August, 17 2021, 11:25am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
UCS Climate and Energy Media Manager Ashley Siefert Nunes, asiefert@ucsusa.org
Study Finds Extreme Heat Could Threaten $55.4 Billion Annually in Outdoor Worker Earnings by Midcentury
Nation, states lack mandatory standards to keep workers safe as extreme heat days expected to quadruple.
WASHINGTON
Between now and 2065, climate change is projected to quadruple U.S. outdoor workers' exposure to hazardous heat conditions, jeopardizing their health and placing up to $55.4 billion of their earnings at risk annually if no action is taken to reduce global warming emissions, according to a new report released today by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). This research is currently being reviewed for journal publication and is available on a preprint server.
"Outdoor workers--including those in agriculture, construction, delivery services and emergency response--are essential to keeping the fabric of our society intact," said Dr. Rachel Licker, report author and a senior climate scientist at UCS. "The last seven years have been the hottest on record. Without additional protections, the risks to workers will only grow in the decades ahead as climate change worsens, leaving the roughly 32 million outdoor workers in our country to face a brutal choice: their health or their jobs."
The "Too Hot to Work" analysis found that nationally by midcentury, assuming no reduction in global warming emissions:
- For approximately 18.4 million outdoor workers in the United States, extreme heat would put an average of seven or more workdays at risk annually; roughly 3 million workers have experienced this level of risk historically.
- Total outdoor worker earnings at risk due to extreme heat are projected to reach about $55.4 billion annually.
- Outdoor workers in construction and extraction occupations are projected to face the highest total earnings at risk due to extreme heat at about $14.4 billion annually, followed by those in installation, maintenance and repair occupations at about $10.8 billion annually.
- The average outdoor worker risks losing more than $1,700 in annual earnings due to extreme heat, though workers in the 10 hardest-hit counties risk losing nearly $7,000 per year on average.
- The average outdoor worker in installation, maintenance, repair and protective service occupations stands to lose the most annual income at approximately $2,200 due to extreme heat.
The "Too Hot to Work" report combines county-level projections of dangerously hot days in the contiguous United States from the 2019 peer-reviewed UCS analysis "Killer Heat in the United States" with U.S. Census data on workers in the seven occupational categories with the highest proportion of outdoor jobs and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommendations for keeping outdoor workers safe during extreme heat conditions. The number of workdays at risk is calculated by adding the partial days lost when the combined heat and humidity reach between 100 and 108 degrees Fahrenheit--a range in which the CDC recommends employers reduce work schedules--and entire days lost when such conditions exceed 108 degrees Fahrenheit, the threshold at which the CDC recommends employers stop work. The report does not project future changes in the number or distribution of outdoor workers. Midcentury results are determined by averaging the findings for the period between 2036 and 2065.
People of color have been and will continue to be hit especially hard by extreme heat for a number of reasons, including that they are disproportionately represented in many outdoor occupations. More than 40 percent of U.S. outdoor workers identify as African American, Black, Hispanic or Latino, despite these groups comprising about 32 percent of the general population. Outdoor workers who identify as African American, Black, Hispanic or Latino risk losing an estimated $23.5 billion in annual earnings by midcentury if no action is taken to reduce global heat-trapping emissions.
"When combined with existing inequities resulting from centuries of systemic racism--such as increased exposure to air pollution, lack of access to quality health care and adequate cooling, and underfunded social services--extreme heat will exacerbate the risks outdoor workers of color already face," said Dr. Kristina Dahl, report author and a senior climate scientist at UCS. "Migrant and undocumented workers may be further constrained in their ability to seek safety protections from dangerous heat due to the threat of employer retaliation, which could even result in deportation."
For farmworkers, who die of heat-related causes at roughly 20 times the rate of workers in all other civilian occupations according to CDC data, the danger of extreme heat is compounded by routine pesticide exposure.
"It's a deadly cycle. Heat stress makes farmworkers more susceptible to injury from toxic pesticides, while the heavy protective clothing they must wear increases the risk of heat-related illness," said Dr. Marcia DeLonge, a research director and senior climate scientist in the Food and Environment Program at UCS and an author of the 2018 "Farmworkers at Risk" report. "Moreover, climate change is amplifying the risks by causing an increase in insect pest populations and making weeds more abundant, which will likely drive more pesticide use, further endangering the people who put food on our tables."
