Heat Waves Rock Businesses To Their Core.
Multiply them by millions to understand approximately the financial toll this brutal summer of heat, fires, smoke and storms has taken on businesses and households around the world. This July was the hottest month on record in the contiguous United States, according to federal data, and Western Europe experienced its hottest June-to-July average ever recorded.
Economists have long studied the worsening impact of climate change on economic growth, inflation and employment. Most estimates for damage caused to date have been moderate, while projections for damage over the long run become more drastic. But the past year has delivered climate-related shocks that are becoming impossible for businesses to avoid.
“Without these reoccurring annual events, it’s easy to say, ‘It’s part of our enterprise risk-management system, so we’re going to get to this,’” said Alexander Heil, a climate-focused economist at the Conference Board. “Nothing focuses the attention more than an emergency.” By Lydia DePillis, New York Times
Similar to inflation there is no escaping the rigors of a rapidly warming climate. It affects everyone from coast to coast and around the Globe in ways many never contemplated. The rising temps could cause increasingly perilous food supplies to become even more uncertain among many other ramifications that are becoming more apparent daily. The answer is to reduce fossil fuel use but doing so has proven far more perilous than ever imagined.
