All the signs are that this summer will break all existing records for heatwaves. It is only the middle of June, and yet large parts of the world are already registering temperatures that in the past were not reached until the height of the season. 

The US weather map for June 16 shows almost the whole South and Southwest and much of the Midwest over 90° F (32° C). 

The European heatwave, confined so far to Spain, Portugal and southern France but forecast to spread to the rest of Europe, has raised temperatures to 104–109° F (40–43°C). This corresponds to the highest temperatures reached during the European summer heatwaves of 2003 and 2013. This time around, however, temperatures in this range are just the beginning.

Even worse is the heatwave in South Asia, extending from the Gulf (Arabian or Persian, as you prefer) through southern Iran and southern Pakistan and across northern India. In this belt highs of 109–115° F (43–46° C) have been observed; on May 14 a reading of 124° F (51° C) earned Jacobabad, a city of 200,000 people in Pakistan’s Sindh Province, the title of ‘the hottest city on Earth.’[1] 

Where is the limit?

The human body is adaptable only within certain limits. At what point do rising air temperatures become incompatible with human survival? 

This is a little complicated. Survivability depends not on air temperature alone but on air temperature in combination with humidity. Dry air enables the body to cool itself by sweating; with rising humidity this grows more difficult and finally impossible. 

Measures have been devised to take this interaction into account. Most commonly used is the Wet Bulb Temperature (WBT) – the temperature shown by a thermometer whose bulb is wrapped in cloth that has been soaked in water at the same temperature as the air. Evaporation from the cloth cools the bulb, just as perspiration cools the human body.  

Human beings cannot survive once the WBT reaches 35° C (95° F). This is the threshold at which a healthy person at rest will die in six hours. WBTs at this level or above have not as yet been recorded in populated areas. Apparently conditions came closest to the threshold of survival during a 2015 heatwave in Bandar Mahshahr in southwestern Iran.  

Of course, not everyone can afford to rest indoors or in the shade whenever the weather gets too hot and/or humid. Many do not have enough water to drink and bathe as much as they need to, even though they may spend a fifth of their income on water deliveries.

When will we cross the threshold?

Casualties from excessive heat are already considerable in absolute terms. It is estimated, for example, that the European summer heatwaves of 2003 and 2013 caused 70,000 and 30,000 deaths, respectively. Nevertheless, their impact was fairly minor in relative terms – say, by comparison with the COVID-19 pandemic. Deaths did not exceed 0.1% of the populations concerned.[2] Most victims belonged to specially vulnerable groups like the elderly and people with heart conditions. 

As global heating proceeds further, an expanding area of the world’s land surface will become uninhabitable by human beings. Heat-related deaths will start to occur on a much more massive scale – not in the thousands but in the millions and eventually billions, in Central America, the Caribbean and Amazonia, Africa, the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia. The implications for human society and international relations are enormous, because whole countries are likely to disappear as organized states, probably including two nuclear powers – India and Pakistan.

These conclusions follow logically from scientific studies, but the journalists who report the studies and even most of the scientists themselves appear unable or afraid to spell them out. I suppose they don’t want to be accused of ‘alarmism’ or ‘apocalyptic thinking.’ Take the study reported by the New York Times on May 4, 2020. The researchers projected that ‘uninhabitable hot zones’ would expand from 1% of the Earth’s land surface in 2020 to 20% in 2070 and noted that about one third of the world’s population now live in those future hot zones.[3] The newspaper headline reads: ‘Billions Could Live in Extreme Heat Zones Within Decades.’ The opening sentence again speaks of billions ‘likely to live in areas that are considered unsuitably hot for humans’ (italics mine). But those areas will be uninhabitable. That means that humans will be unable to live there. The former inhabitants will have either migrated to cooler areas or died.   

I do have serious doubts regarding the timescale. Many projections made by climate scientists in the past were later found to have underestimated the rate of change. Seeing that we are already so near the edge of the cliff and continue to charge toward it at full speed, why should we need another half century to reach it? On the basis of available evidence, I suspect that the transition to mass heat-related death will occur by the end of the current decade, perhaps by the end of this summer. After another decade, by 2040, I expect that there will be a broad equatorial belt devoid of human (and much other) life.  

