Yesterday we posted “Climate Change is Deadly”: it focused on the human toll of increased temperatures. Today’s article in Politico:
‘Just brutal’: Why America’s hottest city is seeing a surge in deaths
, while even more focused on the human disaster got me thinking about the secondary and tertiary effects of climate change on business.
What happens to your business when it is simply too hot to go outdoors? Will people stop going to brick and mortar stores because they don’t want to get into a scalding hot car? Will our lives shift to after sunset because life is more tolerable at night? Will there be an exodus from the sunbelt to cooler climes, reversing several decades of relocation? How are you planning for the reduction in productivity that accompanies hot weather?
What does this mean for hiring people? Can you even hire people for outdoor jobs during the day? A couple of years back we had a large project that needed construction of several 30 million gallon tanks in North Carolina in the Summer. It was simply too hot to work. We shifted our labor schedule to 3 AM to 10 AM. It’s even hotter today.
People are business and extreme weather affects people. Planning for climate change is more than understanding how climate change will affect your operations, you need to consider how climate change will affect your customers.