The report offers state- and county-level data too. By midcentury, assuming no reductions in global heat-trapping emissions:
- The states with the highest total outdoor worker earnings at risk annually due to extreme heat are Texas ($12.2 billion), Florida ($8.4 billion), California ($3.3 billion), Arizona ($2.6 billion) and Louisiana ($2.3 billion).
- The states where the risk of lost annual income due to extreme heat is greatest for the average outdoor worker are Louisiana ($4,700), Florida ($3,700), Oklahoma and Texas ($3,500), and Mississippi ($3,400).
- The states where outdoor workers would have the highest number of workdays at risk on average annually due to extreme heat are Louisiana (34 days), Florida (33 days), Mississippi (28 days), Arkansas and Oklahoma (27 days).
- There are nearly 2,000 counties nationwide where outdoor workers comprise 25 percent or more of the workforce. Roughly 1,200 of those counties would experience 30 or more days per year when the heat index exceeds 100 degrees Fahrenheit, up from about 130 counties historically.
About 20 percent of the U.S. labor force works outdoors, with significant numbers of outdoor workers located in urban areas and outdoor workers comprising a larger share of the local economy in rural communities. These workers are largely unprotected as federal guidelines are only recommendations. In addition to the CDC guidelines, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) merely suggests that employers implement safety precautions when the heat index, or "feels like" temperature, exceeds 90 degrees Fahrenheit.
"While there are suggested guidelines, the United States doesn't have enforceable national heat-safety standards to protect outdoor workers during extreme heat," said Dr. Dahl. "Furthermore, only two states--California and Washington--have any such permanent standards. The lack of safeguards during extremely hot days has historically left workers exceedingly vulnerable to heat-related illnesses and even death."
UCS experts found that workers could stay safe and continue to work most days if their schedules were adjusted to coincide with cooler hours and their workloads were reduced to light levels. Coupling these strategies would ensure most workers would lose fewer than seven days of work per year on average by midcentury. Report authors caution, though, that there are practical limits to how much workloads and schedules can be adapted, so reducing global warming emissions remains essential for limiting the number of extreme heat days workers will experience.
"To limit future extreme heat, the United States must urgently contribute to global efforts to effectively constrain heat-trapping emissions by investing in just and equitable solutions that get us to net-zero emissions no later than 2050," said Dr. Licker. "Our analysis also recommends that all levels of government take action now to better protect our nation's essential outdoor workers. We know this risk is worsening and has significant implications for workers, employers and the broader economy, so we need to be prepared."
The report urges Congress to adopt the "Asuncion Valdivia Heat Illness and Fatality Prevention Act of 2021," legislation named in remembrance of a California farmworker who died from preventable heat stroke after picking grapes for 10 hours straight in triple-digit temperatures. The bill would direct OSHA to set protective standards--such as mandating that employers provide adequate hydration, shade and rest breaks--for outdoor workers regularly exposed to heat.
Other worker safety recommendations include requiring employers to create science-informed heat safety plans that would be enforced by OSHA; implementing heat safety monitoring and reporting requirements; providing multilingual training to supervisors and workers so they can better recognize and respond to the dangers of extreme heat; and ensuring workers have access to fair wages, affordable health care, cool housing, and legal protections.
To view the report PDF, click here.
Spreadsheets with data are available by state and by county. National data results can be found here.
To use the interactive mapping tool, click here. The map, which becomes more detailed when you zoom in, allows you to learn more about outdoor workers' exposure to extreme heat and the corresponding economic implications by county.
For all other materials, including state-specific press releases, corresponding blogs, a related "Got Science" podcast episode, and Spanish-language materials, click here.
The Union of Concerned Scientists is the leading science-based nonprofit working for a healthy environment and a safer world. UCS combines independent scientific research and citizen action to develop innovative, practical solutions and to secure responsible changes in government policy, corporate practices, and consumer choices.
LATEST NEWS
On Kent State Massacre Anniversary, Progressives Decry Repression of Student Protests
"The militarized repression of young people speaking out against a terrible war was shameful then and it's shameful now," said one state lawmaker.
May 04, 2024
As U.S. Republicans push for the deployment of National Guard troops to quell nationwide student demonstrations against the Gaza genocide, progressive lawmakers marked the anniversary of the 1970 Kent State Massacre by condemning police repression of peaceful protesters and reaffirming the power of dissent.
"On the 54th anniversary of the Kent State Massacre, students across our country are being brutalized for standing up to endless war," Congresswoman Cori Bush (D-Mo.) said on social media. "Our country must learn to actually uphold the rights of free speech and assembly upon which it was founded."