Climate refugees

Many authors acknowledge that millions and eventually billions of people will no longer be able to live where they live now but envision that they will survive somewhere else. Undoubtedly some, especially professionals and the wealthy, will be allowed to migrate to cooler regions. Global warming is gradually opening up more of Greenland for the settlement of immigrants; later Antarctica will also be able to absorb a few million. 

For some time, however, Europe and North America will continue to be the main refugee destinations. These regions have experience of taking in climate refugees: the refugees from Syria were fleeing drought as well as war (moreover, the drought was one cause of the civil war), while the refugees from Central America trudging through Mexico for the US are fleeing drought as well as political and gang violence. The destabilizing political impact of these refugee flows makes it likely that effective – if necessary, ruthless and cruel – measures will be taken to block future flows. It should be kept in mind that Europe and North America will be coping with heatwaves of their own (less severe ones, to be sure).     

Finally, many of the areas that will be worst affected – Southeast Asia, for instance – are a very long way from Europe or North America. Would-be refugees will face formidable barriers long before they get anywhere near their destination, such as the wall that India has erected right around Bangladesh.

For all these reasons, most of the inhabitants of ‘extreme heat zones’ will stay where they are and perish. It will be by far the biggest genocide in history – for, after all, global heating could have been halted at an early stage. 

What next?

What will the Earth look like once the tropics have turned into a vast ‘dead zone’ or ‘hot zone’? 

Remaining human habitation will be concentrated mainly to the north of the dead zone — in Canada and the cooler parts of the United States, Europe (not necessarily the whole of Europe), Russia, northern and central China, Japan and the Arctic (including Greenland). There will also still be scattered settlement to the south of the dead zone – for example, in the southern cone of South America, New Zealand and Antarctica. 

There will no longer be a single world society or world economy, because the dead zone will sever most connections between the inhabited zones to its north and south. It will not be safe to steer ships through tropical waters or fly planes through tropical airspace. The future of our species and our planet will depend crucially on the character of the civilization that develops in the North. 

Despite the enormous damage global heating will have inflicted on the planet and the immeasurable human suffering it will have caused, it cannot be assumed that ending and reversing the process will be a top priority of the Northern civilization. On the contrary, it is quite likely that the ‘new’ civilization will develop as a mere extension of today’s capitalist economy, based on predatory exploitation of all natural resources, not excluding hydrocarbons. Canada, one of the two leading powers of the new North, stubbornly refuses to abandon even the Alberta tar sands, the filthiest of all known energy sources, while the other leading power, Russia, remains as firmly committed as ever to exploit its Arctic oil and gas deposits.[4]   

Unfortunately, it is too late to avert the next stage of global heating. Whatever policies might be adopted, it is built into the climatic system. 

But will it still be possible to salvage what remains? Perhaps. But it depends on whether there emerges a popular transnational movement, especially across the global North, strong enough to wrest control over resources from the hands of the capitalist class, halt the capitalist profits machine and establish a humane, democratic and ecologically sustainable way of life. 

Notes            

[1] Whether it deserves this title is impossible to judge, given the sparsity of weather data for many tropical cities, especially in Africa.  

[2] The 2010 summer heatwave killed 11,000 people in Moscow, equal to about 0.1% of the city’s population at the time, but the deaths were caused not only by heat but also by air pollution from forest fires.

[3] Chi Xu et al., Future of the human climate niche, May 4, 2020

[4] On Russian interests in the Arctic see Chapter 1 in Alexander Sergunin and Valery Konyshev, Russia in the Arctic: Hard or Soft Power? (Stuttgart: ibidem Press, 2015).

Laurence C. Smith, currently Professor of Environmental Studies at Brown University, has written a book entitled The World in 2050: Four Forces Shaping Civilization’s Northern Future (Dutton, 2010) that exemplifies the attitude of many observers. Although supposedly a specialist on the environment, his evident excitement at the prospects for ‘economic growth’ in the Arctic sweeps away any concern he may have for our environmental future. See also his video The Future is in the North.

