Student scores, labour productivity dip with rising temp

By the end of this century, sea levels will be a foot higher than in 2000. The average person is 31 years old today, and given that global life expectancy is 73.5 years, they may be dead by 2068. So, why should we worry? Didn’t Keynes say, “The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs”?

But climate change is affecting us now. It has a bearing on your mood, your income, your children’s grades. University of Pennsylvania economist R Jisung Park drives home these points in his book Slow Burn. Take income first. It’s an acknowledged fact that income inequality is rising. The rich – who live, travel and work in air conditioned spaces – are getting richer, but the poor have stagnated in a hot and sweaty place. A study by University of Chicago economists found that worker productivity in India declined 2-4% for every degree Celsius rise in temperature above the comfortable level. If the “mean temperature” at the workplace crossed 25℃ – which could mean day temperature of 30℃ and night temperature of 20℃ – output fell 32%, or almost a third.

Now, people who make bricks, weave cloth, etc, get paid per piece of product made, so while they suffer in the heat, their daily earnings drop. That’s not fair, but they can’t stop working because they aren’t qualified for white-collar work. Their children could break out with good education, but as Park shows with data, heat is making this harder.