 So I want to talk about a report from the Union for Concerned Scientists about climate change now the conclusion that they come to here After you know conducting this study. It's it's a pretty no-duh conclusion I think it's basically common sense, but I think it's important to talk about this because I don't necessarily think most people thought through most of the consequences of climate change and and the most Straightforward things that we can expect so I mean when we when we think about climate change We think about rising sea levels. We think about how it's going to disrupt Agriculture and the food supply we think about desertification and ocean acidification, but we don't often think about the most Straightforward thing that's going to happen. It's just going to get hotter in certain areas now back in 2015 We were seeing reports about the Middle East and the Persian Gulf in particular Where being outside by 2100 for more than a couple of hours would be deadly certain areas may be Uninhabitable so what's going to happen in many areas in the country where extreme heat is a more common phenomenon? Well, this study shows that it's going to disrupt the lives and the livelihoods of a lot of people and It's going to happen here in the United States and we already got a taste of that after seeing the Pacific Northwest heatwave, which was a mass death casualty So this study is important And I want to talk about it because climate change is important And I think it's important to discuss these things because we need to be able to know what to expect So we can equip ourselves with the capability of adapting to these things So as Chris D'Angelo of HuffPost reports as temperatures in the Pacific Northwest sort above 110 degrees in late June Workers in Oregon flooded the state's occupational state and health division with safety complaints in climate falls Roofers worked in blistering heat and thick smoke from nearby wildfires with little to no shade and no breaks for a long period of time One complaint read at a job site in Clackamas workers reportedly installed fencing without access to fresh water and with only a total of 35 minutes of breaks throughout the day the devastating heat wave which killed more than a hundred people in Oregon alone Offers a sobering glimpse at what lies ahead for outdoor laborers without an aggressive global effort to reign in greenhouse gas emissions Extreme heat will wreak havoc on construction Agricultural extraction delivery in other outdoor sectors warns a new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists The report published on Tuesday concludes that if climate change continues unchecked the number of days outdoor workers in the US are exposed to hazardous heat Could quadruple by mid-century up to 55.4 billion and annual earnings would be put at risk And it would come with dire inequities of the approximately 32 million outdoor workers in the United States More than 40% are non-white the report titled too hot to work builds upon the nonprofit advocacy organizations 2019 analysis on climate field extreme heat Combining county-level forecasts of hazardous heat days with us census data The organization calculated the number of outdoor work days and wages that could be lost under different warming scenarios Southern states including Louisiana, Florida and Texas as well as major agricultural producers like California are forecast to be among the hardest hit The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that employers limit and even hold outdoor work when temperatures reach specific extremes But those guidelines are not enforceable the new report advocates for both aggressive climate action as well as workplace safety Requirements to protect workers from the risk of heat related illness So this is something that is going to affect workers in particular It's gonna affect all of us. It's going to affect people who are low-income It's going to affect elderly people who may not be able to you know, call someone if their air conditioners go out This was an issue that led to you know, the last heat wave in June becoming a mass death casualty So this is why we have to focus on both mitigation and adaptation And this is why the Green New Deal Resolution that AOC introduced was a framework to address climate change and I see a lot of people even leftists say You know, I don't like the fact that the Green New Deal wasn't just you know fixated on the climate itself It includes, you know housing equity and whatnot But the reason why all of those things are included is because the Green New Deal is a framework that's meant to be all-encompassing So you can't talk about climate change without talking about the impact that it's going to have on our health So that's why when we talk about climate change health care is also a part of that conversation and When we talk about the way that climate change is going to impact people who work outdoors This is why unions are also part of That conversation as well because without worker rights with people having to call OSHA in Oregon Because they're not getting breaks, you know or the occupational safety and health division, you know, they're not getting breaks They're not able to take time off. They might not have access to fresh water These are things that will need to be addressed and workers will have more leverage in bargaining power if they have unions So that's why I think that the pro act also needs to be a part of This conversation when it comes to adaptation as it relates to climate change now look you can Disaggregate portions of the Green New Deal that specifically address us limiting greenhouse gas emissions like you could just Focus on CO2 emissions and I do think that that's important, right? but to Not include all of these other things like health care Worker rights in the Green New Deal We're fooling ourselves, right? We're allowing ourselves To pretend as if climate change isn't going to have ripple effects and how it's not going to affect different communities differently And how we will need housing as a human right to address the incoming refugee crisis that is going to result as you know Regions of the world become uninhabitable and we see more wars over water wars over food and resources So we can't just pretend as if talking about climate change is just about limiting CO2 Part of this discussion has to Contain us acknowledging the reality that climate change to an extent is inevitable And what we can control is how bad it gets and in order to stop it from getting bad. Yes We do have to cut CO2 emissions drastically But on top of that we have to acknowledge climate change is here and it's going to continue to get worse in the foreseeable future So we have to try to mitigate these crises that are going to pop up as a result of climate change That means we make unionization easier. We pass the pro act That means we make housing a human right. We offer health care to everyone. So that's why Whenever a leftist says, you know, I support all of these things, but it's not necessarily relevant to climate change Don't concede that grounds are right-wingers I've seen a lot of leftists do that and I get why they do it because you want to win and a lot of Politics is about marketing, but I think we have to make the case climate change is important because it's going to affect affect virtually every aspect of society and so we need to have an appropriate political response, which is why AOC was Correct overall to create a robust framework that would allow for all Responses the climate change the way it affects workers the way it affects people of color the way It's going to affect us as it relates to housing health care and whatnot. We can't like cut corners This is going to be a massive crisis And we need to be real about it and we need to do everything in our power to make us as strong as possible in our response