Stephen Shenfield

World Socialist Party 

The heat to come – World Socialist Party US (wspus.org)

The United States is on the verge of moral, political, and material ruin. Corruption dominates the ballot-box, the Legislatures, the Congress, and touches even the judges and courts. The people are demoralized and disillusioned. The media is largely subsidized by the wealthy to ensure it is muzzled and public opinion silenced. Labor is denied the right to organize for self-protection. The fruits of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for a few and the possessors of those endanger liberty. From this social injustice, America has bred two classes—paupers and billionaires.  Increasingly events forebode terrible social convulsions, the establishment of absolute authoritarianism the destruction of civilization.

Working people have witnessed the struggles of the two great political parties for power and plunder, while grievous wrongs have been inflicted upon the suffering public. The controlling influences dominating both these parties have permitted the existing dreadful conditions to develop without serious effort to prevent or restrain them. Neither do they now promise us any substantial reform? They have agreed together to ignore every serious issue. They propose to drown the outcries of pillaged people with sham battles. Both parties are prepared to sacrifice our homes, lives, and the health and education of our children on the altar of Mammon so as to secure corrupt campaign funds from the billionaires.

Too many people are suffering unnecessary misery. Every person deserves the opportunity to contribute to society and in return to have their needs met. Capitalism makes it impossible to solve the problems it creates. The core purpose of capitalism is to create profit, not develop humanity’s potential. On the contrary, capitalism deny the majority any real control over their lives and the result is results: anger, anxiety and apathy. We live in a competitive, exploitive society where bosses are constantly thinking up new ways to enrich themselves at their workers’ expense.

The root cause of our problems today is not globalization but class divisions. Private property divides society into classes: the minority who claim ownership of the means of production and what is produced; the majority who labor to produce.  Over time, the form of class society has changed (feudalism, slavery, capitalism). Nevertheless, all class societies are based on private property, where the fruits of social production is kept in private hands.Because most of the world’s wealth is owned or controlled by a small group of people, everyone else must struggle to survive. The opposite of private property is socialism, or common control of society. There are no genuinely socialist societies in the world today. Not even one. Genuine socialism would abolish private property. People would continue to enjoy the possession of personal-use items; however, no one would be allowed to own the social means of survival, and thereby exercise power over others. Abolishing private property would end the class division of humanity and all of its miseries. The world, once again, would  be shared by all.

Capitalism is an international system, and it will take a worldwide  effort by the world’s majority to replace it. Once we have build that coordination, we will be able to solve problems like climate that small groups could never manage. World socialism would be much richer in resources and opportunities for sharing than would be possible in small autonomous communities. The challenge is to ensure that global integration meets human needs.  People would prefer a compassionate world of giving and helping one another out, an all-for-one-and-one-for-all world for the benefit of all. Together, we can free ourselves from the heartless hell of capitalist rule.

We must abolish the system of private property in order to create a truly sharing society based on the principle of  from each according to ability, to each according to need.

A native American elder was teaching his grandson about life:

“A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. This same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win grandfather?” 

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

Capitalism feeds the first wolf, while socialism feeds the second.

 A Short Story from the June 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

 Britain battles a worsening social care staffing crisis, with an estimated 105,000 vacancies nationally and thousands of patients facing long delays for care.

Care workers recruited from overseas to look after elderly and disabled people in Britain are being charged thousands of pounds in illegal fees and forced to work in exploitative conditions to pay off their debts. By law, agents cannot charge a fee for finding or trying to find a candidate work. 

But the fees are often disguised as a “processing”, “service” or “admin” charge, with many workers unaware they are illegal. Often, the breakdown of fees or full amount is not fully disclosed until the worker has reached the UK, by which time they have already paid for flights and relocation.

Workers from India, the Philippines, Ghana and Zimbabwe are among those charged for their recruitment, with fees ranging from £3,000 to £18,000.

