Issue of the Week: Environment, Disease, Human Rights, Economic Opportunity

How wildfire pollution may be harming your health, BBC Future, 23 Aug. 2020

 

As we write–it’s happening again.

You will recognize the above words, the exact words, with the same part italicized, from our post last October 29, excerpted here:

Tonight, our favorite acclaimed decades-running documentary journalism series, Frontline, on PBS, aired Fire in Paradise, a unique up-close and personal look at what to date a year ago was the largest fire in California history.

And as it aired–and as we write–it’s happening again.

And then some.

California is burning from the Oregon border to nearly the Mexican border.

Today’s front page of The New York Times is dominated by a picture of the fire being battled in northern California, with the caption, An End To End Menace In California.

The underlying menace of climate change is clear, and made clear in tonight’s Frontline airing.

But as we’ve pointed out often, no matter how serious the threat or how much it has been focused on, most people don’t make it a priority.

Why?

Because their first priority is eating (and housing, and health care–all the basic needs)–and climate change isn’t in their face (pun intended) in the same way.

Until it is.

Fire in Paradise brings it home for everyone. You experience the hell–literally–wrought by climate change. You are in the middle of it, physically and emotionally.

And now you know what’s coming for us, all of us, at any time. You know. Now it’s in your face. That’s how good this documentary is.

We wrote extensively about this in The End Of Civilization As Knew It, Part Four, over a year ago.

Here’s an opening excerpt:

“In the US today, one of the many forest fires in California reached the point of being the largest fire on record in California history.

California is the world’s fifth largest economy, passing the UK two months ago.

The decision some time ago by the US under the new Trump Administration to not abide by the Paris Climate Agreement was another marker of the end of civilization as we knew it.

In reality, the agreement was toothless and the exclamation point on failures to reach an actual treaty on the issue going back decades. But it was also the only thin possibility left to build on internationally, to take far more radical action needed—not to avoid horrible suffering, too late for that—but hopefully to avoid complete catastrophe. The entire direction on environmental issues by the US now, domestically and globally, is terrifying.

The US, and the world, are going through another summer of record-breaking environmental disasters.

And the frightening scientific reports continue, a number recently, including today. We leave the researching of the above to the readers.

On these issues, China, a capitalist state dictatorship, now the world’s largest nation by population, and India, the largest democracy on earth, challenged by nationalism, and soon to be the largest nation by population as well, have equal significance to the US. More in environmental impact in many ways now.

But China and India are also more pushed internally to act because of greater clear and present intolerable environmental damage, conflicting, as everywhere, with international reliance on the old model of growth created largely by the US and EU nations.

The EU (with others) is barely holding the Paris Agreement together, while it has been challenged more than ever to hold itself together.

In the end, the US must lead. Thus, at the moment, we stare more deeply into the abyss.”

All the great issues facing humanity and life on earth are interrelated. The driver of clmate change has been the same thing that keeps it from being faced. An outmoded, unregulated, unsustainable growth model fueling and fueled by unimaginable inequality.

And this inequality is unmasked once again in the current crisis of California burning.

The front page of The New York Times tomorrow, posted tonight, has the headline, California Burns, and Rebuilding Exposes the Vast Wealth Gap.

How can we overstate that now, as we write, only ten months later, it is happening again.

California ablaze.

But then, so is much of the earth, as then, since and now.

Climate change keeps getting worse, along with fires, and other clear and present life-threatening impacts.

One that is and has been killing more people every year than most preventable things, is air pollution.

Here’s the start of our post on April 15, last year:

Air pollution was the first major scourge that created the environmental movement. It sometimes gets lost in the discussions about climate change. They’re inter-related in many ways–but this is the point where we point out we’ve covered this at length over the years and our best service to you is to remind that educating oneself is a duty. And a service to one’s survival.

Air pollution is choking the planet in many ways. While improved in some places and some ways–it’s worse than ever in many of the largest population centers and regression is occurring too often elsewhere.

7 million people die from air pollution every year–9 out of 10 people breath air with high levels of pollutants.

Two days ago, Allison Hirschlag’s superlative piece in BBC Future, How wildfire pollution may be harming your health, strings together how all the fires on the planet are combining in an exponential inter-related cycle of climate change, air pollution and disease (you know, like the pandemic).

