Welcome to Work Climate!
Thank you for being here, let's see what happens.
Turn, turn, turn
This summer, things have felt different. I mean this physically — I just spent two weeks at home in Texas where it was, as was widely reported and complained about, hot. I mean this personally, as I have been scrambling to figure out what I can do as a future lawyer to help ameliorate the impacts of the climate crisis. And I mean this politically, because, for what seems like the first time, the everyday consequences of fossil fuel use — and what we can do about it — have dominated headlines around the country for months.
Soon enough, I expect things to “fall” back to normal: It will no longer be possible to fry an egg outdoors; I will get distracted by on-campus happenings; and climate media will focus in on the frightening absurdities of Republicans retaking the White House. I would like to stick with one part of my summer, though — a fascination, often morbid, with how climate change is affecting the workers of the world, and what we can do about it.
I intend this newsletter to primarily be a way for me to continue learning about this topic, in all its nuanced manifestations, from exploring the maddeningly slow pace of regulatory reforms to combat extreme heat at work to whether influxes of federal money to build out green energy are paired with adequate protections against violations of workers’ rights. I will never claim to be an expert on any of these topics (how lawyerly), but I hope that I can present what I am reading in an engaging, informative manner.
If you have any suggestions for pieces or ways to improve this project, please let me know — creminsdavid@gmail.com. For now, I plan on publishing every other Friday, starting September 1, 2023. Subscribing (free!) would be a great way to help keep me accountable as the hottest summer on record comes to an end and my final, likely madcap, year of law school begins :) Thank you!
More soon. For now, enjoy this photo of a cool tractor-covered-in-living-things sculpture I saw at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston; it felt resonant.
Arbol de la vida — John Deere Tractor Model #790 — Margarita Cabrera