Heat Is Costing the U.S. Economy Billions in Lost Productivity

From meatpackers to home health aides, workers are struggling in sweltering temperatures and productivity is taking a hit.

By Coral Davenport July 31, 2023, 3:00 a.m. ET As much of the United States swelters under record heat, Amazon drivers and warehouse workers have gone on strike in part to protest working conditions that can exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit. On triple-digit days in Orlando, utility crews are postponing checks for gas leaks, since digging outdoors dressed in heavy safety gear could endanger their lives. Even in Michigan, on the nation’s northern border, construction crews are working shortened days because of heat Link to Nytimes -

Drought leaves millions in Uruguay without tap water fit for drinking

 

After years of underinvestment, reservoir has had to be topped up from estuary, raising health concerns

 A dried-up reservoir in Uruguay in March. Photograph: Pablo Porciuncula/AFP/Getty Images

 

More than half of Uruguay’s 3.5 million citizens are without access to tap water fit for drinking, and experts say the situation could continue for months.

Some had predicted the crisis years ago when pointing out the vulnerability of the single reservoir supplying water to the metropolitan area around the capital, Montevideo.

By Latin American standards, Uruguay is a high-income country and it has historically thought of itself as having abundant water resources. Those who warned of diminishing supplies were considered catastrophists and investment was postponed.

Three consecutive years of drought have almost emptied the reservoir of fresh water, and to avoid shortages the state-run water supplier, OSE, has since the beginning of the year been gradually adding brackish water from the Rio de la Plata estuary.

By early May the mix had reached the maximum levels of sodium and chlorides recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), and now it has double those levels, giving the water a repulsive taste and raising questions about potential effects on health.

Authorities maintain that the chemicals only affect the taste and smell of the water and do not necessarily pose a risk to most people’s health.

Some vulnerable groups such as babies, pregnant women and people with health conditions have been warned against drinking the water but there have been conflicting claims about its safety for the broader population.

 A protester holds a sign that reads ‘For water, for life’ in Montevideo in May. Photograph: Santiago Mazzarovich/AP

 

Álvaro Mombrú, the dean of the chemistry faculty at the Universidad de la República, said he would not recommend its consumption at present, while his colleague Arturo Briva, the dean of the medicine faculty, said the water was still considered safe but warned that “as levels rise and time of exposure increases, some repercussions may appear”.

Experts have advised taking shorter showers, and there have been increased reports of damage to water heaters.

A poll in May found that roughly half of people in the area affected had reduced their consumption of tap water and 35% had stopped drinking it completely.

The government has exempted bottled water from taxes and announced it would provide free bottled water to more than 500,000 people.

Mario Bidegain, a meteorologist, said calculating the amount of rain needed to bring the situation back to normal was a difficult task. If there are heavy rains as expected by early September, authorities will still have to decide whether to reduce the sodium and chloride levels back to normal or keep some kind of mix to preserve supplies in case the drought continues. “We will probably come out of this slowly,” Bidegain said.

Mais de 61 mil pessoas morreram de calor na Europa no verão de 2022, diz estudo...

  Levantamento publicado na Nature Medicine prevê ainda 94 mil mortes caso países europeus não tomem medidas para conter mudanças climáticas. Estação registrou recordes históricos de temperatura e queimadas no continente no ano passado. 

 Por France Presse

10/07/2023 13h31

Mais de 61 mil pessoas morreram de calor na Europa durante o verão de 2022 no Hemisfério Norte, de acordo com um estudo publicado nesta segunda-feira (10) pela revista científica Nature Medicine.

Sem medidas adequadas, o continente poderá enfrentar mais de 94 mil mortes por ondas de calor em 2040, segundo o estudo, elaborado por cientistas de um instituto de saúde francês e do Instituto de Saúde Global de Barcelona (ISGlobal). 

O verão de 2022 foi o mais quente registrado até hoje na Europa, com sucessivas ondas de calor que causaram recordes de temperatura, seca e incêndios florestais.

Os cientistas analisaram dados de temperatura e mortalidade para o período 2015-2022 em 823 regiões de 35 países europeus, com uma população total de mais de 543 milhões de pessoas. 

Com base nesses dados, construíram modelos epidemiológicos que permitem prever a mortalidade atribuível às temperaturas para cada região e semana do período de verão do ano passado, que no Hemisfério Norte é entre fim de junho e fim de setembro.

No total, a análise revela que, entre 30 de maio e 4 de setembro de 2022, ocorreram 61.672 mortes atribuíveis ao calor na Europa.

Só uma onda de calor particularmente intensa, entre 18 e 24 de julho, causou 11.637 mortes.

"É um número de mortes muito alto", disse à AFP Hicham Achebak, pesquisador do Inserm e participante do estudo.