Perhaps the most important take away is that the better and worse of air pollution in any given place is becoming less relevant as the causes of air pollution interacting with climte change are increasingly global in impact.

Here’s the opening:

From far above, they almost look beautiful. Golden yellow tendrils etched across the dark forest landscape below. But in daylight, at close range, the devastation wrought by the fires in the Krasnoyarsk region of Siberia is harrowing.

A wall of blistering flames engulfs the vegetation. Behind it, charred trees stand like blackened toothpicks while columns of smoke choke the air, rising high up into the atmosphere. Since the start of 2020, Russia has seen an estimated 19 million hectares(73,359 square miles) consumed by wildfires, according to Greenpeace International’s analysis of satellite images. Nasa has warned that abnormally warm temperatures in eastern Siberia – particularly in the Sakha Republic, more than 1,250 miles (2,000km) away from Krasnoyarsk – have led to more intense and widespread fires than normal.

The destruction this leads to is undeniable. Swathes of forest and peatland are destroyed. Countless animals caught up in the flames and smoke perish. And when the flames reach areas inhabited by people, they can claim many lives and homes of those unlucky enough to be caught in their path.

In the first few months of 2020, Australia grappled with the worst wildfire season in its history. It claimed the lives of 33 people, destroyed thousands of homes and saw 18 million hectares (69,500 square miles) burned. Three billion animals were killed or displaced. And this August, thousands of lightning strikes triggered hundreds of fires across California, leading to a state of emergency being declared as the flames threatened densly populated residential areas. Beset by a prolonged drought, the state experienced its most destructive and deadliest fires in recorded history during 2017 and 2018.

These impacts on the ground can be hard to bear, but wildfires can have another far-reaching effect on our lives.

Rising up to 14 miles (23km) into the air, well into the stratosphere, plumes of smoke from large wildfires can spread all over the globe thanks to currents of air. Smoke from this summer’s Siberian wildfires has been choking nearby cities for months now and has spread across the Pacific Ocean to reach Alaska. The smoke has even been reducing air quality by creating hazes in cities as far away Seattle.

That last line obviously got our attention.

The full piece is a neccessry terror to read in it’s entirety. It follows.

Also following is tommorrw’s front page article in The New York Times posted tonight, by hotographs by

Inequality At The Boiling Point: Heat, Smoke and Covid Are Battering the Workers Who Feed America.

Here’s an excerpt:

Like the gossamer layer of ash and dust that is settling on the trees in Central California, climate change is adding on to the hazards already faced by some of the country’s poorest, most neglected laborers. So far this year, more than 7,000 fires have scorched 1.4 million acres, and there is no reprieve in sight, officials warned.

Summer days are hotter than they were a century ago in the already scorching San Joaquin Valley; the nights, when the body would normally cool down, are warming faster. Heat waves are more frequent. And across the state, fires have burned over a million acres in less than two weeks. One recent scientific paper concluded that climate change had doubled the frequency of extreme fire weather days since the 1980s. …

I drove through the valley last week, from Lodi, just below Sacramento, to Arvin, nearly 300 miles to the south, during a calamitous wave of heat, fire and surging coronavirus infections. I wanted to see it through the eyes of those worst affected: agricultural workers. Most of them are immigrants from Mexico. Mostly, they earn minimum wage ($13 an hour in California). Mostly, they lack health insurance and they live amid chronic pollution, making them susceptible to a host of respiratory ailments.

Climate change exacerbates these horrors.

You really can’t make it up. Accompanying our last post on the previous years of California widlfires, excerpted above, was a front page New York Times article on how the fires had exposed inequality. This one adds the horrifically timely, once again, issues of Covid, racism and immigration.

So we conclude our remarks before advancing to the articles by repeating the following from our post excerpted above from last October:

All the great issues facing humanity and life on earth are interrelated. The driver of clmate change has been the same thing that keeps it from being faced. An outmoded, unregulated, unsustainable growth model fueling and fueled by unimaginable inequality.

Here are the articles:

“How wildfire pollution may be harming your health”

By Allison Hirschlag, 23rd August 2020, BBC Future

Wildfires can release huge amounts of greenhouse gases and harmful smoke particles that affect human health (Credit: AFP/Getty Images)
Smoke from burning forests and peat can linger in the atmosphere for weeks, travelling thousands of miles and harming the health of populations living far away.

