This is BIG! Montana youth won landmark #climate decision, right to a "clean and healthful #environment".
⚖️Court determined: Provision in the Montana Environmental Policy Act "harmed the state's environment and young plaintiffs, by preventing Montana from considering the climate impacts of energy projects. The provision is accordingly unconstitutional."
"Currently, about the only consistency in counting #HeatDeaths in the U.S. is that officials and climate specialists acknowledge fatalities are grossly undercounted."
Use gas
Drive everywhere
Raise global temperature #Heatwave hits refineries
Less gas, and more expensive #GasPrice goes up
"#Refineries aren’t designed to operate in temperatures above 95 degrees, so companies scale back production during #heatwaves as a safety and efficiency measure. Much of the country’s refinery capacity is in areas of #Texas and #Louisiana where the average daily maximum temperature in July has been at least 95 degrees."
Refineries are pushing the heat limit.
Because profits.
"Top U.S. #oil refiners will run their plants this quarter at up to 95% of their combined 17.9 million barrel-per-day capacity, according to executives and analysts, defying this summer's #ExtremeHeat to pump out more fuels."
I would dearly like to know what the risks are for operating the equipment past its temperature limits. Like, BEFORE something terrible happens.
"While many might assume that California’s Death Valley is the hottest location on Earth, the area with the highest land surface temperature resides in #Iran’s uninhabitable #Lut Desert.
This remote desert region registered a peak of 70.5 degrees Celsius in 2005."
"Some 70% of the population — or nearly 50 million Iranians — might be ultimately forced to leave the country to survive."
#ExtremeHeat Is Endangering America's Workers—and Its Economy
"Public Citizen, a Washington, D.C., based consumer rights advocacy group, estimates that extreme heat contributes to between 600 and 2,000 deaths a year, along with 170,000 injuries, making heat one of the three main causes of death and injury in the American #workplace.
In most American states, you can be fined for leaving a dog outside without water or shade."
[Workers don't have such protection].
In employer-speak: protecting workers from #ExtremeHeat increases their productivity. It's doing nothing that's expensive.
"As temperatures reach 90 degrees Fahrenheit, overall #productivity decreases by about a quarter, and when temperatures top 100 degrees, productivity drops off a cliff, plummeting by an incredible 70 percent."
"Delivery workers are the canaries in the coal mine on the intertwined issues of #ExtremeHeat and #AirPollution. In the coming years, many other sectors—construction, fishing, roofing, farming, landscaping, professional sports, and so on—will be affected by workers’ struggle to stay safe in extremely hot weather and toxic air."
The workers must organise.
The pandemic has shown what we really think of "essential workers"
A package of measures to protect workers from #heat:
– make drinking #water more accessible.
– increased #inspections of potentially dangerous workplaces such as farms and construction sites
– heightened #enforcement of #HeatSafety violations.
– hazard alert notifying employers and employees about ways to stay protected from #ExtremeHeat
Plus OSHA is working on workplace heat protection.
"Why breaks, #water, and #shade for a sea of #US workers could trigger the next big labor battle.
...
It goes to show how heat isn’t necessarily what’s making workers sick, Barab says. “It’s really more employers’ refusal to implement measures to protect workers. That’s killing workers.”"
"Futures prices for frozen concentrated #OrangeJuice have roughly doubled in the last year to more than $3 a pound and could rise further, prompting warnings that prices are set to surge further on the shelves."
"At midday, more than 35 million people in southern #Texas, #Louisiana and #Florida were under excessive #heat warnings, watches and advisories extending through the three-day Juneteenth weekend, the National Weather Service said.
The growing frequency and intensity of severe weather across the U.S. is symptomatic of human-driven #ClimateChange, climate scientists say."
"Of note, #heat events -- which kill far more people than any other weather event -- have never been designated "disasters" by any U.S. president, which would allow the Federal Emergency Management Agency and state governments to provide relief to affected residents.
Heat-related #mortality is underestimated, with the official U.S. estimate at 700 annual deaths; however, other modeled estimates place the number closer to 12,000."
"The state’s electric #grid operator is asking Texans to limit their power use on Sunday between 7 and 10 p.m., the second such request in three days as #ExtremeHeat continues to grip the state.
The Electric Reliability Council of #Texas said the request was spurred by “extreme temperatures, continued high demand & unexpected loss of #ThermalGeneration” — in Texas, thermal power sources are largely natural-gas-powered plants. "