Downtown Detroit power station. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.
Last year, 2023, was the hottest year on record. But 2024 isn’t over, and July 2024 was the warmest recorded July. So you can expect this year to beat 2023 in the abnormal heat sweepstakes, because that fits the pattern of the last decade, the warmest one ever…Gee whiz, whatever could be causing all this heat? Why is the new weather terror encapsulated in the phrase “heat dome,” as in the unmoving, backed up mass of calefaction that parked over the American Northwest in 2021 and boosted temps to 118 degrees Fahrenheit for nearly a week? Or the one that stalled over Mexico this summer, broiling all life forms at 115 degrees Fahrenheit, for over a week – temperatures so insanely high that bats and monkeys fell out of the trees, dead?
And the wealthy aren’t exempt. On September 6, Beverly Hills sweltered at 116 degrees Fahrenheit, while the day before, it zoomed up to 121 degrees Fahrenheit in Palm Springs. Temperatures are spiking, and there’s one culprit: rich countries. Rich countries that burn oil and gas like there’s no tomorrow cook the planet and very possibly ensure that in fact, for homo sapiens along with scads of other species, there will BE no tomorrow.
On August 28, a heat index of 180 degrees Fahrenheit was marked at Dayrestan International Airport in southern Iran, though Colin McCarthy of U.S. Stormwatch remained skeptical of this reading. Still, it was clearly wildly hot. The day before, three locations along the Persian Gulf had heat indices of 150 degrees Fahrenheit – even if you take that with a grain of salt, it’s still steaming. As McCarthy tweeted August 27, “A historic heat wave is baking the Middle East.” Meanwhile a ferocious one crushed Illinois with news of heat indices of 119 degrees Fahrenheit. Well, at least they didn’t reach 180 degrees. But even so, this is not normal. This is bizarre and dangerous, as was what happened in Australia, August 26: “The hottest winter day ever recorded…106.8 degrees Fahrenheit,” at Yampi Sound.
So the climate scientists goofed. The climate disaster isn’t coming in the mid to late 21st century; it’s coming now. And if we don’t want it to get worse, we better do something. Like what? You ask. Like all new houses built in Tokyo after April 2025 must have solar panels, as Mike Hudema tweeted September 2. Or like Costa Rica. “Once home to rampant logging, [Costa Rica] has now almost doubled the size of its rainforest. They turned it around within a generation.” Or China, which “now has enough wind and solar to power every home in the country.” So lots of places outside the U.S. tackle the warming climate. But, as Hudema reported August 31, “Fossil fuels were given over $7 trillion in subsidies last year. That’s $19.2 billion per day, $799 million per hour, $13.3 million every minute.” This must stop, if we want to prevent our planet from becoming a burnt-out trash can.
On September 3, the temperature in Phoenix climbed to “100 degrees Fahrenheit for a record 100th straight day,” as Philip Lewis tweeted then. Other smashed records abound, but our useless political class does nothing besides boost the number of oil leases. That they’ve been bought by the oil and gas lobbies goes without saying. Rampant climate denialism doesn’t help either, neatly dovetailing, as it does, with what far-right imbeciles like to call their “populism.” Well, it’s a very strange populism that advocates, long-term, the uninhabitability of planet Earth. Don’t call it populism. Be honest, and call it shilling for oil magnates. They don’t give a hoot if ordinary Americans expire from heat stroke or heat-induced freak floods, hurricanes or tornados. They won’t care till the furious climate comes for them, which it will, but maybe too late for climate salvage. We are ruled by short-sighted morons in the pay of malignant aristocrats who can’t grasp that their party’s almost over.
What is to be done? Plant trees everywhere, like they do in China. Slap solar panels on every structure on the globe. Build wind farms. Subsidize EVs. And regulate the mining of the rare earths on which green tech depends, so that such mining doesn’t destroy ecosystems, thus harming the climate, and belch out massive amounts of carbon. Hydropower, in careful moderation is also good – the moderation that respects the rights of villagers to remain in their homes. And nuclear power is, frankly, something we could do without, at least until the geniuses who cooked it up apply their mega-brains to the question of what do you do with the radioactive waste?
Simultaneously, laws, regulations and rights need to adapt to a changed world, one that has not changed for the better. For instance, it is a shocking abuse that outdoor workers in a Southwest state like Texas specifically lack rights to water breaks during scorching heat. Some Texas cities like Austin had them. But back in the boiling summer of 2023, Texas governor Greg “Promotes Heat Prostration” Abbott sighed a bill rescinding required water and rest breaks for construction workers. You would think a pro-business politico would see the utility of preventing workers from collapsing on the job. But not Abbott. He made a big show of going after Austin’s and Dallas’ sane rules to keep employees hydrated and working. Other cities considering such ordinances, like San Antonio, had to back off.
“Texas is the state where the most workers die from high temperatures, government data shows,” reported the Texas Tribune, June 16, 2023. Although “only” 42 workers “died in Texas between 2011 and 2021 from environmental heat exposure…unions claim this data doesn’t fully reflect the magnitude of the problem because heat-related deaths are often recorded under a different primary cause of injury.” In 2022 overall, there were 279 heat-related deaths in Texas. And with climate change generating summer heat domes that roast people for weeks, the number of deaths will mount. Cities and states less backward than Texas would do well to address this.
Unions should wake up, too. While many, like the Teamsters with their contract demands for air-conditioning in all UPS trucks, are aware of the problem, far too often they settle, as the Teamsters did, for less. The world has changed. It’s hotter, and the heat is here to stay. Unions, especially for workers who labor in what often feels like ovens, should address this new condition as urgently as increases in wages. A bigger paycheck means nothing to a worker collapsed and dead from heat stroke. OSHA, specifically, needs to get on this. In fact, everybody, from the white house and Congress on down, could do us all a favor and signal that they understand how the U.S. particularly has damaged the atmosphere, and one of the better forms their contrition could take would be protecting the humble from heat death.
The post Climate Catastrophe Smashes Heat Records, as Plutocrats, Politicians Twiddle Their Thumbs appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Eve Ottenberg.