From the Strait of Hormuz, to the back seat of an Uber-ride in Jo'burg - a story about the geo-politics of energy, and the daily grind of extreme heat:
Uber drivers have been hit hard by fuel price increases, stoked by the illegal US war against Iran. Drivers have to fill their tanks out of their own pockets. But while their costs are going up, Uber is dropping prices to woo more customers.
After a fortnight of being ferried around Joburg by Uber drivers, this is what drivers are saying.
One estimates he’s losing a third of his income to fuel hikes. In the run-up to the US mid-terms, their collective hope was that Trump would lose his footing and there would be some kind of course-correction that'd bring down prices again.
The other hot topic (sorry!): this infernal heat. Damn, this isn’t normal, they say. El Nino, one said. He’s not wrong. Drivers don’t automatically put on the aircon, though, because it pushes up fuel consumption. They’ll only use it if a client has asked for it through the app which builds an extra fee into the tariff.
One driver says he’s adapted his driving hours to accommodate the heat — driving earlier and later in the day, hiding from the heat over lunchtime. Another driver found this clever solution. Two hundred bucks, or so, he said.
Story Ark dropped anchor in Jo'burg to do a deep-dive into the impact of extreme heat on people living and working in informal contexts (this time, looking at the impact for pregnant mothers and their newborns, and at people working in the informal waste collection sector). Also had the opportunity to attend a superb journalism training workshop on how to report effectively on extreme heat, offered by HERA.