They interview residents about working conditions and their health as it relates to pollution and toxins they are exposed to in their community and at work. They’re exposed to these temperatures from sunup to sundown.” Valley Onward employees Maria Alapizco (left) and Antonia Sierra Martínez walk to a home in Gustine to speak with a resident. “It’s sad, because here in the valley, most of our people work outside in the fields. “How is it possible that we’re living through such a drastic increase in heat?” asked Sierra Martínez. In 2021, Fresno had a record-breaking 69 days where temperatures exceeded 100 degrees. And as the weather heats up, the air quality gets worse.Ĭlimate change from carbon emissions is making the valley hotter (PDF). Sierra Martínez told me that she’d developed asthma, too, after moving to Gustine from Mexico to be with her farmworker husband.Įven without wildfires, the San Joaquin Valley has some of the worst pollution in the nation (PDF). “I felt better when the air was cleaner - and when it was harder to breathe, I knew the air was more polluted.” Rising temperatures, rising risks “For example, did you listen to the radio or use an app?” “How did you track whether the air quality was getting better or worse?” Sierra Martínez asked. “It felt like I was gasping for air inside a plastic bag.” “Yes, my asthma - my breathing - was most affected,” said Sierra, recalling the fire in 2020. Valley Onward employees Antonia Sierra Martínez (center) and Maria Alapizco (right) speak with José Federico Sierra (far right) at the farm where he works in Gustine while his son, Axel, 12, listens. Even as summer temperatures hit triple digits and the threat of wildfires is ever present, some rural communities are still recovering from last winter’s catastrophic floods. In California’s Central Valley, climate change is making conditions increasingly dangerous for the state’s farmworkers, whose jobs keep them outdoors all day.
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