mine. September 2, 2024
More than one billion people work in agriculture, construction and other outdoor jobs in tropical regions around the world.
Parsons: “These are areas that are hot and humid year-round or for many months of the year.”
Luke Parsons is an applied climate scientist at The Nature Conservancy. He said doing strenuous labor in very hot, humid conditions can lead to illness and even death.
His team recently studied how often conditions in the tropics pose dangers to outdoor workers.
They found that, on average, the combination of heat and humidity makes strenuous outdoor labor unsafe nearly 20 percent of the year.
If global temperatures rise another 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, that number will increase to nearly 30%.
Parsons: “So we're taking some of the places that are already hot, we're going to make them even hotter for a longer period of the day… taking some of the most vulnerable and highest-risk people, and What really affects them the most.
Workers often lack the power to demand protections—such as forced water shutoffs or the ability to shift work hours during the coolest times.
So he said it was important for governments and businesses to set guidelines and implement policies that would help keep people safe.
Reporting credit: Sarah Kennedy/ChavoBart Digital Media
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