Last summer saw Phoenix exceed 110 degrees continuously for close to a solid month, with an average temperature in July of 114, and some 55 days cumulatively above 110, with 133 days of 100 or above. Many other places in the U.S. had days and weeks of temperatures above 100F, up to and including 110. Even Seattle, where temperatures rarely top the 70s, went over 90. Even now the oceans are eerily warm, and at places the water is literally hot to the touch.
Today the National Weather Service issued its summer forecast: almost the entire United States is in for a hotter summer this year.
The heat starts a cascade of consequences, from larger, more frequent and more intense and fast-moving wild fires, to urban infrastructure failures (otherwise known as melting.) But the heat itself maims and kills. Apart from acute conditions it causes or contributes to long term damage to kidneys and other organs. Even with official statistics vastly undercounting heat related fatalities, they exceed deaths from hurricanes, tornadoes and all other weather-related causes. Heat is often accompanied by excessive humidity, and the two together are a recipe for widespread death.
Even those who live and work in air-conditioning, with cool water taps at hand and a cold shower a few steps away, suffer from the heat. But the worst effects fall on workers, both outside in the sun and inside corrugated steel sweatbox warehouses, where they rush around sticking online orders in packages, and packages into trucks.
Research revealed in a new book (and previewed in a New York Times oped) shows that the effects of heat on concentration causes workplace accidents, some of them deadly. In California alone, the research found, there are some 20,000 workplace accidents a year that go unrecorded as heat-related, but are directly attributable to the effects of excessive heat.
As for direct effects, the watchdog group Public Citizen estimates that nationally some 20,000 workers die each year from heat effects, with another 100,000 suffering injuries and illnesses.
Moreover it doesn't take much heat to take a physical toll, let alone a mental and psychological one. In places where it didn't normally get that hot, even temperatures in the 80s and low 90s can be fatal to the most vulnerable, and harmful to others. A 2020 study shows that bad health outcomes begin with a heat index of 83F, even if workers have access to water and shade, and regular breaks.
Heat is a pervasive problem across all ages, occupations and income groups, from infants and schoolchildren to elders, that not even air-conditioning can fully address. But apart from the most physically vulnerable because of age and health, the risks are greatest for workers outdoors and in those warehouses.
But there is no current federal health law that addresses excessive heat. President Biden has called for it, comprehensive legislation is being developed, but the current Congress refuses to pass emergency measures. (Biden's climate law provides funding for infrastructure to address heat, such as cooling centers.)
So right now regulation is up to the states and localities. Some cities, like Phoenix have instituted some protections. California has had some protections for outdoor workers since 2015 (leading to fewer Workman's Compensation claims, by the way), but recent legislation to protect indoor workers is years away from implementation. Oregon and the state of Washington passed heat protection laws earlier this year, after hundreds died in heat waves last summer. Minnesota and Colorado have some protections, while other states, like New York and Nevada, have bills proposed, but have failed to act on them.
Meanwhile, state governments in Florida and Texas have not only refused to consider state standards but have forbidden counties and cities from creating their own heat protection rules, as Miami-Dade tried to do. The Texas action was specifically to crush ordinances in Dallas and Austin that simply mandated 10-minute water breaks in the shade every four hours for construction workers. This ban against water breaks represents "the most pro-business, pro-growth bill passed in the 88th Legislative session, and will be a lifeline to Texas job creators," according to one of its Republican proponents, as he sipped his chilled designer water in his air-conditioned office. These Texas and Florida moves give wage slavery another dimension.
Even the measures on the books are inadequate. The standards for excessive temperatures are too high, and the remedies are partial. But anything that adds at least some air-conditioning, access to shade and water, and more frequent breaks is better than the slave driving practices of many places today. (Air-conditioned trucks was a key demand won by drivers for UPS in their strike last year.)
Meanwhile, it might be worth contacting your favorite online seller and delivery service to serve notice that your patronage depends on humane heat standards for the workers who process your purchases. (If indeed you can find a point of contact.) This may be no guarantee--there is a current dispute in California over conditions in an Amazon warehouse which the company says has many safeguards in place, including air-conditioning, but that some workers claim is inadequate because of excessive humidity accompanying the heat.
There is the possibility of legal challenges based on the Occupational Safety and Health law requiring businesses to protect "the general welfare" of workers, but it doesn't appear any have been filed so far.
All of this is one symptom of our continuing failure as a country to truly address comprehensively the effects of the climate crisis. Leadership has not found a way to be effective, and I suspect it is because they haven't made this a priority that they address regularly in the most public ways.
Nevertheless, summer is coming.