Some have become trapped in debt bondage – a form of modern slavery – as a result of the fees. Suspected victims described how agents had deducted money from their salaries and withheld their passport or residence permit until they repaid the sum owed.

Others claim to have been subject to abuse and threats or paid less than the minimum wage. They cannot speak up because the sponsorship system for care workers means their visa is tied to their employer.

Many of the care workers used a government visa scheme introduced in February which added care workers to the shortage occupation list to attract international candidates. But evidence collected by the Observer – including interviews with suspected victims, charities and labour experts; conversations with agents; and analysis of payslips, contracts and online chat groups – reveals the new visa route is being widely abused by agencies and traffickers, leaving workers open to exploitation. Modern slavery in the care sector is a growing problem, with several raids by the government’s labour abuse agency recently, and data from charities and the Care Quality Commission suggesting a rise in cases.

Todd Maforimbo, who studied the supply of labour in the UK health sector and now campaigns on labour abuse, explains, “People are coming to look for a better life but they’re ending up in worse situations.”

An internal report from the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority said more monitoring was needed to “prevent debt bondage and highlight potential traffickers”.

Revealed: Migrant care workers in Britain charged thousands in illegal recruitment fees | Social care | The Guardian

 A surge in the cost of corn-based Latin American staples such as tortillas, tamales and arepas risks fueling food insecurity and hunger from Mexico to Argentina.

Corn prices hit nine-year high, partly due to Ukraine war

Cost of Latin America’s staple tortillas and tamales jumps

Some 267 million people face food poverty in the region

The surge in the cost of corn – which is used to make Mexico’s staple tortilla – forced Marco Antonio Jimenez to raise the price of his tacos by two pesos (10 U.S. cents), but he said many of his mainly low-income customers could no longer afford the 20-peso snack.

“When the price of tortillas increases, I have to increase the price of tacos. Many people prefer not to buy anything anymore.”

Latin America had the biggest increase in food poverty globally between 2014 and 2020 due to the reduction of economic growth rates, extreme inequality and serious climate events that predated the pandemic. In Mexico, longer and more frequent droughts have forced farmers in some corn-growing areas to switch to less thirsty crops in recent years. Such factors mean the region is especially vulnerable to the impact of higher grains and fertilizer costs linked to the war in Ukraine. Rising fertilizer prices can lead farmers to cut their usage, causing production to fall. 

As the pandemic wreaked havoc on the region’s already weak economies, the prevalence of food insecurity rose to 40.9% from 31.9% between 2019 and 2020 in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to the latest FAO data. Accelerated inflation is expected to push 7.8 million people more into food insecurity this year, according to new estimates released by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).

Food and drink inflation in six countries – Colombia, Paraguay, Mexico, Chile, Brazil and Uruguay – hit double digits in March, with women and people with informal jobs set to be hit hardest, ECLAC said. Central American countries such as Guatemala and Honduras, which rely on corn-based foods like tamales and pupusas, are particularly at-risk from rising grains prices after the 2020 hurricanes Eta and Iota wrecked crops and exacerbated hunger. Caribbean countries, which are heavily dependent on imported grains and fuel, are also threatened by food insecurity due to an increase in debt burdens during the pandemic.

We are seeing the perfect storm,” said Carolina Trivelli, senior adviser for strategic analysis at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). “We need a package of temporary and focalized social policies for the most vulnerable populations and measures to support food production,” said Trivelli.

Governments are taking emergency measures to rein in inflation. Mexico has suspended import duties for a year on a range of essential goods including corn, while Argentina – where inflation could top 70% this year – proposed a bill this month to tax companies that earn “extraordinary income” as a result of the fall-out from the war in Ukraine – mainly commodities firms. Biden pledged $331 million in funding for food security in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Haiti and Colombia.

The food crisis looks set to last until well into 2023, calling for public policies such as direct welfare payments or school lunch programs to help the poorest.