From far above, they almost look beautiful. Golden yellow tendrils etched across the dark forest landscape below. But in daylight, at close range, the devastation wrought by the fires in the Krasnoyarsk region of Siberia is harrowing.

A wall of blistering flames engulfs the vegetation. Behind it, charred trees stand like blackened toothpicks while columns of smoke choke the air, rising high up into the atmosphere. Since the start of 2020, Russia has seen an estimated 19 million hectares (73,359 square miles) consumed by wildfires, according to Greenpeace International’s analysis of satellite images. Nasa has warned that abnormally warm temperatures in eastern Siberia – particularly in the Sakha Republic, more than 1,250 miles (2,000km) away from Krasnoyarsk – have led to more intense and widespread fires than normal.

The destruction this leads to is undeniable. Swathes of forest and peatland are destroyed. Countless animals caught up in the flames and smoke perish. And when the flames reach areas inhabited by people, they can claim many lives and homes of those unlucky enough to be caught in their path.

In the first few months of 2020, Australia grappled with the worst wildfire seasonin its history. It claimed the lives of 33 people, destroyed thousands of homes and saw 18 million hectares (69,500 square miles) burned. Three billion animals were killed or displaced. And this August, thousands of lightning strikes triggered hundreds of fires across California, leading to a state of emergency being declared as the flames threatened densly populated residential areas. Beset by a prolonged drought, the state experienced its most destructive and deadliest fires in recorded history during 2017 and 2018.

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These impacts on the ground can be hard to bear, but wildfires can have another far-reaching effect on our lives.

Rising up to 14 miles (23km) into the air, well into the stratosphere, plumes of smoke from large wildfires can spread all over the globe thanks to currents of air. Smoke from this summer’s Siberian wildfires has been choking nearby cities for months now and has spread across the Pacific Ocean to reach Alaska. The smoke has even been reducing air quality by creating hazes in cities as far away Seattle.

In dry summer conditions forest fires can sweep across huge areas, but they can also smoulder underground waiting to burst back into flame (Credit: Julia Petrenko/Greenpeace)

In dry summer conditions forest fires can sweep across huge areas, but they can also smoulder underground waiting to burst back into flame (Credit: Julia Petrenko/Greenpeace)

The Arctic wildfires in Siberia this summer have set a record: for releasing more pollution into the air in a single month than any other in 18 years of record keeping, according to the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts.

It is in part down to what’s burning – resin-rich boreal forest, peat buried in bogs and melting tundra permafrost all release high concentrations of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere along with methane and toxic contaminants such as mercury. But it’s also because the fires are more widespread – a byproduct of record-breaking heat waves that gripped the Arctic in early summer. This helped thaw parts of the tundra, making it much more susceptible to burning.

Carried with the gases released by wildfires, however, are also tiny, lightweight particles of soot. Such “particulate matter” (PM) is a common component in air pollution in cities, where it can be released from vehicle exhausts and heavy industry. But smoke from wildfires can lead to dramatic spikes in the amount of particulate matter in the air compared with average air pollution.

For example, during wildfire season in Canada, cities in British Columbia have seen particulate levels that are 20 times higher than would be expected on an average day.

“Wildfire causes episodes of the worst air quality that most people living in high income countries are ever going to see,” says Sarah Henderson, senior scientist in environmental health services at the British Columbia Center for Disease Control. The small size and large amount of particulate matter has a lot to do with this.

Wildfires tend to produce large quantities of finer particulates known as PM2.5 and even finer nanoparticles, which are known to be particularly harmful to human health. This is largely because the tiny particles – which are more 30 times smaller than the width of a human hair and so too small to see – can penetrate the lung membranes when breathed in, damaging the respiratory system and passing into the blood stream.

Smoke from fires in Siberia has blown as far as Alaska, Canada and US cities including Seattle (Credit: Julia Petrenko/Greenpeace)

Smoke from fires in Siberia has blown as far as Alaska, Canada and US cities including Seattle (Credit: Julia Petrenko/Greenpeace)

In the short-term, that can lead to coughing, shortness of breath and exacerbate asthma attacks. During the bushfires at the end of 2019 in Australia, hospital admissions due to breathing problems increased by 34% in the state of New South Wales.

