It’s been hot. The kind of heat that makes you stay in the house hoping that 1. Your air conditioner is strong enough to keep you cool and 2. The power will stay on. It is in times like these that we really notice our need for electricity. And lots of it.
As I write this, there are some 2 million people in Texas who lost electricity when Category One Hurricane Beryl barrowed through. As the clouds disappeared, the heat climbed into the high 90’s with humidity. Two days later, 1.7 million still didn’t have power and are in danger from the high heat.
Here in California, thankfully, the time of the day when the heat is the worst, the sun is beating down on millions of hardworking solar panels–creating decent amounts of dancing electrons. And more solar panels are going up on to roofs every day.
And as much of a fruitcake, Elon Musk has devolved into over the last few years, his electric cars and batteries for solar power have begun a revolution. American ingenuity jumps in, and with government incentives and goals- along with the Nerds who rule the world; we are creating a planet where fossil fuel will become nearly non-existent.
We don’t need to take thousands of acres of land in Nevada to create huge solar farms. That’s just a get rich quick scheme by private utilities to continue to haul cash off to the banks on the backs of consumers.
We don’t need to do that because almost every roof, on every house or every big box store, has surface area enough to do the same blasted thing as turning vast areas of desert tortoise habitat into a giant city of large solar panels, lined up all in a row. Not to mention the rare Joshua Tree that only grows two to three inches a year and takes 50 to 60 years to reach maturity.
California loves regulations with guys and gals with clip boards, decent salaries, and a generous retirement system. I believe government performs tasks which are important to the life and the safety of the people. But that same clipboard mentality can create resentment from the contractor and the consumer alike.
There was a reason why Ronald Reagan said, “the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help”. I am of the notion that the government should be a service to the public and that getting a permit need not be an expensive, or negative process. Afterall, it is true: they are there to help.
Yes, it has been hot. Redding set a new all-time record on July 6 reaching a scorching 119 degrees. The hottest day ever in Redding, which has 147 years of records. Suitably named, Death Valley, broke their daily record with an egg-frying high of 128 degrees.
The hottest day ever recorded was back in 1913, in Death Valley, at a mind numbing 134.1F. However, that record has its share of skeptics. The most recent reliable heat record for Death Valley (and the world) is 129.2. That means Redding was only 10 degrees away from the highest temperature ever recorded in the world.
The people I worry about in this weather are the Door Dashers, delivery truck drivers from Amazon, U.S postal workers still walking routes. I worry about construction workers and those people working on our roads. These people are heroes, in my opinion.
I worry about our home health workers, who are in and out of cars that sizzle in the heat while the nurse goes about their work for 30 to 60 minutes before driving to their next patient. That’s what I have done for the past ten years, and I dread working in the heat that lasts from June until October. It is torturously hot labor during those months.
I worry about farmworkers, many non-documented, who keep our tables filled with plants that we must bribe our kids to eat. Undocumented workers are scared to speak up and complain to an employer when it is too hot because they live and breathe under the threat of deportation.
We don’t have to say: think about the starving children in Ethiopia who would love to eat this broccoli to our children. Now we can just mention the poor maligned immigrant that works in intolerable heat to bring in the turnips.
Eighty-three of the 168 farmworkers who died suddenly at work in California from 2018 to 2022 perished when temperatures exceeded 80 degrees Fahrenheit—when employers must provide adequate fresh water, shade and rest to cool down—within a day of their death.
As is so often the case, California led the nation with the first laws establishing protections for those who work in high heat. As the temperatures continue to rise, these laws need to be updated and even more protective of the worker. In fact, new workplace rules will go into effect in August.
It fathoms my mind that Trump wants to deport 12 to 20 million people who are here without documents. We already have the most prisoners per capita in the world. Must we now resort to authoritarian style concentration camps just because we don’t issue enough work permits?
I refuse to use the term “Illegals” as it is a pejorative term and, frankly, it is time for our culture to evolve beyond racism. Aren’t we supposed to be the “melting pot”? What these workers do is honorable and necessary work. We need them.
