scholarly journals Warming from tropical deforestation reduces worker productivity in rural communities

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuta J. Masuda ◽  
Teevrat Garg ◽  
Ike Anggraeni ◽  
Kristie Ebi ◽  
Jennifer Krenz ◽  
...  

AbstractThe accelerating loss of tropical forests in the 21st century has eliminated cooling services provided by trees in low latitude countries. Cooling services can protect rural communities and outdoor workers with little adaptive capacity from adverse heat exposure, which is expected to increase with climate change. Yet little is still known about whether cooling services can mitigate negative impacts of heat on labor productivity among rural outdoor workers. Through a field experiment in Indonesia, we show that worker productivity was 8.22% lower in deforested relative to forested settings, where wet bulb globe temperatures were, on average, 2.84 °C higher in deforested settings. We demonstrate that productivity losses are driven by behavioral adaptations in the form of increased number of work breaks, and provide evidence that suggests breaks are in part driven by awareness of heat effects on work. Our results indicate that the cooling services from forests have the potential for increasing resilience and adaptive capacity to local warming.

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Luke A. Parsons ◽  
Drew Shindell ◽  
Michelle Tigchelaar ◽  
Yuqiang Zhang ◽  
June T. Spector

AbstractWorking in hot and potentially humid conditions creates health and well-being risks that will increase as the planet warms. It has been proposed that workers could adapt to increasing temperatures by moving labor from midday to cooler hours. Here, we use reanalysis data to show that in the current climate approximately 30% of global heavy labor losses in the workday could be recovered by moving labor from the hottest hours of the day. However, we show that this particular workshift adaptation potential is lost at a rate of about 2% per degree of global warming as early morning heat exposure rises to unsafe levels for continuous work, with worker productivity losses accelerating under higher warming levels. These findings emphasize the importance of finding alternative adaptation mechanisms to keep workers safe, as well as the importance of limiting global warming.


2017 ◽  
Vol 107 (5) ◽  
pp. 446-450 ◽  
Author(s):  
Javier Baez ◽  
German Caruso ◽  
Valerie Mueller ◽  
Chiyu Niu

We employ a triple difference-in-difference approach, using censuses and georeferenced temperature data, to quantify heat effects on internal migration in Central America and the Caribbean. A 1-standard deviation increase in heat would affect the lives of 7,314 and 1,578 unskilled young women and men. The effect is smaller than observed in response to droughts and hurricanes but could increase with climate change. Interestingly, youth facing heat waves are more likely to move to urban centers than when exposed to disasters endemic to the region. Research identifying the implications of these choices and interventions available to minimize distress migration is warranted.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hildegart Ahumada ◽  
Eduardo A. Cavallo ◽  
Santos Espina-Mairal ◽  
Fernando Navajas

The effects of COVID-19 have been stronger in service-related subsectors, where supply and/or demand were constrained by lockdowns and social distancing measures. The losses in these subsectors have had direct impacts-through their weight in countries GDP-and indirect impacts through their effect on other sectors. In Latin America, effects on the three most affected sectors-wholesale, retail, and hospitality services; construction; and manufacturing-add up to a 4.9 percent hit to economy-wide labor productivity through direct and indirect channels. Large productivity improvements in infrastructure may be needed to fully compensate for the negative productivity losses traceable to COVID-19.


2018 ◽  
Vol 285 (1886) ◽  
pp. 20181374 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evatt Chirgwin ◽  
Dustin J. Marshall ◽  
Carla M. Sgrò ◽  
Keyne Monro

Parental environments are regularly shown to alter the mean fitness of offspring, but their impacts on the genetic variation for fitness, which predicts adaptive capacity and is also measured on offspring, are unclear. Consequently, how parental environments mediate adaptation to environmental stressors, like those accompanying global change, is largely unknown. Here, using an ecologically important marine tubeworm in a quantitative-genetic breeding design, we tested how parental exposure to projected ocean warming alters the mean survival, and genetic variation for survival, of offspring during their most vulnerable life stage under current and projected temperatures. Offspring survival was higher when parent and offspring temperatures matched. Across offspring temperatures, parental exposure to warming altered the distribution of additive genetic variance for survival, making it covary across current and projected temperatures in a way that may aid adaptation to future warming. Parental exposure to warming also amplified nonadditive genetic variance for survival, suggesting that compatibilities between parental genomes may grow increasingly important under future warming. Our study shows that parental environments potentially have broader-ranging effects on adaptive capacity than currently appreciated, not only mitigating the negative impacts of global change but also reshaping the raw fuel for evolutionary responses to it.