Corn price hike forces Mexicans to cut back on tortillas (trust.org)

 Water is so low in large stretches of the Po, Italy’s largest river that authorities fear that if it doesn’t rain soon, there’ll be a serious shortage of water for drinking and irrigation for farmers and local populations across the whole of northern Italy.

Northern Italy hasn’t seen rainfall for more than 110 days and this year’s snowfall is down by 70%. Aquifers, which hold groundwater, are depleted. Temperatures of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above season average are melting the tiny snowfields and glaciers that were left on the top of the surrounding Alps, leaving the Po basin without its summer water reservoirs.

The drying up of the Po, which runs 652 kilometers (405 miles) from the northwestern city of Turin to Venice, is jeopardizing drinking water in Italy’s densely populated and highly industrialized districts and threatening irrigation in the most intensively farmed part of the country, known as the Italian food valley.

“We are in a situation where the river flow is approximately 300 cubic meters (80,000 gallons) per second here in (the riverside village of) Boretto, while normally in this area we have almost 1800 (cubic meters, 476,000 gallons),” explained Meuccio Berselli, secretary general of the Po River Basin Authority.

Berselli is frantically working on a resiliency plan to guarantee drinking and irrigation water to millions of households and to the Po valley farmers, who produce 40% of Italian food. Parmesan cheese, wheat, high-quality tomatoes, rice and renowned grapes grow in huge quantities in the area. The plan includes higher draining from Alpine lakes, less water for hydroelectric plants and rationing of water in the upstream regions. The Po drought comes at a time when farmers are already pushing both irrigation and watering systems to their maximum to counter the effect of high temperatures and hot winds.

The Italian farmers confederation estimates that wheat yields could drop by 20% to 40% this year. Wheat is a particular concern for farmers as it’s completely reliant on rain and does not get irrigated.

The irrigation system is also at risk. Usually, river water is lifted with diesel fueled electric pumps to upper basins and then flows down in the vast fields of the valley through hundreds of waterways. But now, pumps are at risk of failing to draw water and excavators are frantically working to constantly dredge dedicated waterways to ensure the water necessary for irrigation. The water shortage won’t just hamper food production, but energy generation, too. 

If the Po dries up, numerous hydroelectric power plants will be brought to a halt, at a time when the war in Ukraine has already hiked up energy prices across Europe. According to a state-owned energy service system operator, 55% of the renewable energy coming from hydroelectric plants in Italy comes from the Po and its tributaries. Experts fear that a lack of hydroelectric power will contribute to increased carbon dioxide emissions, as more electricity will have to be produced with natural gas.

As Po dries up, Italy’s food and energy supplies are at risk | AP News

 If it is not heatwaves and droughts, it is downpours and floods from the changing climate patterns.

Monsoon storms in Bangladesh and India have killed at least 41 people and unleashed devastating floods that left millions of others stranded. Floods are a regular menace to millions of people in low-lying Bangladesh, but experts say climate change is increasing their frequency, ferocity and unpredictability. Relentless downpours over the past week have inundated vast stretches of Bangladesh’s northeast. Forecasters said the floods were set to worsen over the next two days with heavy rains in Bangladesh and upstream in India’s northeast.

Water levels in all major rivers across the country were rising. The country has about 130 rivers.

Dozens dead, millions stranded as floods hit Bangladesh, India | Floods News | Al Jazeera

Thousands of people are taking part in a march in London in protest against the cost of living crisis. At Parliament Square a rally will be held, with speakers including Frances O’Grady, the general secretary of the TUC, which is organising the event.

The TUC said there was “harrowing” evidence of the impact the crisis was having on families, with workers suffering the “longest and harshest” squeeze on earnings in modern history.

O’Grady said: “Prices are skyrocketing, yet boardroom bonuses are back to bumper levels. Everyone who works for a living deserves to earn a decent living, but UK workers are suffering the longest and harshest squeeze on their earnings in modern history.

“If we don’t get pay rising across the economy, we will just keep lurching from crisis to crisis. This cost of living emergency has not come out of the blue. It is the result of more than a decade of standstill wages.” O’Grady said it was “gut-wrenching” to hear how workers were struggling, with no safety net to fall back on and the pay slump showing little sign of slowing.