Fellow "Squad" member Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said that "54 years ago, the Ohio National Guard opened fire on unarmed students at Kent State."
"Students have a right to speak out, organize, and protest systemic wrongs," she added. "We can't silence those expressing dissent, no matter how uncomfortable their protests may be to those in power."
On May 4, 1970, 28 Ohio National Guard troops fired 67 live rounds into a crowd of unarmed Kent State students rallying against the expansion of the U.S.-led war in Vietnam into Cambodia. They murdered students Allison Krause, Jeffrey Glenn Miller, Sandra Lee Scheuer, and William Knox Schroeder—all aged 19 or 20. Nine other students were wounded, including one who was permanently paralyzed.
"The militarized repression of young people speaking out against a terrible war was shameful then and it's shameful now," New York state Assemblywoman Emily Gallagher (D-50) said on Saturday.
Protests against Israel's assault on Gaza—which according to Palestinian and international officials has killed, maimed, or left missing more than 123,000 Gazans—have spread to dozens of campuses across the U.S. and around the world. Police have been called in to break up protest encampments at numerous schools. Hundreds of students, faculty, and journalists have been arrested, sometimes violently.
At the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), police stood by this week as a pro-Israel mob attacked a campus protest encampment before officers arrested peaceful protesters and supporters.
As law enforcement officials have tried to justify the crackdown by claiming "outside agitators" are behind the protests, some observers noted historical parallels.
"Watching what is happening at UCLA," Virginia state Sen. Mamie Locke (D-2) said on social media. "Old enough to remember Kent State, Jackson State, South Carolina State, and the dog whistles of 'law and order,' 'outside agitators.' So reminiscent of 1968."
On February 8, 1968, police shot 31 students—most of them in the back—at a protest against Jim Crow segregation at South Carolina State University in Orangeburg, murdering three young Black men: Samuel Hammond Jr., Delano Middleton, and Henry Smith.
Eleven days after Kent State, police opened fire on a crowd of Black students protesting the bombing of Cambodia at Jackson State College in Jackson, Mississippi, killing Phillip Lafayette Gibbs and James Earl Green and injuring 12 others.
"Our institutions must learn from these past mistakes to not use militarized responses against unarmed, peaceful student protesters by calling in the National Guard, bringing in state troopers, or deploying police in riot gear," Laurel Krause, the sister of slain Kent State protester Allison Krause, said in a statement marking the ignominious anniversary.
"We must not repeat the horrors of Kent State 54 years later," she added.
Keep ReadingShow Less
UN Food Chief Says Northern Gaza Suffering 'Full-Blown Famine'
"And it's moving its way south," she warned.
May 04, 2024
United Nations World Food Program Executive Director Cindy McCain said Friday that Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip are experiencing "full-blown famine" after nearly seven months of Israeli bombardment and invasion—and that deadly malnutrition is "moving its way south" through the embattled enclave.
While U.N. agencies have warned since March that famine was imminent in Gaza, McCain's remarks—which came during an interview with Kristen Welker that is scheduled to air on Sunday's edition of NBC News' "Meet the Press"—make her the most high-profile international official to date to publicly acknowledge a state of famine in parts of the Palestinian territory.
"It's horror," said McCain, who is American. "There is famine—full-blown famine—in the north, and it's moving its way south."
UN World Food Program @WFPChief: “There is famine — full-blown famine — in the north of Gaza, and it’s moving its way south.”
pic.twitter.com/eyk0OeOEzr
— Waleed Shahid 🪬 (@_waleedshahid) May 4, 2024
McCain's remarks come as hundreds of thousands of Gazans are on the brink of starvation. Dozens of Palestinians—the vast majority of them children and infants—have already died of malnutrition and dehydration in northern Gaza.
According to Palestinian and international officials, Israel's 211-day assault on Gaza—which many experts including Israelis call genocidal—has killed or maimed more than 123,000 Palestinians since the Hamas-led October 7 attacks, including an estimated 11,000 people who are believed to be dead and buried beneath the ruins of the hundreds of thousands of destroyed or damaged homes and other buildings.
In addition to not allowing adequate humanitarian aid into Gaza, Israeli forces have also repeatedly attacked both aid workers and desperate civilians trying to access the lifesaving provisions.
"What we are asking for and what we continually ask for is a cease-fire and the ability to have unfettered access, to get in safe through the various ports and gate crossings," McCain said during the interview.