Land ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mwangi Githiru ◽  
Josephine Njambuya

Protected areas are considered the cornerstone of biodiversity conservation, but face multiple problems in delivering this core objective. The growing trend of framing biodiversity and protected area values in terms of ecosystem services and human well-being may not always lead to biodiversity conservation. Although globalization is often spoken about in terms of its adverse effects to the environment and biodiversity, it also heralds unprecedented and previously inaccessible opportunities linked to ecosystem services. Biodiversity and related ecosystem services are amongst the common goods hardest hit by globalization. Yet, interconnectedness between people, institutions, and governments offers a great chance for globalization to play a role in ameliorating some of the negative impacts. Employing a polycentric governance approach to overcome the free-rider problem of unsustainable use of common goods, we argue here that REDD+, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) climate change mitigation scheme, could be harnessed to boost biodiversity conservation in the face of increasing globalization, both within classic and novel protected areas. We believe this offers a timely example of how an increasingly globalized world connects hitherto isolated peoples, with the ability to channel feelings and forces for biodiversity conservation. Through the global voluntary carbon market, REDD+ can enable and empower, on the one hand, rural communities in developing countries contribute to mitigation of a global problem, and on the other, individuals or societies in the West to help save species they may never see, yet feel emotionally connected to.


Author(s):  
Moda ◽  
Filho ◽  
Minhas

The literature on the potential impacts of climate change on the health of outdoor workers has received limited attention as a whole, and in sub-Saharan African countries in particular. Yet, substantial numbers of workers are experiencing the health effects of elevated temperature, in combination with changes in precipitation patterns, climate extremes and the effects of air pollution, which have a potential impact on their safety and wellbeing. With increased temperatures within urban settlements and frequent heats waves, there has been a sudden rise in the occurrence of heat-related illness leading to higher levels of mortality, as well as other adverse health impacts. This paper discusses the impacts of extreme heat exposure and health concerns among outdoor workers, and the resultant impacts on their productivity and occupational safety in tropical developing countries with a focus on Sub-Saharan Africa, where there is a dearth of such studies. Aside from the direct effects caused by extreme heat exposure, other indirect health hazards associated with increasing heat among this group includes exposures to hazardous chemicals and other vector-borne diseases. In addition, reduced work capacity in heat-exposed jobs will continue to rise and hinder economic and social development in such countries. There is an urgent need for further studies around the health and economic impacts of climate change in the workplace, especially in tropical developing countries, which may guide the implementation of the measures needed to address the problem.


Water ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 408 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Hoogendam ◽  
Rutgerd Boelens

The Misicuni multipurpose hydraulic project was designed to transfer water from a neighboring watershed to the Cochabamba Valley in the center of Bolivia for domestic, hydropower, and agricultural use. The project involved the construction of a 120 m high large dam and a 19 km transfer tunnel, which negatively affected the rural indigenous host communities that were deprived of productive lands, houses, and livelihoods. This article critically analyzes the process to compensate for harmful effects, demonstrating the existence of divergent knowledge systems, interpretations, and valuing of what was affected and how the impacts had to be compensated. The analysis shows that the compensation was fundamentally a process of negotiation about the meaning and the contested commensuration that was implemented in a context of unequal power relations between state institutions and the indigenous population. This led to unfavorable arrangements for the affected communities. The article details the discussions about impacts, knowledge, and values of key elements of the compensation process and highlights how “compensation” was embedded in the wider struggle over territorial control and natural resource governance. The unreliability of the state institutions worsened the negative impacts for the rural communities because the negotiated outcomes were not always materialized.


2005 ◽  
Vol 37 (8) ◽  
pp. 1479-1491 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas A Lyson ◽  
Rick Welsh

The effect on rural communities of shifts in US agriculture toward a system dominated by large-scale industrial production is a central problematic in the sociology of agriculture. Despite the importance of agriculture structure and practice to US society, most research on this topic has been confined to specialized journals. And though research in this area has found negative effects on rural communities from agricultural industrialization, there is a dearth of inquiry into public policy remedies. Using data on 433 agriculture-dependent counties in the USA, we find that counties in states with laws that limit nonfamily corporate entry into farming score higher on important welfare indicators, and that the laws mitigate negative impacts on rural communities from industrial farming.


