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Slow Burn
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Slow Burn

The Hidden Costs of a Warming World

R. Jisung Park
Princeton UP, 2024
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Editorial Rating

9

Qualities

  • Comprehensive
  • Scientific
  • Eye Opening

Recommendation

Thinking “statistically” — rather than relying on apocalyptic headlines, personal experience, or intuition — is vital if humanity wants to mitigate the harms of climate change, economist R. Jisung Park writes. There are many subtle ways that a slowly warming planet affects social and economic well-being, including reduced learning outcomes, lower productivity, and exacerbated socioeconomic inequity. Problem-solvers and policymakers must consider these less catastrophic “hidden costs” and seek locally focused solutions that allow people to adapt to a slowly warming planet.

Summary

Don’t just focus on the existential risks of climate change — address non-catastrophic effects, too.

While those working toward climate change solutions across industries and sectors tend to focus on headline-making existential threats, humanity must also find solutions for the less catastrophic “hidden costs” of a warming planet. Many threats to human well-being will arise long before any apocalyptic scenario plays out, including a nearly imperceptible elevation of global health risks; the erosion of livelihoods in coastal and agricultural communities; a decline in learning outcomes; and lower productivity.

Mitigating the subtler, often human, costs of climate change requires addressing systemic economic and social vulnerabilities and reconsidering the organization of real estate and labor markets. It also requires ensuring people have access to social safety nets, which involves mobilizing economic support for nations with less wealth. Eighty-six percent of CEOs and CFOs at the world’s largest companies agree that addressing the risks posed by climate change is important, yet 77% admit that their...

About the Author

R. Jisung Park is a labor and environmental economist, and an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He has also worked as a Harvard postdoctoral fellow and a UCLA faculty member.

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