One study estimated that between 2004 and 2009, around 46 million people in the western US were exposed to at least one wave of smoke from wildfires. On days where smoke had caused high PM2.5 levels, there was a 7.2% increase in hospital admissions due to respiratory illnesses. Increases in PM2.5 have also been found to be accompanied by a spike in cases of cardiac arrest.

The potential long-term effects, however, are just as worrying.

Firefighters have been fighting to defend homes after thousands of lightning strikes started forest fires in California (Credit: Reuters)

Firefighters have been fighting to defend homes after thousands of lightning strikes started forest fires in California (Credit: Reuters)

Particulate matter has been linked to a range of long-term problems, including increased inflammation, and a greater risk of heart disease and stroke.

But wildfire smoke carries an added danger compared with other particulate pollution. It is filled with reactive chemical compounds that can be carcinogenic, and that can also lead to premature births. These compounds can also stress the body’s respiratory tract, leaving it more vulnerable to deadly respiratory pathogens such as Covid-19. One study found that particulate matter from wildfire smoke was especially harmful to a type of immune cell called macrophages in the lungs. It showed that wildfire particulates were four times more toxic to these immune cells than particulate matter from other air pollution. (Read more about the link between air pollution and respiratory disease)

Henderson, who’s currently conducting two studies on the long-term health effects of wildfire smoke, says people with pre-existing respiratory conditions are often the most impacted by the smoke. Her work suggests that some may never completely recover after experiencing just one severe wildfire season. Newborn babies, however, may face the most life-altering impacts, because their lungs are still developing and therefore highly vulnerable to smoke toxicity.

Wildfires in California have quickly spread to threaten homes and vehicles after they were sparked by lightning strikes (Credit: Reuters)

Wildfires in California have quickly spread to threaten homes and vehicles after they were sparked by lightning strikes (Credit: Reuters)

Perhaps most alarming is that the toxicity of these smoke particles also appears to increase the further they get from the site of a fire. As they are carried in the wind, the particles undergo chemical reactions in the air that cause them to “age” in a process known as oxidation. This converts the particles into highly reactive compounds that have an even greater capacity to damage cells and tissue than when they were first produced.

A recent study conducted in Greece showed that this process can lead to the toxicity of smoke compounds doubling in the hours after they are first emittedfrom a fire and that they have the potential to become up to four times as toxic over the following days.

“Even if someone is far away from a fire source, they may still experience adverse health outcomes from the inhalation of highly diluted and oxidised smoke,” says Athanasios Nenes, an atmospheric chemist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne and the Institute of Chemical Engineering Sciences in Patras, Greece, who led the study. “We have seen that the oxidative potential of wildfire smoke can be up to four times higher when smoke has been atmospherically processed.”

Wildfire smoke can hang in the atmosphere for days, weeks or even monthsdepending on how long the fires burn. One reason it’s able to do that is because the superheated smoke and ash rising into the air can trigger pyrocumulonimbusevents, or fire-induced thunderstorms.

These thunderstorms form at least 10 miles (16 km) above the ground in the stratosphere. Here they are moved by the winds and weather in the jetstream, allowing smoke particles to “stay in the stratosphere for weeks, because it’s a very stable layer,” says Mike Flannigan, director of the Canadian Partnership for Wildland Fire Science at the University of Alberta.

This also allows wildfire smoke to travel huge distances. Large wildfires can send smoke billowing across whole continents and even oceans. In 2019, smoke from forest fires in Alberta, Canada, was tracked spreading across the Atlantic and into Europe. Smoke from the recent Australian fires was carried by pyrocumulonimbus events over New Zealand, where it impacted air quality and visibly darkened snow on mountains. The smoke even made it to South America.

Experts like Henderson and Nenes fear this spread of wildfire smoke may be exacerbating the harmful health effects of existing air pollution in busy, overpopulated cities. Globally wildfire smoke has been estimated to cause over 339,000 premature deaths a year – far more than those who lose their lives directly in these blazes. It could also be shortening life expectancies for populations that experience fire seasons regularly, Henderson warns.

The smoke from fires in Australia in 2019 and early 2020 led to a spike in hospitalisations in New South Wales (Credit: NASA/Maxar Technologies)

The smoke from fires in Australia in 2019 and early 2020 led to a spike in hospitalisations in New South Wales (Credit: NASA/Maxar Technologies)

“It really has an impact if you live under poor air quality conditions,” says Henderson. “If that translates to these populations that are living for four months at a time in these really smoky conditions, you know that’s going to have an impact on their life expectancy.”

