Two of the world’s largest democracies are holding elections this week. Mexico will probably elect its first female president, as wannabe leaders from two parties are both ahead in the polls. The eight million plus Mexicans living abroad will be able to vote electronically, and in a nation where the popular vote is the one that counts, all predictions are questionable.
An estimated 970 million people in India are eligible to vote. The last of seven phases ends June 1; results are to be announced on June 4. All 543 seats of the Lok Sabha (lower house of parliament) are up for grabs, and prime minister Narendra Modi is widely expected to win a third consecutive term.
Elections aren’t the only thing these nations have in common. Both have been sitting under a heat dome for weeks, with election officials attempting to provide some relief for people coming out to vote in 110 degree plus conditions.
Gallinas, Mexico set a new continental (as in North America) record for high temperature, reaching 124.7 degrees on May 7. At least ten cities in Mexico have registered their hottest day on record during May..
Between May 12 and May 21, Mexican authorities say 22 people died from heat-related causes, adding to a total of 48 deaths since March 17. In comparison, during the same period in 2022 and 2023, heat waves claimed the lives of two and three people, respectively. The ongoing third heat wave in Mexico is part of five predicted from March to July.
Mile and a half high Mexico City (the most populous city in North America) has been seeing temperatures in the 90s. Most of the metropolitan area's 21 million residents - accustomed to more temperate weather - lack air conditioning.
The Mexican capital is also running out of drinking water, caused by El Nino, decayed infrastructure, and climate change. Wildfires raging in the western part of Mexico have contributed to dangerously high levels of ash particles and ozone,
From the Associated Press:
In recent months, residents of some Mexico City neighborhoods have regularly taken to forming human chains to block boulevards to demand water. In April, complaints about contaminated water sparked a weeks-long crisis in one upscale neighborhood.
Normally, police seek to redirect traffic, but on Wednesday some officers were themselves manning a protest blockade, near the capital’s iconic Independence Monument. The officers stood blocking six lanes of traffic, saying their barracks hadn’t had water for a week, and that the bathrooms were unusable.
“We don't have water in the bathrooms,” said one female officer who would not give her name for fear of reprisals, adding that conditions in the barracks were intolerable. “They make us sleep on the floor,” she said.
Meanwhile, House Republicans are demanding Mexico provide the United States with the level of water it agreed to as part of a 1944 treaty.
Via Newsweek:
Speaking in the House on Wednesday, Representative Monica De La Cruz said Secretary of State Antony Blinken needs to do more to get Mexico to honor the agreement, commenting: "We need to use every tool that we have available to force Mexico to abide by the treaty. We want our water. We demand our water."
Under the 1944 Mexico-United States Water Treaty, formally known as the "Treaty on the Utilization of Waters of the Colorado and Tijuana Rivers and of the Rio Grande," Mexico is obliged to provide the U.S. with an average of 350,000 acre-feet of water per year over a five-year period.
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Meanwhile, northern India is seeing a prolonged heatwave that has thrown normal life out of gear. Temperatures last week soared beyond 113 degrees in many states and with 120 degrees recorded in Rajasthan state's Barmer city.
Several regions are facing water and electricity shortages due to spikes in power consumption.
Via Reuters:
At a school in the Trilokpuri area that was being used for polling, sheets and tarpaulin were strung up in the courtyard to provide shade to voters queuing up despite the heat.
"If we sit at home saying it is hot outside, who will vote?" said housewife Bhuwneshwari Pillai, 32, fanning herself with a sheet of paper and mopping her brow with a towel.
In some parts of the northern state of Haryana, people living near polling booths also pitched in to help voters beat the heat, handing out free cold drinks and dried fruits.
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The North American heat dome is bringing high temperatures to the southern part of Texas.
From Axios:
Parts of South Texas and southern Florida could see "extreme" heat risk conditions over the coming days, with expected highs near 100°F and heat indices of 110°F or above, Axios' Andrew Freedman reports.
The heat will bring triple-digit temperatures to some areas of the country around a full month earlier than average.
It will also arrive after parts of Texas, particularly the Houston area, were hit by a severe windstorm last week that was tied to a record-shattering heat wave over Central America.
Those fires threatening Mexico City may also appear in the US. Four million people are under alerts for critical fire weather conditions across the high and southern Plains from Colorado to Texas, including Albuquerque and Santa Fe, New Mexico, and El Paso, Texas.
While the southmost regions of the US are being baked, the heat dome’s northern edge is butting up against a poll of cooler air streaming in from the Pacific Northwest. Areas along this boundary are seeing severe weather, including thunderstorms, hail, high winds and tornadoes.
On Saturday (May 25) night, federal forecasters had issued tornado watches and warnings for parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri and Kansas.
From NBC News:
Five people died in Texas, two in Oklahoma, and another in Arkansas overnight after violent storms and tornadoes swept through the region, overturning trucks, smashing homes and trapping dozens in a collapsed gas station.
Cooke County Sheriff Ray Sappington told NBC News early Sunday that five people died in the Texas community some 50 miles north of Dallas. Between 60 and 80 people were believed to be trapped in a Shell station that had collapsed, he added.
In Tulsa, Oklahoma, the weather service said radar had confirmed multiple tornadoes and hail 2 inches in diameter. Two people were killed in nearby Mayes County and at least six others taken for treatment, said Michael Dunham, deputy director of emergency management for Mayes County.
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The switch from El Niño to La Niña weather patterns is the basis for long range predictions of record high temperatures throughout most of the continental United States.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration projects that “it is virtually certain” that 2024 will rank among the 10 warmest years on record and gives 2024 a 55 percent chance of topping 2023 as the warmest year.
It’s estimated that 2,300 people in the United States died from heat-related illness in 2023, three times the annual average between 2004 and 2018. Researchers say all those figures are probably undercounts, in part because of how causes of death are reported on death certificates.
The Biden administration has been crafting new workplace regulations regarding precautions large employers should be expected to take. Corporate lobbyists are expected to work to tank the rules and a Trump administration is virtually guaranteed to toss them out, along with the Office of Climate Change and Health Equity, which would provide oversight.
From the New York Times:
The White House has pushed officials at the Labor Department, which oversees OSHA, to publish a draft heat rule this summer. But even if that happens, it is unlikely to be finalized this year and faces broad opposition from industry groups that say new regulations would be unreasonably complicated and expensive.
Marc Freedman, a vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the country’s largest business lobbying group, wrote that such a rule would present huge challenges for employers and that “it is extraordinarily difficult for them to determine when heat presents a hazard because each employee experiences heat differently.” Mr. Freeman said the unpredictable nature of heat creates “a substantial barrier to efforts to determine when employees require protection.”
The rule, which would set clearer standards for employers, would most likely include two heat index thresholds, one at 80 degrees Fahrenheit and the other at 90 degrees, for worker protections in both outdoor and indoor settings, according to an outline that OSHA officials presented in late April. The heat index is a measure of how hot it really feels outside, factoring in humidity and other factors along with the temperature.
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This summer will be a testament to just how far down the world has gone when it comes to corporate greed and individual selfishness. We’ll be luckier than most for the short term in San Diego as far as sustained heat waves go. Our risks are more likely to be long term, like rising sea levels and increasingly intense rain storms.
About 3.2 million Americans have moved in the recent past due to the mounting risk of flooding, according to a First Street Foundation report focusing on so-called "climate abandonment areas," or locations where the local population fell between 2000 and 2020 because of risks linked to climate change.
Sadly, politicians like Supervisor Jim Desmond will play the “wink, wink” racism card as desperate people driven from their homes by drought and starvation come to our border looking for a place to survive.