"Já sabíamos dos efeitos do calor na mortalidade desde o precedente de 2003, mas com esta análise fica claro que ainda há muito trabalho a ser feito para proteger a população", acrescentou.

O índice de mortalidade no verão de 2003, quando a Europa sofreu uma das piores ondas de calor de sua história, ultrapassou a cifra de 70.000 mortes.

The planet heats, the world economy cools – the real global recession is ecological

 Larry Elliott Theguardian.com

Governments focus on the climate when they have few other economic worries. That can no longer be the case

 The recent Canadian forest fires led to the economic powerhouse of New York City being choked in a noxious orange smog. Photograph: Noah Berger/AP

 

First it was the pandemic. Then it was the war in Ukraine. Next it could be the climate crisis.

On Monday last week the world registered its hottest-ever day but the record lasted only 24 hours before it was beaten by an even more sizzling Tuesday. And while the temperature continues to warm up the global economy continues to cool down.

Germany is already in recession and plenty of other developed countries – including the UK – seem to be heading in that direction. China’s post-lockdown recovery has petered out, the US jobs market seems to be cooling in response to higher interest rates.

 

The combination of weak activity and the increasing number of extreme weather events is worrying. Normally, pressure on the environment intensifies during booms, which is why there were big surges in support for the green movement in the early 1970s, the late 1980s and the period immediately before the global financial crisis of 2008.

If, as seems likely, there will be no letup in global heating despite slower growth, that’s a real concern. The US economy may technically avoid falling into recession, but the fact that the recent Canadian forest fires led to New York City being choked in a noxious orange smog speaks of a planet heading for a catastrophic slump. In a sense, the real recession is the ecological one.

Generally, governments focus on the future of the planet when they feel they have nothing much else to worry about. That, at least, has been the record until now. Recessions – and even the threat of recessions – have the effect of making policymakers focus on the short term. Stretched public finances coupled with the desire to remain popular engenders a growth at all costs mentality. Fears are now surfacing about the costs of the transition to a cleaner, less carbon-intensive economy, particularly on those least able to bear them.

Make no mistake, some of these concerns are legitimate. Heat pumps are expensive. Electric cars are only seen in the driveways of the better off. Fossil fuels now make up three-quarters of the UK’s energy mix and ending that dependency will be neither quick nor easy.

In the current circumstances, politicians think they have more pressing matters to deal with than hitting net zero goals. Action to tackle the climate emergency can be put off to another day when, fingers crossed, science and market forces will come up with a solution that will allow us all to consume as much as we like without destroying the planet.

This may be shortsighted. It may be dumb thinking. It no doubt infuriates the Just Stop Oil protesters who have made their presence felt at Lord’s and Wimbledon in recent days. But for those in positions of power, the temptation to delay action remains strong. Rishi Sunak’s plan to renege on the government’s £11.6bn pledge to help poor countries deal with climate change is a case in point. It would be an act of betrayal but one sadly in keeping with the prime minister’s lack of interest in the net zero agenda.

It would be wrong to assume it is only the politicians who are at fault. Our political masters respond to the signals they get from voters, and the message is by no means as clear-cut as those urging more drastic action on the climate emergency would hope. In part, that’s due to the cost-of-living crisis, but it goes deeper than that.

Many support football teams sponsored by fossil fuel interests and the fans really don’t care if the new star striker is being bought with dirty Middle East oil money so long as he scores plenty of goals. People worry more about the future of the planet than they did when Fritz Schumacher wrote Small is Beautiful half a century ago, but what they really want is a painless transition that doesn’t force them to stop doing the things they like, such as driving to see friends and relatives or jetting off for a holiday abroad.

There is still time to step back from the edge of the abyss. For a start, the green movement needs to heal the divide between those backing no growth and those favouring sustainable growth, and focus on the real enemy: a form of capitalism that is eating itself.

Heat Records Are Broken Around the Globe as Earth Warms, Fast

From north to south, temperatures are surging as greenhouse gases trap heat in the atmosphere and combine with effects from El Niño.

 A woman tried to shield herself from the sun in Beijing, where temperatures reached 104 degrees Fahrenheit on Thursday.Credit...Andy Wong/Associated Press

By Brad Plumer and Elena Shao

Nytimes.com

The past three days were quite likely the hottest in Earth’s modern history, scientists said on Thursday, as an astonishing surge of heat across the globe continued to shatter temperature records from North America to Antarctica.

The spike comes as forecasters warn that the Earth could be entering a multiyear period of exceptional warmth driven by two main factors: continued emissions of heat-trapping gases, mainly caused by humans burning oil, gas and coal; and the return of El Niño, a cyclical weather pattern.

Earth’s Hottest Days on Record Were July 3-5

 Link to Nytimes https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/06/climate/climate-change-record-heat.html