Wearing masks such as the N95 respirator can help people to protect themselves when they venture outside during wildfire smoke events. Investing in air purifiers with HEPA filters can also help reduce fine particles indoors too, says Henderson.

“If we can keep the indoor air as smoke-free as possible, it will go a long way to protecting people from these exposures,” she says.

But the longer-term impact of wildfires is not just on human health, but the health of the planet as a whole. Burning forests and peat release huge amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

“Peat fires are important because it’s legacy carbon,” says Flannigan. “It’s been built up over thousands of years. And it can be emitted to the atmosphere in a matter of hours or days.” One study estimated that during the 2015 fire season in Indonesia, biomass fires that included a significant amount of peat released the equivalent of 1.5 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere while fires in 1997 released so much carbon it was equivalent to 13-40% of all emissions from fossil fuels that year.

According to Flannigan, the soil in Russia, Alaska and Canada contains 30 times the amount of peat found in Indonesia’s soil. As climate change causes these Arctic territories to warm twice as fast as the rest of the planet, the risk of more carbon-spewing peat fires will only increase.

If that wasn’t enough, these areas are regularly experiencing so-called Zombie fires, which are slow-burn peat fires that can smoulder just under the ground for months and even years, only to roar back to life when temperatures climb, as happened in Siberia this year.

With climate change bringing warmer, dryer summer conditions, it could lead to a vicious cycle of fire.

“The warmer we get, the more fire we get,” says Flannigan. “The more fire we get, the more greenhouse gas emissions we get, which feeds the warming and this keeps on going until something changes.”

The haze generated by forest fire smoke can impact the air quality in cities nearby and also thousands of miles away (Credit: EPA)

The haze generated by forest fire smoke can impact the air quality in cities nearby and also thousands of miles away (Credit: EPA)

Nasa researchers discovered another effect wildfire smoke may be having on the climate. They found the Earth is surrounded by a haze of old smoke hanging in the troposphere over places like Antarctica. It accounts for roughly one-fifth of the aerosols from global fires.

“On a global scale, these smoke particles cool the Earth, but only slightly,” says Gregory Schill, a research associate at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Chemical Sciences Laboratory where the study was conducted. “On a regional scale, however, and in climate-sensitive places like the Arctic, these particles can cause a regional warming effect.”

One reason for this is that black and brown carbon in smoke absorbs heat, causing the air temperature to rise and warm the area below. In areas like the Arctic, this could only exacerbate the problem, creating the conditions that would make wildfires even more likely.

In a world already struggling against wildfires, it is a worrying prediction.

. . .

“Inequality At The Boiling Point: Heat, Smoke and Covid Are Battering the Workers Who Feed America”

By hotographs by

Farmworkers in California harvested corn in the predawn hours during a heat wave this month.

Farmworkers in California harvested corn in the predawn hours during a heat wave this month.

STOCKTON, Calif — Work began in the dark. At 4 a.m., Briseida Flores could make out a fire burning in the distance. Floodlights illuminated the fields. And shoulder to shoulder with dozens of others, Ms. Flores pushed into the rows of corn. Swiftly, they plucked. One after the other. First under the lights, then by the first rays of daylight.

By 10:30 a.m., it was unbearably hot. Hundreds of wildfires were burning to the north, and so much smoke was settling into the San Joaquin Valley that the local air pollution agency issued a health alert. Ms. Flores, 19, who had joined her mother in the fields after her father lost his job in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, found it hard to breathe in between the tightly planted rows. Her jeans were soaked with sweat.

“It felt like a hundred degrees in there,” Ms. Flores said. “We said we don’t want to go in anymore.”

She went home, exhausted, and slept for an hour.

All this to harvest dried, ocher-colored ears of corn meant to decorate the autumn table.

Like the gossamer layer of ash and dust that is settling on the trees in Central California, climate change is adding on to the hazards already faced by some of the country’s poorest, most neglected laborers. So far this year, more than 7,000 fires have scorched 1.4 million acres, and there is no reprieve in sight, officials warned.

A field worker cut corn for his horse this month amid the haze from California’s wildfires.

