On a summer morning near Dayton, Ohio, a temporary worker began his first day with a commercial roofing company around 6:30 a.m. Mark Rainey, 60, was assigned to a crew to rip off and dispose of an old bank-building roof. Within hours, as the heat index reached 85 degrees, his co-workers noticed the new guy was “walking clumsily,” then became ill and collapsed, according to documents from OSHA.
The EPA has approved changes to the State of Texas’ clean-air plan for improving storage tank regulations and demonstrating reasonably available control technology for emissions that contribute to the formation of ozone. The agency said the changes will help the Houston-Galveston-Brazoria area move toward better air quality and attainment of the 2008 ozone standard.
Farm workers are at high risk for heat-related illness in hot temperatures, especially during summer crop production. Farming is also physically demanding, further increasing the likelihood of developing heat-related illness. In California, where an estimated 30%-40% of U.S. farm workers are employed, temperatures in the state’s Central Valley – are typically in the 90s in June and July.
Want to be healthier and help save the planet at the same time? A “planetary health diet” unveiled yesterday in the medical journal Lancet will do both, according to the international team of scientists who developed it.
The authors of the report say changes to the way we eat - across the globe - are urgently needed amid increasing obesity and climate change made worse by population growth, which is expected to reach 10 billion people by 2050.
A new proposal released by the EPA yesterday would reduce the frequency of methane leak inspections required of oil and gas companies, and give those companies more time to fix leaks when they find them – changes the agency admits could harm public health.
The move is the Trump administration’s latest effort to relax Obama-era regulations intended to combat climate change.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce acknowledges that human activities are contributing to climate change, but feels that the Obama-era Clean Power plan was not an effective way to address that. The American Public Health Association contends that the EPA’s just announced proposed replacement for the Clean Power Plan – the Affordable Clean Energy Rule – is “an attack on public health.”
In a move that quickly generated controversy, the EPA yesterday unveiled a replacement for the Clean Power Plan that it proposed repealing in October 2017 because it “exceeded EPA’s authority.”
In its place, the agency rolled out what it’s calling the Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule which would establish emission guidelines for states to develop plans to address greenhouse gas emissions from existing coal-fired power plants.
Fuel economy standards intended to combat climate change by reducing gas emissions are in for a rollback, if a proposal announced today by the EPA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration goes into effect.
Passed during the Obama administration, the standards were scheduled to become progressively tougher over time for new vehicles. The Trump administration proposal would freeze the standards at their 2020 levels for six years.
"MARLEY was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge’s name was good upon ‘Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to."
The European Trade Union Confederation and Institute (ETUC and ETUI) held a three-day symposium in Brussels recently at which trade unionists, policy makers and academics brainstormed about initiatives that will be needed to cope with four global mega trends that are radically changing the world of work.
