After I wanted to be an architect like Mike Brady in “The Brady Bunch” and before I wanted to be a journalist like Bob Woodward at the Washington Post, I wanted to be a forest ranger.
I don’t know how I got the inspiration but I was interested enough in the career path to subscribe to a mail-order course for junior rangers.
Each week, a package containing a lesson and quiz arrived. I graded myself, so I sometimes cheated and always earned an A grade.
I remember a lesson on identifying animal poop and perhaps that’s when my interest shifted.
Still, on just about any visit to a Manatee County preserve or a Florida state park, I find myself daydreaming about an idyllic life as a ranger, a fire lookout, a campground manager, a trail guide.
Then I swat away at a mosquito, wipe the sweat off my neck and think about the extreme labor in outdoor work, especially in Florida, where “hot summer” is redundant.
The health risks outdoor workers face is real and with climate change, the health risks and threats to job security only will grow.
In August, the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists released a report, “Too Hot to Work,” an assessment of the threats climate changes poses to outdoor workers.
The conclusion in the report: As climate change brings one record-heat decade after another, outdoor workers increasingly will have to choose between risking their lives to go to work or their livelihoods to stay safe.
Already, outdoor workers have up to 35 times the risk of dying from heat exposure than does the general population.
The impacts of heat on health depend on many factors but the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration recommends employers implement precautions when the heat index exceeds 90 degrees F.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention further recommends reducing work schedules as “adjusted temperatures” rise to 100-108 degrees. Above 108 degrees, outdoor work should be canceled or rescheduled because the risks to health are so grave.
The Union of Concerned Scientists’ analysis found that by midcentury, given slow or no action to reduce global heat-trapping emissions, the increased intensity, frequency and geographic extent of extreme heat would cause a three- to fourfold increase in the exposure of outdoor workers to days with a heat index — or “feels like” temperature — above 100 degrees, the point at which the CDC recommends work hours begin to be reduced.
So outdoor workers will have their health more at risk, but they could lose income as a result of extreme heat.
About 9.2% of outdoor workers annually experience a week with a heat index above 100 degrees.
By midcentury, the estimate grows to 57%.
Also by midcentury, about 18.2% of outdoor workers annually could experience a month with a heat index above 100 degrees.
The analysis estimates about a fifth of U.S. workers have outdoor occupations. The focus in the analysis is on public safety, construction, transportation, agriculture and parks but that seems narrow, overlooking those cleaning pools, maintaining resort grounds, repairing golf carts, tending bar and serving meals.
So this Labor Day, if fortunate enough to celebrate a day off from your labors with an island outing, give consideration and kindness to the first responders, the servers, the caretakers keeping you happy, safe and comfortable.
Did you know?
Oregon was the first state to pass a law recognizing Labor Day, doing so Feb. 21, 1887. Later that year, four more states — Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York — passed laws creating a Labor Day holiday.
By the end of the decade, Connecticut, Nebraska and Pennsylvania had followed suit.
And by 1894, 23 more states had established laws recognizing the holiday.
Congress established the federal Labor Day in 1894, setting the legal holiday on the first Monday in September.