A field worker cut corn for his horse this month amid the haze from California’s wildfires.
Workers in the San Joaquin Valley recently harvested corn before dawn to avoid the worst heat of the day.
Workers in the San Joaquin Valley recently harvested corn before dawn to avoid the worst heat of the day.
Briseida Flores, 19, went to work in the fields after her father lost his job.
Briseida Flores, 19, went to work in the fields after her father lost his job.

Summer days are hotter than they were a century ago in the already scorching San Joaquin Valley; the nights, when the body would normally cool down, are warming faster. Heat waves are more frequent. And across the state, fires have burned over a million acres in less than two weeks. One recent scientific paper concluded that climate change had doubled the frequency of extreme fire weather days since the 1980s.

In the valley is where the smoke gets stuck when the wind blows it in from the north and south.

Still, hundreds of thousands of men and women like Ms. Flores continue to pluck, weed, and pack produce for the nation here, as temperatures soar into the triple digits for days at a time and the air turns to a soup of dust and smoke, stirred with pollution from truck tailpipes and chemicals sprayed on the fields, not to mention pollution from the old oil wells that dot parts of the valley.

I drove through the valley last week, from Lodi, just below Sacramento, to Arvin, nearly 300 miles to the south, during a calamitous wave of heat, fire and surging coronavirus infections. I wanted to see it through the eyes of those worst affected: agricultural workers. Most of them are immigrants from Mexico. Mostly, they earn minimum wage ($13 an hour in California). Mostly, they lack health insurance and they live amid chronic pollution, making them susceptible to a host of respiratory ailments.

Climate change exacerbates these horrors.

By noon one day last week, temperatures had soared to 100 degrees Fahrenheit in Lodi, in the valley’s northern stretch. Still, Leonor Hernández, 38, mother of three, was at work. Dressed as usual in an oversized full-sleeved shirt and hat, bandanna covering all but her eyes, water bottle stuffed into her pocket, she walked up and down the cherry orchard, scooping up stray branches hacked off after the harvest, hoisting them into a bin. The ground had to be cleared for the next spraying of pesticides, smoke or no smoke.

As the week progressed and more acres burned, the air grew increasingly toxic. Her head and chest hurt. She was coughing. The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District urged residents to stay indoors.

Good advice, in theory, Ms. Hernández said. “But we need to work, and if we stay indoors we don’t get paid,” she said. “We have bills for food and rent to pay.”

California is one of two states, along with Washington, with heat standards for outdoor workers. Employers must provide shade, usually a bench with a canopy, and drinking water. Many labor contractors stop work when it gets too hot, but the law doesn’t require a halt at any given temperature threshold.

Leonor Hernández at her home in Lodi, Calif. “If we stay indoors we don’t get paid,” she said.
Leonor Hernández at her home in Lodi, Calif. “If we stay indoors we don’t get paid,” she said.
Haze settled over the San Joaquin Valley. At one point this month, wildfires burned more than a million acres across California in less than two weeks.
Haze settled over the San Joaquin Valley. At one point this month, wildfires burned more than a million acres across California in less than two weeks.
 Farmworkers tended carrots near Arvin, Calif., during an August heat wave.
Farmworkers tended carrots near Arvin, Calif., during an August heat wave.

The problem of intensifying heat underscores a more basic problem. If you work fewer hours, you make less. And for those who get paid at piece rates — wine grape pickers generally get paid by the bin — there can be a perverse incentive to work as fast as possible, even if it means skipping a water break.

“It’s the price of cheap food,” said Armando Elenes, secretary-treasurer of the United Farm Workers of America, which advocated for heat standards in California 15 years ago after a spate of farmworker deaths. The union is pushing for similar national legislation.

In the cherry orchard, Ms. Hernández yelled out to one of her co-workers, an older woman whose face and arms were exposed to the elements and wet with sweat. She told her to take a break, drink water. “We are taking a lot of care of each other,” Ms. Hernández said.

Like many of her co-workers, she doesn’t have health insurance, so seeing a doctor is an unaffordable luxury. Twice last year in a heat wave, Ms. Hernández was sick: nausea, headache, stomach ache. “I learned,” she recalled. “I said, ‘No more.’”

Work stopped shortly after noon. It was 102 degrees Fahrenheit, or about 39 Celsius. Ms. Hernández drove home, showered, prepared to meet with her 12-year-old son’s teacher about remote learning. School, she hoped, would save her children from the fields. “School is very important to me,” she said.

Not far from the cherry orchard, the residents of the Shady Rest mobile home park came home in the afternoon to find neither shade nor rest. The power had gone off because, the residents said, the electricity supply in the complex is insufficient for the number of trailers. That meant no water. No air-conditioning. And, with no internet, no school.

“All you want to do is shower, cook and stay cool, but you can’t,” said Laura Villagran, who came home from her shift at a tree nursery, covered in grime and sweat.

The owner, Lal Singh Toor, said he did not know why the power was out. The complex, he said, has a 400 amp electrical service, a level usually adequate for two to three large single-family homes. Shady Rest has 49 units.

Residents of the Shady Rest mobile home park in Stockton, Calif. Inadequate power in the complex cut children off from online classes this month .
Residents of the Shady Rest mobile home park in Stockton, Calif. Inadequate power in the complex cut children off from online classes this month .
Geography and industry have cursed parts of California with some of the country’s worst air, but many residents of the Shady Rest park lack health insurance.
Geography and industry have cursed parts of California with some of the country’s worst air, but many residents of the Shady Rest park lack health insurance.
Laundry day at Shady Rest.
Laundry day at Shady Rest.

The San Joaquin Valley is a vast bowl of industrial farmland nestled between the Pacific Coast ranges and the Sierra Nevadas. Table grapes, wine grapes, watermelons, carrots, and blueberries are all grown and packed here. So are acres and acres of almonds and walnuts.

Geography and industry curse the valley with some of the country’s worst air. Rates of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease run high, according to doctors at Clinica Sierra Vista, a network of medical centers in the valley. Kidney functions decline with prolonged dehydration among many agricultural workers, doctors in the region say. Diabetes — associated with eating inexpensive, starchy food — is common. There’s even a respiratory ailment named for the area: Valley Fever, caused by coccidioides fungus in the soil.

Dr. Olga Meave, chief medical officer at the Clinica Sierra Vista, spoke of the battery of ailments that agricultural workers face. “They’re going to be more prone to chronic respiratory ailments,” she said.

Little wonder, then, that coronavirus infection rates in the valley are among the highest in California. Latinos are disproportionately infected.

“Work is seasonal,” said Jose Rodriguez, head of a Stockton-based group called El Concilio, which provides services for agricultural workers. “If they don’t work, they’re not going to make it through the year.” Hunger runs high. Twice as many people showed up for his group’s food distribution session last week as he had food for.

In the fields outside Stockton last week, the air became thicker and smokier each day. By the week’s end, Ms. Flores could feel it. “It’s really bad,” she said. “You can smell the smoke and it hurts your head.”

Rates of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease run high in the San Joaquin Valley.
Rates of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease run high in the San Joaquin Valley.
Mamy grape pickers get paid by the bin, so there can be a perverse incentive to work as fast as possible, even if it means skipping a water break.
Mamy grape pickers get paid by the bin, so there can be a perverse incentive to work as fast as possible, even if it means skipping a water break.

The valley is abnormally dry in parts, and in drought in others. Dust swirls up from the fields like a genie. Many creek beds are parched. The rivers have been twisted and bent every which way to bring water from the north for the fields. Since mid-August, for over two weeks, daily high temperatures have ranged from 97 degrees Fahrenheit to 108.

By Thursday, ash fell over Kern County, the valley’s southernmost stretch. The sun struggled to break through. By midafternoon, it looked like a glowing, ghostly orb.

In the fields near the town of Arvin, Alejandro Díaz, knife in hand, bucket strapped to his chest, clipped the last grapes hanging on the vines. Snip. Toss. Unload buckets into bins to make inexpensive table wine. Two bins would fetch $65, and if he and his work partner, Rafael Pacheco, could put in a few hours before the heat roasted them, they might pocket $100 each.

It was muggy among the vines. “Suffocating,” Mr. Pacheco said. “You can’t breathe.”

Mr. Diaz’s face was wet with sweat. Dust from the vines filled in the grooves. He said they would stop at 11 a.m., before it got to 102 degrees Fahrenheit. “My life,” Mr. Diaz said, “is worth more than another round of grapes.”

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