”

    Earlier, an editorial in The New York Times had said:

    “If her series [then running in part in The New Yorker publication
    of the book] helps arouse public concern to immunize Government
    agencies against the blandishments of the hucksters and enforces
    adequate controls, the author will be as deserving of the Noble
    Prize as was the inventor of DDT.”

    *Presidential Report*

    In May 1963, after a long study, President Kennedy’s Science
    Advisory committee, issued its pesticide report.

    It stressed that pesticides must be used to maintain the quality of
    the nation’s food and health, but it warned against their
    indiscriminate use. It called for more research into potential
    health hazards in the interim, urged more judicious care in the use
    of pesticides in homes and in the field.

    The committee chairman, Dr. Jerome B. Wiesner, said the uncontrolled
    use of poisonous chemicals, including pesticides, was “potentially a
    much greater hazard” than radioactive fallout.

    Miss Carson appeared before the Senate Committee on Commerce, which
    was hearing testimony on the Chemical Pesticides Coordination Act,
    and a bill that would require labels to tell how to avert damage to
    fish and wildlife.

    “I suggest,” she said, “that the report by the President’s Science
    Advisors has created a climate in which creation of a Pesticide
    Commission within the Executive Department might be considered.”

    One of the sparks that caused Miss Carson to undertake the task of
    writing the book (whose documentation alone fills a list of 55 pages
    of sources), was a letter she had received from old friends, Stuart
    and Olga Huckins. It told of the destruction that aerial spraying
    had caused to their two-acre private sanctuary at Powder Point in
    Duxbury, Mass.

    Miss Carson, convinced that she must write about the situation and
    particularly about the effects of spraying on ecological factors,
    found an interested listener in Paul Brooks, editor in chief of the
    Houghton-Mifflin Company, the Boston publishing house that had
    brought out “The Edge of the Sea.”

    As to her own writing habits, Miss Carson once wrote for 20th
    Century Authors:

    “I write slowly, often in longhand, had with frequent revision.
    Being sensitive to interruption, I writer most freely at night.

    “As a writer, my interest is divided between the presentation of
    facts and the interpretation of their significance, with emphasis, I
    think toward the latter.”

    “Silent Spring” became a best seller even before its publication
    date because its release date was broken. It also became a best
    seller in England after its publication there in March, 1963.

    One of Miss Carson’s greatest fans, according to her agent, Marie
    Rodell, was her mother. Miss Rodell recalled that the mother, who
    died of pneumonia and a heart ailment in 1960, had sat in the family
    car in 1952 writing letters while Miss Carson and Miss Rodell
    explored the sea’s edge near Boothbay Harbor. To passers-by the
    mother would say, pointing, “That’s my daughter, Rachel Carson. She
    wrote “The Sea Around Us.”

    People remembered Miss Carson for her shyness and reserve as well as
    for her writing and scholarship. And so when she received a
    telephone call after the publication of “The Sea Around Us,” asking
    her to speak in the Astor Hotel at a luncheon, she asked Miss Rodell
    what she should do.

    The agent counseled her to concentrate on writing. Miss Carson
    nodded in agreement, went to the phone, and shortly came back and
    said somewhat helplessly: “I said I’d do it.”

    There were 1,500 persons at the luncheon, Miss Carson was “scared to
    death,” but she plunged into the talk and acquitted herself. As part
    of her program she played a recording of the sounds of underseas,
    including the clicking of shrimp and the squeeks of dolphins and
    whales. With the ice broken as a public speaker, Miss Carson
    continued with others sporadically.

    *Did Research by Herself*

    Miss Carson had some preliminary help in researching “Silent Spring”
    but soon found that she could go faster by doing the work herself
    because she could skim past so much that she already knew.

    Miss Carson had few materialistic leanings. When she found “The Sea
    Around Us” was a great financial success, her first extravagance was
    the purchase of a very fine binocular- microscope, which she had
    always wanted. Her second luxury was the summer cottage on the Maine
    coast.

    Her agent said that Miss Carson’s work was her hobby but that she
    was very fond of her flower garden at Silver Spring, Md., where she
    also loved to watch the birds that came to visit.

    Miss Carson had two favorite birds, a member of the thrush family
    called the veery, and the tern, a small, black-capped gull-like bird
    with swallow like forked tails.

    She once told an interviewer that she was enchanted by the “hunting,
    mystical call” of the veery, which is found in moist woods and
    bottomlands from Newfoundland to southern Manitoba, and in mountains
    to northern Georgia.

    In manner, Miss Carson was a small, solemn-looking woman with the
    steady forthright gaze of a type that is sometimes common to
    thoughtful children who prefer to listen rather than to talk She was
    politely friendly but reserved and was not given to quick smiles or
    to encouraging conversation even with her fans.

    The most recent flare-up in the continuing pesticide controversy
    occurred early this month when the Public Health Service announced
    that the periodic huge-scale deaths of fish on the lower Mississippi
    River had been traced over the last four years to toxic ingredients
    in three kinds of pesticides. Some persons believed that the
    pesticides drained into the river form neighboring farm lands.

    A hearing by the Agriculture Department of the Public Health
    service’s charges ended a week ago with a spokesman for one of the
    pesticide manufacturers saying that any judgment should be delayed
    until more information was obtained.

    Miss Carson was born May 27, 1907, in Springdale, Pa., the daughter
    of Robert Warden Carson and the former Maria McLean. She was brought
    up in Springdale and in nearby Parnassus.

    She owed her love of nature in large measure to her mother, who once
    wrote in The Saturday Review of Literature, that she had taught her
    daughter “as a tiny child joy in the out-of-doors and the lore of
    birds, insects, and residents of streams and ponds.” She was a
    rather solitary child. She never married.

    After being graduated from Parnassus High School, she enrolled in
    the Pennsylvania College for Women at Pittsburgh with the intention
    of making a career of writing. First she specialized in English
    composition. Later biology fascinated her and she switched to that
    field, going on to graduate work at Johns Hopkins University.

    She then taught for seven consecutive sessions at the Johns Hopkins
    Summer School. In 1931 she became a member of the zoology staff of
    the University of Maryland. She remained five years. Her Master of
    Arts degree was conferred by Johns Hopkins in 1932.

    Meanwhile, a childhood curiosity about the sea stayed with her. She
    absorbed all that she could read about the biology of the sea and
    she undertook post-graduate work at the Marine Biological Laboratory
    in Woods Hole, Mass, at Cape Cod.

    In 1936 she was offered a position as aquatic biologist with the
    Bureau of Fisheries in Washington. She continued with the bureau and
    its successor, the Fish and Wildlife Service. In 1937, an article,
    “Undersea,” in Atlantic led to her first book, “Under the Sea Wind,”
    in 1941, and this was followed by her appointment as editor in chief
    of the Fish and Wildlife Service--blending her two worlds: biology
    and writing.

    “The Sea Around Us,” published in 1951, made her world famous, and
    she received numerous honors. They included the Gold Medal of the
    New York Zoological Society, the John Burroughs Medal, the Gold
    Medal of the Geographical Society of Philadelphia and the National
    Book Award.

    Meanwhile, in 1952, she resigned from her government post to
    continue her writing. She was no armchair naturalist To gain
    experience the hard way, she once sailed in a fishing trawler to the
    rugged Georges Banks off the Massachusetts coast. “The Edge of the
    Sea” was published in 1955, and before long she was at work
    researching material for “Silent Spring.”

    Miss Carson leaves a brother, Robert M. Carson, and an adopted son,
    Roger Christie, who was her grandnephew.

    https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/10/05/reviews/carson-obit.html


http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/10/05/reviews/carson-obit.html


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