2017 ◽  
Vol 131 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
S Mitchell ◽  
C Coulson

AbstractObjectives:To summarise published research investigating maximal temperatures associated with endoscopes used in otology. Possible thermal issues surrounding the use of endoscopes in middle-ear surgery are discussed, and recommendations regarding the safest ways to use endoscopes in endoscopic ear surgery are made.Methods:A non-systematic review of the relevant literature was conducted, with descriptive analysis and presentation of the results.Results:There are currently no reports of any temperature-related deleterious effects in patients having undergone endoscopic ear surgery. There is debate regarding heat issues in endoscopic ear surgery, with a limited body of work documenting potential negative impacts of middle-ear heat exposure from endoscopes. The diameter of endoscope, type of light source used, distance from endoscope tip and duration of exposure are highlighted potential factors for high temperatures in endoscopic ear surgery.Conclusion:There is a trend towards endoscopes being used routinely in ear surgery. Simple practice points are recommended to minimise potential thermal risks.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 527
Author(s):  
Francisco Hiályson Fidelis-Medeiros ◽  
Vitor de Oliveira Lunardi ◽  
Diana Gonçalves Lunardi

Os resíduos sólidos rurais representam um grande entrave ao desenvolvimento sustentável pautado na sustentabilidade ambiental, social e econômica. A destinação incorreta dos resíduos sólidos promove impactos negativos à saúde humana e aos sistemas ambientais. Portanto, os objetivos desta pesquisa foram descrever a forma de disposição final dos resíduos sólidos domiciliares em sete comunidades rurais inseridas na Zona de Amortecimento do Parque Nacional da Furna Feia, RN, e apresentar uma proposta de gestão adequada de resíduos sólidos produzidos nestas comunidades. A metodologia foi pautada na observação não participante, com base na lógica de investigação fenomenológica, e na pesquisa-ação, visando contribuir com a gestão dos resíduos sólidos domiciliares. Para a espacialização dos elementos de logística e infraestrutura do modelo de gestão proposto neste estudo, que inclui rotas e pontos de coleta de materiais recicláveis, utilizou-se um sistema de informação geográfica, o Quantum GIS, com o auxílio do módulo de digitalização. Os dados indicaram que em todas as residências avaliadas ocorre a queima de resíduo sólido, enquanto a reutilização de materiais recicláveis foi registrada em 57,5% das residências. O resíduo orgânico, compreendido por sobras de alimento, foi destinado à alimentação de animais domésticos e de produção. Com base nestes dados, é apresentada uma proposta de gestão adequada dos resíduos sólidos domiciliares, com foco na reutilização de materiais recicláveis, com possibilidade de geração de renda, por meio de cooperativas e/ou associações. Para os rejeitos, elaborou-se uma proposta de coleta intermunicipal, visando diminuir gastos operacionais e possibilitar a sustentabilidade socioambiental. Proposed Appropriate Management of Household Solid Waste in Rural Communities Using Spatial Analysis A B S T R A C TRural solid waste represents a major obstacle to sustainable development based on environmental, social and economic sustainability. Incorrect disposal of solid waste causes negative impacts on human health and environmental systems. Therefore, the objectives of this study were to describe the form of final disposal of household solid waste in seven rural communities inserted in the buffer zone of Furna Feia National Park, RN, Brazil, and present a proposal for appropriate management of solid waste produced in these communities. The methodology was based on non-participant observation, through of the logic of phenomenological research, and action research, aiming to contribute to the management of household solid waste. For the spatialization of the logistics and infrastructure elements of the management model proposed in this study, which includes routes and collection points for recyclable materials, we used a geographic information system, Quantum GIS, with the aid of the digitization module. Data indicated that in all households evaluated, solid waste is burned, while the reuse of recyclable materials was recorded in 57.5% of households. The organic waste, comprised of food scraps, was destined to feed domestic and farm animals. Based on these data, we present a proposal for the appropriate management of household solid waste, focusing on the reuse of recyclable materials, with the possibility of generating financial resources through cooperatives and/or associations. For the tailing, we elaborated a proposal for intercity collection, aiming to reduce operating expenses and enable social and environmental sustainability.Keywords: Geoprocessing; Environmental management; Public policy; Sustainability; Protected area.


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