Slow Burn : The Hidden Costs of a Warming World

Thinking about climate change, many of us picture the catastrophic effects that the science has shown are sure to come if we don't act, and we often hear that global temperatures are rising at increasing and alarming rates. While those trends of rising temperatures will certainly bring about catastrophe if allowed to continue, they are also already having devastating effects right now. This book will focus on the economic implications of heat events happening now, and the warming that is already certain to come over the next 20 to 30 years. The book will focus on the hidden inequalities that have for long lain in plain sight: the way a heat wave, for instance, may barely be noticed by most office workers but pose potentially life-threatening risks for landscapers and construction crews, even within the same zip code. Economist Jisung Park argues that what's missing in the debate on climate change are answers to more practical questions: what climate change means for us and for our children, for the opportunities and livelihoods of our neighbors and friends, not 100 years from now, but right now. In his research, Park has quantified effects such as how when you take an exam on a 90 degree day in a building without working air conditioning, you will likely perform 10% to 15% worse than you would have on a day in the 60s; how if your job involves working outdoors, you're 5% to 10% more likely to experience a serious injury at work if the temperature is above 95 degrees; how the returns on your retirement fund can fluctuate quarter to quarter depending on the number of heat waves in China or the temperature in lower Manhattan; and how trends in criminal activity and policing behavior in your neighborhood worsen on a hot day. The book will argue that our collective discourse around climate change appears to be leaving out a crucial if seemingly commonplace factor: the subtle yet pervasive effects of heat on everyday people doing everyday things. It will paint a picture of climate change as the silent accumulation of a thousand tiny burns, and an amplifier of underlying inequality; less an impending cardiac arrest for civilization but more a chronic and gradually intensifying inflammation for society's have-nots."--

Author: R. Jisung Park

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Publication Date: Apr 09, 2024

Number of Pages: 336 pages

Language: English

Binding: Hardcover

ISBN-10: 0691221030

ISBN-13: 9780691221038