On Saturday, Hamas spokesperson Osman Hamdan said there have been "some forward steps" toward a cease-fire agreement during negotiations in Egypt. Egyptian mediators proposed a six-week cessation of hostilities, the release of an unspecified number of Israeli and international hostages, and a partial withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
However, one Israeli official toldABC News on condition of anonymity Saturday that "Israel will under no circumstances agree to the end of the war as part of an agreement to release our abductees."
The negotiations come as Israeli forces prepare for an expected ground invasion of Rafah, Gaza's southernmost city, where more than a million refugees forcibly displaced from other parts of the strip are sheltering alongside around 280,000 local residents. On Friday, the U.N.'s humanitarian agency
warned that an Israeli ground invasion of Rafah would put hundreds of thousands of Palestinians "at imminent risk of death."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Racist POS' Mike Collins Cheers Video of Ole Miss Mob Attack on Black Student
"This is not about Israel, Palestine, or Gaza. This is old-fashioned American racism and misogyny," said one observer. "These are the types of young white men who will grow up to be Republican governors, senators, and members of Congress."
May 03, 2024
Republican Georgia Congressman Mike Collins came under fire Friday over a social media post applauding video of white University of Mississippi students racially abusing a Black woman participating in a campus protest for Palestine.
Collins posted the video—in which numerous people can be heard grunting like apes and one young man is seen jumping up and down like a monkey in front of the Black woman—with the caption, "Ole Miss taking care of business."
Collins—or whoever's in charge of his social media accounts—sparred with Black leaders who called out his racism. When former Democratic Ohio state senator Nina Turner said the video showed "anti-Blackness," the congressman shot back, "*Anti-terroristness."
When Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) accused Collins of "fueling white supremacy," the Republican retorted, "Don't take down any more signs at our workplace, please" along with a photo of the Democrat triggering a fire alarm in a House of Representatives office building last year.
Around 30 protesters were rallying in support of Palestine in the Ole Miss Quad when counter-protesters gathered near the demonstrators. Some booed and chanted, "We want Trump!" Others singled out the Black woman—who NBC Newssaid is a graduate student at the school—chanting "Lizzo, Lizzo, Lizzo," "take a shower," "your nose is huge," "fuck you, fat bitch," and "lock her up!"
The counter-protesters also sang the "Star-Spangled Banner." Republican Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves shared a separate video of the singing students on social media, captioning his post, "Warms my heart" and "I love Mississippi."
No racist language can be heard in the video shared by Reeves.
The Daily Mississippianreports the demonstrators were escorted off the Quad after counter-protesters threw water bottles at them.
Collins is no stranger to accusations of racism. Earlier this year, he suggested murdering migrants by throwing them from helicopters into the sea, in the manner of U.S.-backed South American dictators in the 1970s.
He also
introduced the Restricting Administration Zealots from Obliging Raiders (RAZOR) Act, which would ban the federal government from removing or altering "any state-constructed barriers installed to mitigate illegal immigration," such as the razor buoys installed in the Rio Grande by Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
Collins was also
accused of antisemitism after he amplified a social media post by an avowed neo-Nazi targeting a Washington Post reporter for being Jewish.
Ole Miss said Friday that "statements were made at the demonstration on our campus Thursday that were offensive and inappropriate."
"We cannot comment specifically about that video, but the university is looking into reports about specific actions," the school added. "Any actions that violate university policy will be met with appropriate action."
The Ole Miss incident comes amid rapidly spreading campus protests across the U.S. and around the world in response to Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza, which has killed, maimed, or left missing around 5% of the embattled strip's 2.3 million people, most of them civilians, while forcibly displacing nearly 9 in 10 people and driving hundreds of thousands to the brink of starvation.
While numerous Ole Miss students said they did not understand what the pro-Palestine protesters hoped to accomplish, others voiced support for the demonstrators—and for Palestine.
"As we've seen throughout history, time and time again, the student movement is never wrong. Time and time again, anytime there's a student protest, and you're against it, you're on the wrong side of history," Xavier Black, a junior majoring in international studies, told
The Daily Mississippian. "So I would like to be on the right side."
One Palestinian American Ole Miss student was teary-eyed as she thanked the protesters.
"Hey guys, I know that what just happened was really intimidating, and it was a little scary, but I just want to say I'm so proud of you guys," the student—who gave only her first name, Jana—said,
according toMississippi Today. "This wasn't going to happen... without all of you guys. Palestine was being heard. And I just want to thank you guys so much."
"I know that was such a big risk, but this is the most that people have ever thought for us, so don't give up," she added. "I know that was really hard, but we need to keep fighting. This was just the start of it, okay?"
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular