Climate Change Might Make Sahara Desert Wetter, Could Make Hurricane Seasons Scarier

A satellite image of a bunch of dust blowing off of the
Sahara desert into the Atlantic Ocean. This dust tends
to suppress hurricanes. Recent research indicates
climate change will make the Sahara wetter, which
means less dust. That could make hurricane
seasons of the future worse. 

 We found another way that climate change could make life difficult for people - In Africa and maybe here in the United States, too. 

The Weather Channel tells us:

"New research from the University of Illinois Chicago suggests the Sahara Desert, long defined by relentless heat and extreme dryness, could receive up to 75% more rainfall by the end of the century. 

It's a dramatic shift that could ripple far beyond northern Africa, reshaping ecosystems, threatening vulnerable communities and even supercharging the Atlantic hurricane season."

Overall, the atmosphere in a warmer world can hold more moisture than the cooler air of the 20th century. Also, climate change shifts atmospheric circulations. Wet areas get drier, and drier areas get wetter.  

Scientists think the Sahara is one of those places that will get wetter with climate change. 

As is always the case with climate change, this shift will screw a lot of people. According to UIC Today, a publication from the University of Illinois/Chicago:

"'Changing rainfall patterns will affect billions of people, both in and outside Africa,' said lead author Thierry Ndetatsin Taguela, a postdoctoral climate researcher in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. 'We have to start planning to face these changes, from flood management to drought-resist net crops."

The extra rain might increase the amount of vegetation in the Sahara. We don't know what that means in terms of land use, the effects on humans, migration and a whole host of other issues. 

Saharan sand doesn't easily absorb water easily, so the obvious first effect is flooding. But there's something else that might happen. Which affects us here in the United States. 

More rain means wetter sand, which wouldn't be as easily be picked up into the air by winds as dust. 

Dust from the Sahara is often gathered by winds in great quantities and blown out over the Atlantic Ocean. The dust tends to suppress tropical storms and hurricanes. When there's a lot of Saharan dust over areas of the Atlantic where tropical systems form, there's rarely such activity. Or if there is, the storms tend to be weaker than they would be otherwise

Losing the dust increases the risk of more frequent and stronger Atlantic hurricanes. It could mean more landfalling hurricanes in the United States, according to the Weather Channel.

Which isn't great news.

Much of the Saharan dust crossing the Atlantic sifts down on the vast Amazon rain forest. The dust contains a lot of phosphorus, a critical plant nutrient. 

Each year, about 22,000 tons of phosphorus in the Amazon washes away in rain and flooding yearly. Coincidentally and fortunately, about 22,000 tons of phosphorus lands in the Amazon every year from the African dust. 

I haven't immediately found any recent research that would predict what would happen to the Amazon rainforest if the Saharan dust stopped blowing into it. But a Climate Central article from about a decade ago suggested there would be some sort of biosphere changes or plant adaptations. 

I bet this issue will be the subject of scientific research soon.  

Was Four-Lane Road Through Amazon Forest Construction To Facilitate A (Checks Notes) Climate Summit?

A big highway is being cut through the Amazon rainforest
in northeast Brazil, and according to sources, it's 
hypocritically being built to facilitate a major
UN climate change conference in November. 

 Critics are accusing a Brazilian state of building a four-lane freeway through tens of thousands of acres in sensitive Amazon rain forest to, of all things, facilitate a major UN climate summit.  

The summit is scheduled for November in the city of Belem in northeast Brazil, in the Amazon not too far inland from the Atlantic Ocean. 

Officials in the  Brazilian state of Para where the highway is being built, deny the summit was the impetus behind the highway construction. 

Those officials say construction on the highway started in 2020, before Belem was announced as the location for the climate summit, known as COP30.

Brazilian and  Para state officials also said the nation's federal government is not funding the project. 

Still, locals and environmentalists are highly suspicious, to say the least, noting the sudden, fast progress of highway construction after decades of resistance. That fast pace came after Belem was selected as the COP30 site 

Per Reuters:

"Still, some locals tie recent progress on the long-discussed highway to the approaching UN summit, when tens of thousands of delegates are expected to swarm the Amazon city home to 1.3 million."

 Plus, local officials basically admitted to the BBC the highway was being built to service the COP30 climate summit.  

Per BBC

"Adler Silveira, the state government infrastructure secretary, listed this highway as one of 30 project happening in the city to 'prepare' and 'modernize' it, so 'we can have a legacy for the population and more importantly, serve people for COP30 in the best possible way."

Silveira also said the highway would have wildlife crossings for animals to pass over, bike lanes and solar lighting 

All wonderful, but they're chopping down part of a critical rain forest to do all this.   

There's other projects ahead of COP30 that might harm the Amazon rain forests too, mostly by bringing in more people. The more people there are, the more harm an ecosystem will suffer.  The Belem airport is being expanded, new hotels are under construction and the port is being redeveloped to accommodate cruise ships. 

Like unloading a 1,000 people off a cruise ship into the Amazon, or at least near it, won't harm anything. Jeez! 

As usual, it's the locals who depend on the rain forest that got screwed the most. 

People who live adjacent to the new highway so they weren't compensated for land takings. They also fear the  highway will cause an explosion of new development like warehouses, stores, gas stations and such that would mow down much more of the rain forest. 

As the BBC reports, the road would leave two disconnected areas of protected forests, fragmenting the ecosystem and disrupting the movement of wildlife.

The bottom line:

We're having a big UN conference to combat climate change. And we're flying thousands of people from all over the world to the Amazon to attend this conference. I'm not advocating a ban of air travel, but airliners are a major contributor to climate change, so there's that.

Then, we're cutting a major highway through the Amazon, which is essential a large part of the Earth's lungs. The Amazon is a major natural ally against climate change because it absorbs huge amounts of carbon dioxide.

So, the solution is to cut down some of the Amazon to bloviate about climate change in political setting.

It makes no sense.  

Amazon Won't Build Storm Shelters In Warehouses

This Amazon warehouse in Edwardsville, Illinois was
destroyed by a December 10, 2021 tornado, killing 6
people, This tragedy is prompting debate on'
tornado safety in structures like this 

In the wake of a 2021 tornado that killed six workers at an Amazon warehouse in Illinois, the giant firm said they will not construct special tornado safe rooms in their warehouse. 

As CNBC reports, this comes in response to inquiries from Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY and Rep. Cori Bush, D-MO seeking more information on Amazon's plans to rebuild the Edwardsville, Illinois warehouse and questioning why it didn't have a safe room or storm shelter on site.  

Buildings like warehouse, gymnasiums, large school cafeterias, shopping malls and big box retail stores are especially dangerous in tornadoes. Their roofs are supported only by exterior walls, so these structure are prone to collapse in tornadoes and other severe storms.

True to form, the December 10, 2021 tornado in Edwardsville caused much of the Amazon warehouse roof to fall in, which in turn caused the building's 11-inch thick exterior walls to collapse inward. That's what killed the six workers. 

The walls collapsed onto a rest room where the six workers tried to take shelter. Other workers who fled to a designated storm safe room survived. the lawmakers. 

The Amazon warehouse tornado in Edwardville, Illinois on December 10, 2021 was part of a large outbreak of twisters that put the spotlight on tornado workplace safety. 

An even larger, more powerful tornado struck the town of Mayfield, Kentucky that night.  That long-tracked tornado killed 76 people, including nine people who were working at a candle factory in Mayfield. 

Shortly after the tornado, workers at the Mayfield factory said managers did not allow them to leave the facility ahead of the tornado to seek safer shelters in the basements of their nearby homes. 

Lawmakers and safety advocates are still thinking about tornado safety in warehouses and similar structures, which prompted the recent letter from 

According to CNBC:

"Amazon said in its responses that it follows guidelines from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the National Weather Service, and will continue to maintain a severe weather assembly area for workers to shelter in place. 

OSHA guidelines say that basements, storm cellars or small interior rooms provide the best protection from a tornado. But the federal government doesn't require specially built storm shelters in warehouses." 

For what it's worth, OSHA finished an investigation into the Amazon tornado deaths last April. The agency did not levy any fines or penalties against Amazon. They did order it review its severe weather policies. 

CNBC said that after the fatal tornado, Amazon hired a meteorologist, created new emergency badge cards informing workers of evacuation points and assembly areas, and launched an internal center for monitoring and communication severe weather.

The lawmakers who wrote to Amazon are still dissatisfied. 

"Amazon's apparent unwillingness to invest in a storm shelter or safe room at its Edwardsville facility is made even worse concerning by the fact that installing one could be done by Amazon at relatively low cost," they wrote. 

Generally speaking, states and the federal government don't require special tornado safety rooms in warehouses.

Still, the December, 2021 tornado deaths at the Amazon warehouse are prompting renewed interest in storm safety in this type of building. 

A task force in Illinois is about to start work on recommendations for these facilities, according to St. Louis Public Radio. 

"The fact that we had such a tragic result makes me wonder if we don't need to look at those building codes and see that maybe Illinois needs to go above and beyond what's already expected," said Illinois State Rep. Katie Stuart, D-Edwardsville, as STLPR reports.

Stuart will be among those sitting on the task force, which is due to issue its final report by January 1, 2025.

Amazon is facing lawsuits over the tornado deaths in the Edwardsville warehouse. That structure is currently being rebuilt. 

 

Update To December Tornadoes: Mayfield Candle Factory Won't Reopen; Lawsuit Against Amazon

Destroyed candle factory in Mayfield, Kentucky after the 
huge December tornado. Company officials announced they
won't rebuild in Mayfield, causing a loss of about
 250 jobs. 

 The tornado-devastated city of Mayfield, Kentucky too another blow recently when the people that run the candle factory destroyed by the December 10 twister won't rebuild or reopen.

That means 250 or so people have lost their jobs.  

Mayfield was probably the hardest hit community in an unprecedented December tornado outbreak that killed 76 people in Kentucky and surrounding states.Mayfield's downtown was destroyed, as was the candle factory where dozens of people were working when the tornado struck. 

The candle factory has about 500 employees. About 250 employees will be transferred to a new candle plant in nearby Hickory, Kentucky.  Company officials told the Louisville Courier Journal that they would like to hire everybody back eventually, but didn't know when that might happen, NBC News reports.

Nine of the 100 or so people working at the candle factory died when the tornado leveled the manufacturing plant. Managers of the plant came under fire after employees said they were not allowed to leave and find better shelter in the hours leading up to the tornado. 

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear has said the state has launched an investigation into the reports that employees were threatened with being fired if they left in advance of the tornado. 

Workers who made these claims have sued the factory operators, saying keeping the workers at the doomed factory failed to "provide a workplace free from serious recognized hazards," as required by Kentucky law, reports Kentucky.com.

AMAZON TORNADO LAWSUIT

Amazon warehouse destroyed by a tornado on December 10,
2021 killing six people. The estate of one of those killed is
suing Amazon citing unsafe working conditions during
the tornado emergency. 

Meanwhile, the family of one of six people who died on December 10 at an Illinois Amazon warehouse when another tornado struck has filed suit against the online giant. 

According to Reuters, the family of driver Austin McEwen, 26, filed the lawsuit, alleging that Amazon knew conditions were "highly unsafe as tornado warnings had been issued' but company officials "rolled the dice with peoples' lives to put profit over safety," said the family's attorney, Jack J. Casciato.    

The lawsuit is for multi millions of dollars, Casciato said.

Amazon officials deny the allegations, saying their building was built to code and employees were moved to safer areas when tornado warnings were issued.

Other Amazon employees dispute Amazon's attention to safety.  In December one driver told news media she was out making deliveries when tornado sirens began to wail. She asked to return to the warehouse but the manager told her to keep delivering or lose her job. This, despite the obvious danger of driving in an area under an active tornado warning. 

These two updates show that the immediate aftermath of a tornado, or any other big disaster is not the end of the story. It's just the beginning of it. For tornado victims, there will be plenty of twists and turns down the road. Many of these twists and turns will probably be painful. 

 

Tornadoes Highlight Workplace Safety, Or Lack Thereof, In Weather Emergencies

Remains of the candle factory in Mayfield, Kentucky 
after this month's tornado.  Was worker safety compromised
by managers not allowing employees to leave to 
find safer shelter?

Deaths at a candle factory in Mayfield Kentucky and at an Amazon warehouse in Edwardsville, Illinois during the big tornado outbreak earlier this month has put a spotlight on how workplaces deal with weather crises like tornadoes.  

Or not deal with them.  Worker safety during severe weather events seems not to be a priority. 

There' is admittedly s a lot of conflicting information and questions about how managers at the two devastated workplaces dealt with the oncoming disaster they faced on December 10.  It does seem like more could have been done to protect workers.  

At least eight people, possibly more, died during the tornado in the Mayfield Consumer Products factory. Six died when a tornado ripped apart the Amazon warehouse in Edwardsville.  There's also disturbing news of an Amazon delivery driver being ordered to continue her route despite tornado sirens going off around her, or she'd lose her job.

It became apparent at least a couple hours beforehand that Mayfield might be on trouble, given the path of a dangerous supercell and tornado originating in Arkansas. 

According to NBC News, workers were told they'd be fired if they left.

'"For hours, as word of the coming storm spread, as many as 15 workers beseeched managers to let them take shelter at their own homes, only to have their requests rebuffed, the worker said. Fearing for their safety, some left during their shifts regardless of the repercussions."

Around 5:30 p.m. that day, tornado warnings went off around Mayfield. That warning turned out to be a false alarm. But it prompted employees to request going home because of the growing threat of a large, new tornado later that night that would devastate the town and level the factory. 

You don't want to be out driving when a large tornado is nearby, of course. But had people left the factory an hour, two or even three hours before the tornado, they would have had time to access tornado shelters or basements, which are safer than large buildings with free standing roofs, like the candle factory. 

A spokesman for Mayfield Consumer Products has denied the employees' accusations, calling them "absolutely untrue."   Workers there are suing, so I'm sure more information will come out on this. 

In Edwardsville, the Amazon worker in a warehouse near the one that was hit by the tornado said a colleague in the hit warehouse had her phone with her.  That enabled the worker to receive the tornado warning. She said that allowed her to run for shelter. She would not have known the tornado was coming if not for the cell phone warning. 

Amazon, however, takes a dim view of employees having their cell phones with them. 

As NBC News reports: 

"Workers at two neighboring Amazon facilities in Edwardsville, just outside St. Louis, who were also in the path of the tornadoes overnight Friday, said they had little training in preparing for tornadoes and bristled at a company policy that multiple sources have said the company is trying to bring back Jan. 1, which would ban workers from having cellphones at work."

Many if not most people nowadays receive weather warnings via their smart phones. Banning cell phones would leave Amazon workers at the mercy of managers who might or might not hear tornado warnings, or not care enough if a tornado materializes.

NBC also said Amazon workers told them they are expected to work while there are tornado warnings, which is a big no-no. Especially in a building like a huge Amazon warehouse. 

These warehouses are huge and flimsy, without a lot of support beams to support the structures in the extreme winds associated with a tornado. The entire south half of the Edwardsville Amazon warehouse was shredded.

Tornado warnings for Edwardsville were issued at least 20 minutes before the tornado hit. However, Amazon managers either didn't take the warnings seriously, didn't know what to do with them, or more depressingly if true, prioritized production over worker safety.  

As The Intercept reports:

"....messages revealed a communication breakdown in which corporate failed to notify employees about the tornado even as it happened.  The Intercept quoted one employee who said, 'Corporate and IT were troubleshooting network outages and found out the building was hit by a tornado from the media.'"

In other words, if this report is true, the mucky mucks were much more concerned about production problems than dealing with the real danger - the tornado. 

The same day Mayfield was hit, this Edwardsville, Illinois
Amazon distribution center was hit by a tornado, 
killing six workers. Critics are saying that Amazon's
tornado and weather safety protocols are
severely lacking. 

This reading of Amazon managements' dismissive attitude toward employees in danger is also reflected in the tale of an Amazon delivery driver caught out in her truck in worsening weather as tornado sirens blared around her.

Bloomberg offered screen shots of text messages between the driver and managers. I know this is going to help make this post long, but you really need to read the exchanges to see how cavalier Amazon can be with worker safety.

Driver: "Tornado alarms are going off over here."

Dispatch: "Just keep delivering for now. We have to wait for word from Amazon. If we need to bring people back, the decision will ultimately be up to them. I will let you know if the situation changes at all. I'm talking with them now about it."

Driver: "How about for my own personal safety? I'm going to head back. Having alarms going off next to me and nothing but locked buildings around me isn't sheltering in place. That's wanting to turn this van into a casket. Hour left of delivery time. And if you look at the radar, the worst of the storm is going to be right on top of me in 30 minutes."

Dispatch: "If you decided to come back, that choice is yours. But I can tell you it won't be viewed as for your own safety.The safest practice is to stay exactly where you are. If you decide to return with your packages, it will be viewed as you refusing your route, which will ultimately end with you not having a job tomorrow. The sirens are just a warning."

The things the dispatcher said are absolutely astounding. "Sheltering" in a delivery van on a street during a tornado is pretty much the most dangerous thing a person could do.  Flying debris would be a mortal danger to anyone in a van. 

"The sirens are just a warning." ' Well, duh!!!! The sirens are a warning that a tornado is approaching. So they should be disregarded?  And saying that taking basic tornado safety will cost the driver her jo is absolutely beyond the pale. 

What should have happened is the managers should have directed the driver to at least return to the warehouse to go into hopefully a safe room. Even better, the driver should have been instructed to stop, seek a business or home in a well constructed building, and go into a tornado shelter, a basement, or a windowless, interior ground floor room.  I know the driver said there were a lot of locked buildings, but she could have found a safe refuge if she started looking at the moment the tornado sirens went off.

You can see this "profits before people" ethos in other weather safety incidents involving Amazon. Says The Intercept:

In one case earlier this year, an Amazon contractor in southern Illinois sent a letter to Amazon requesting several hours off his shift in preparation for Hurricane Ida. An Amazon seller support manager replied that the contractor's performance would suffer.

'It's important to confirm the shipment of orders by the expected date so that customers can see the status of their shipped orders online,' the manager told the contractor. 'Orders that are ship confirmed late may lead to increased negative claims, negative feedback and/or customer contacts and negatively impact customer."

Amazon's bungling or worse of tornado safety is just more evidence that the behemoth company's culture is to dismiss worker safety.  There's been scandals on high rates of worker injury, inadequate bathroom breaks and lame Covid protocols. 

And heat stroke, to get back to weather hazards. Like during the unprecedented heat wave last June in the Pacific Northwest. 

Gizmodo, quoting the Seattle Times, said "workers at the company's Kent, Washington facility endured near 90 degree heat while some stations pushed employees to work at maximum speed in the unprecedented weather for so-called 'power hours.'

There have been several other complaints of heat, causing worker illness and even deaths at Amazon facilities in Chicago, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania. 

For all the above reasons, I don't do business with Amazon.  I buy my goods directly from retailers and suppliers.

Of course, just one person - me - doesn't make a huge difference and Amazon remains hugely popular with consumers. 

Amazon and other online retailers have "trained" consumers to expect their shipments to arrive at the drop of a hat. I work in customer service for an online retailer, and there is a thankfully small subset of "Karens" who don't give a whit if there's an excellent reason why their order is late, even if that reason is because of a collapsed warehouse or worker deaths. 

Most of us are quite willing to have our packages slightly delayed if it means the driver remains safe from harm. Unfortunately, a minority of consumers think it's worth it for people to die to ensure the tchotchkes they ordered arrive instantaneously.  (These are the same people who protest loudly when a TV station interrupts some dumb show like "The Bachelorette to broadcast tornado warnings).

Social media sites like Twitter and Reddit are rife with stories of bosses and corporations demanding employees show up to work in dangerous weather conditions. 

That has to change. I can see a boss being miffed if an employee won't drive to work in a light snowfall in a northern climate. But it's time to rain hell on employers who insist workers risk their lives in hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, ice storms and other hazardous weather just to raise the bottom line by a few pennies.

This shouldn't be a new Gilded Age. This shouldn't be dystopia. Any employer who risks workers' lives for any reason, including dangerous storms, need to suffer some gawd-awful consequences.