Workers have lost an average of almost £20,000 in cumulative earnings since 2008 because pay has not kept pace with inflation, the TUC said, adding that it was the biggest loss of “real wages” since the 1830s.

Thousands march in London over cost of living crisis | Cost of living crisis | The Guardian

Out of a total of 211.7 million Brazilians, 116.7 million are experiencing some level of food insecurity, 43.4 million do not have enough food, and 19 million were facing hunger, reveals a June 2022 report by the Brazilian Research Network of Food and Nutrition Sovereignty and Security (Rede PENSSAN).

 Its national survey shows that less than half of Brazilian households (44.8%) were food secure, while 55.2% of households were experiencing some level of food insecurity, and 9% of households were facing hunger (severe food insecurity).

The situation is even worse in rural areas, where 12% of households are affected by hunger, reveals the survey, while explaining that in rural areas, severe food insecurity is twice as high in households without access to water for food and livestock production compared to those with access to water.

 Households with income of up to half of a minimum monthly salary per capita face severe food insecurity at levels 2.5 times the national average.

The study also pointed to persistent inequalities among regions, including disparities in household income, which are important determinants of food access.

The increasing sharp inequalities between Brazilian regions and between urban and rural populations, economic inequality in Brazil has reached extreme levels, despite being one of the largest economies in the world, reports OXFAM International.

The Latin American giant is still listed as one of the most unequal countries on the planet.

In Brazil, someone earning the minimum monthly wage would have to work 19 years to make the same money a Brazilian from the richest 0.1% of the population makes in one month.

At the current rate inequality is decreasing in Brazil, it will take the country 75 years to reach the United Kingdom’s current level of income equality and almost 60 years to meet Spanish standards.

Compared to its neighbours, Brazil is 35 years behind Uruguay and 30 behind Argentina.

Brazil’s six richest men have the same wealth as the poorest 50% of the population; around 100 million people. The country’s richest 5% have the same income as the remaining 95%.

If Brazil’s six richest men pooled their wealth and spent 1 million Brazilian reals a day (around $319,000), it would take them 36 years to spend all their money. Meanwhile, 16 million Brazilians live below the poverty line.

At the current pace of progress, Brazilian women will close the wage gap in 2047. Black Brazilians will earn the same as whites in 2089. Brazil is decades away from wage equality

 An internal document from Amazon, the online retail giant, warns that “if we continue business as usual, Amazon will deplete the available labor supply in the U.S. network by 2024.”

 The report’s findings are the company “was expected to exhaust its entire available labor pool in the Phoenix, Arizona, metro area by the end of 2021, and in the Inland Empire region of California, roughly 60 miles east of Los Angeles, by the end of 2022.” The internal research also identified the regions surrounding Memphis, Tennessee, and Wilmington, Delaware, as areas where Amazon was on the cusp of exhausting local warehouse labor availability

“This is crazy. Amazon burns through workers so fast there might be none left soon,” tweeted New York City organizer and writer Joshua Potash, adding that he “can’t imagine how anyone defends a system that treats people like expendable parts like this.”

Amazon’s own data shows that its attrition rate was 123% in 2019 and 159% in 2020, which are high figures compared with the federal government’s estimates for those two years in the U.S. transportation and warehouse sectors (46% and 59%) and retail (58% and 70%).

California Labor Federation’s Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher told Amazon that “maybe it’s time to improve working conditions and allow your workers to unionize.”

Longtime labor reporter Steven Greenhouse similarly suggested that “IF AMAZON LETS ITS WAREHOUSES UNIONIZE, they could become far less grueling places to work and worker turnover could decline greatly.”

“It turns out that low wages and unsafe working conditions are [Amazon’s] biggest labor problem, not unions,” declared Doug Bloch, political director for Teamsters Joint Council 7. “Gee, aren’t those the problems that workers join together in unions to fix?”

Critics Say Amazon Must Improve After Leaked Doc Reveals ‘Looming Labor Crisis’ (commondreams.org)