Extreme heat waves are already here, and they are killing tens of thousands of people. Blasting through 2 degrees Celsius of warming means they’ll happen many times more frequently.
Some good news - "‘We don’t need air con’: how #BurkinaFaso builds #schools that stay cool in 40C #heat" - Architects use local materials and merge traditional techniques with modern technology to make schools and orphanages cool, welcoming places.
The Noomdo orphanage was another of his projects. “The Kéré building provides us with good thermal comfort because when it’s hot, we’re cool, and when it’s cold, we’re warm inside,” says Pierre Sanou, a social educator at the orphanage near the city of Koudougou in the Centre-Ouest (centre-west) region of Burkina Faso. “We don’t need air conditioning, which is an incredible energy saving,” says Sanou. Temperatures in this region of the world remain at about 40C (104F) during the hottest season.
“Kéré builds with local materials from our territory like laterite stone and uses very little concrete,” says Sanou. Kéré’s buildings in Burkina Faso are earthy. They start from the ground and take into account that concrete is a material that needs to be transported to the site, is much more expensive and generates waste. “They are permeable buildings that seek the movement of natural air and protection from the sun. For example, they are built with very strong walls and very light roofs so that the cool air that enters from below pushes the hot air out from above,” says Eduardo González, a member of the Architecture School of Madrid.
One particularly ingenious innovation is his use of the ancient idea of raised and extended metal roofs. The rooms of Noomdo are covered by a shallow barrel vault resting on a concrete beam but with openings. Above, a metal plate protects the roof from direct sunlight and rain. Additionally, it lets out the hot air. González says the technique can be found in the vernacular architecture of the Persian Gulf. In Burkina Faso, he says Kéré integrates it into his projects and “gives this technique a contemporary image”."
#Florida#Republicans are busy trying to eliminate lifesaving heat safety regulations for outdoor workers, as the state faces record-setting heat waves.
Local rules mandating shade breaks, onsite water, and other protections will all go away, leading to increased worker deaths if the "pro-life" state #GOP gets its way.
‘Astounding’ #ocean#temperatures in 2023 intensified #ExtremeWeather, data shows - Record levels of #heat were absorbed last year by Earth’s #seas, which have been #warming year-on-year for the past decade - The #oceans absorb 90% of the heat trapped by the #carbon#emissions from the burning of #FossilFuels, making it the clearest indicator of #GlobalHeating. Record levels of heat were taken up by the oceans in 2023, scientists said, and the data showed that for the past decade the oceans have been hotter every year than the year before."
#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].
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.
A 10-minute break every two hours during the hottest part of the year.
The right to cool down in the shade at signs of heat illness.
The farm must provide clean water, shaded rest areas and nearby bathrooms for all of its workers.
"These are the strongest set of workplace #heat protections in the United States. They were not put in place by local, state or federal regulators, but by the workers who spent years organizing to push companies to adopt them."
"#Oregon’s #cherry harvest, one of the state’s biggest sources of agricultural income, is in dire straits because of #ClimateChange this year, and growers need emergency relief."
#GOP rep:
“Unfortunately, our cherry producers have been facing severe hardships due to unprecedented and adverse weather conditions in Oregon such as ice storms, excessive #heat, and #wildfire smoke impacts caused by a warming #climate.”
"Until last week western #Canada had been enduring a cold spring but the rapid onset of #unseasonably high temperatures, in places 10-15C above the average for early May, is causing #fires and #flooding."
Wonder what it takes for #Alberta and Albertans to connect the dots.
"Human-caused #ClimateChange is turning high temperatures that would once have been considered improbable into more commonplace occurrences. And it is intensifying the #heat and dryness that fuel catastrophic #wildfires, allowing them to burn longer and more ferociously, and to churn out more smoke."