What does Malcolm Gladwell think about staying in the same profession, your whole career? There is a very large and underestimated risk in not changing your career trajectory. That was his advice on my podcast, the next chapter by american express business class. I am cardiff, garcia and this season I sit down with best selling authors, including james, clear julie, Zhu David Epstein, to discuss business lessons from their books what they would write for their next chapter, listen to the next chapter by american express business class. Wherever you get your podcasts.

from the new york times. I'm sabrina, tavern, you seen the summer and unrelenting heat wave, has taken a devastating toll and is put this year on track to be the hottest ever recorded today. My colleagues, coral davenport emptiness smith on what it means to live in this new normal, where extreme heat now threatens our way of life and even our very lives. The it's thursday august, tenth. you're welcome back to the show. I I'm so happy to be back with you guys so called you cover climate change in climate policy. For the times, and of course, this summer there's been this intense heat wave going on for weeks and weeks, soaring

your visits, even some deaths, you set out to understand something quite different about the extreme heat, its economic cost. It tell me about it. So yeah, I'm kind of obsessed with being able to put a price tag. I and the cost of key a change to the economy, to people's pocketbooks. What is the effect of heat on how much work gets done. In the united states on worker productivity, I how much work is lost on how much pay is lost in a sort of like I'm a climate, economic, detective and coral. Why were you obsessed by this question? Well, you know, I think that, a lot of people when they hear about climate change, its justice giant the essential threats- and it's sort of her to wrap your head around in a sort of hard to wrap your head or on what to do about it, but when it six spleen

in terms of something that absolutely everyone understand which is dollars. Incense and any specific cost You are an employer in you understand that extreme he caused by climate change is actually costing you her hours or increasing the amount of workers comp that you have to pay or if you are a worker an you understand that its low, in your peril or that you just can't do your job as well, so many ways. I think this makes it very tangible in specific anything, you can put a price tag on think, americans understand. More clearly. Ok, see. You went out to do this economic detective work with with the effects of climate change. What did you find so far sabrina I'm going to tell you what I thought I would find, okay, which is something that I think a lot of you know. Readers of the times and listeners to the daily would expect, which is like, of course, when it's hot people work less, but the workers who are affected are outdoor workers. I mean that's all,

a straight white, male men, construction, workers, farm workers. Right, yes- and you know- medical researchers have known for years that when people are workers are exposed to heat, they make more mistakes. They think less clearly they more slowly. They have more injuries. So I really thought this was going to be a story focused on nor workers, and that we may regional pitch showing Construction workers are working lesson there having more job injuries and what I found is that there is a lot of new egon big data showing that he does hurt out workers its lowering our worker productivity, but the bigger effect on the economy in the united states is actually on indoor workers ha. It is affecting so much more of the inner economy than we really understood and coral. Why is that it's kind of surprising right. You really do think of foreign workers, a construction workers. In my mind, people inside really wouldn't be affected as much. So why is the bigger impact with indoor workers

so a couple of reasons. One simple one is that in the united states there are far far far more indoor workers, so and if not as many of them, are being as affected by heat. The? U s fundamentally in agricultural economy right. We are much more in indoor, we are in industrial economy, so that makes sense, but the number two is theirs so many more indoor workers are exposed to extreme? He, particularly now as we are having more extreme heat than I understood. One big exam, that was very surprising to me. Many many many factories and the united states are not air conditioner, interesting and there's. A couple of since, for that a lot of factories, belle thirty, forty years ago, at a time the climate was different. You know when, in areas like ohio or michigan, or you know, parts of the country where you wouldn't I need air conditioning in a factory,

you know, maybe workers would have to guide it out for like a week each summer, when you know you'd have away of hot temperatures, but it wouldn't be typical have days and days or weeks and weeks or ito. Many many days with temperatures over five or ninety degrees. Now that that is happening inside of those factories. Workers are consistently exe rinsing days where there actually working in conditions over ninety and a hundred degrees, and I'm talking about michigan, ohio, Oklahoma, kansas. You know parts of the country where work. going to work their working indoors and there really really hot wow interesting call. I want to talk about the workplaces in what the action fact- has been on workers, but before we get to that you tell me what the total effect is to the economy like in actual dollars like what are we looking at here sure so there studies on this. One study shows that right,

now in the united states as a direct result of heat, the? U s is losing about two and a half billion hours of work per year, well. That translates as study found into about a hunter, billion dollars of economic loss per year and projects. Would go up to about five hundred billion dollars a year by the middle of the century. There's you know a pretty clear price tag, and I should say that Economists who work on these numbers, its knew to be putting these precise and they say if anything these are probably under counts, under estimates of what this price tag of losses, two hundred billion going Five hundred billion dollars in loss- that's pretty dramatic. I mean that is a chunk of change, even in context of federal budgets and a big ticket items like that. So Let's dig into this: what's causing this economic hit associated with extreme eat like it's that number made up of short suggests. sort of really like dollar,

sounds employer corporate about it. Those Our losses are about, specifically the loss of worker productivity. That means that humans, dont function well in heat, when they are hot. They were more slowly. They make more mistakes, they need to take more breaks and something that is new now is that research, fears have been able to quantify how much less they work when they are exposed to certain amounts of heat. So there's a new study that shows when work We are working in ninety degree, heed their pro, Tv drops twenty five percent twenty five percent and when they are exposed to heed of over a hundred degrees, their power activity, drop, seventy percent wow you're only really working at like thirty percent capacity when its hundred degrees, yes exactly I mean it's kind of amazing that there actually able to put a price tag on it. What are some examples of

we mean when we talk about productivity, going down like from the lives of workers, sure. So I talked to a lot of workers for the story. People who work in different kinds of indoor and outdoor environments, and it's pretty simple. You know the workers who who are getting hot they're getting exhausted or sick. So they need more breaks. They need more time off in some he says when the heat is too much. The work just doesn't get done at all. It gets postponed when they get dizzy or can't think clearly there more accidents there more mistakes and so there is less work, getting done less hours being completed morbid smart, more time off and more mistakes, and I talked to factory managers. I talked to people who work in warehouses who say in some cases we just need to let people leave work early or

you know we can tell if people have heat exhaustion, that they should not come to work for a day or two. All of that is what sponsible employers should be doing it also Instead, less work gets done bright like we're not to work in that kind of heat right exactly and is to minimise the effects? beyond productivity, go beyond lost working hours. I talked to workers in a meat packing plant in Kansas, who about how this is a part of the country that expired, thing so much more heat than usual. The workers inside plan are getting exposed to so much more heat and they describe gobbles flagging up not being able. To see clearly and win that insistently happens. A lot of these workers said you know, there's a huge risk for food contamination for meat contamination when we're so hot, and we can even see to do our job here in one of the workers specifically described we're working with carcasses and manure

flung manure came again in the meat. If you can't see You're doing in your so hot. You can't think straight something else. I heard from a lot of factories. Alot of plants is much higher turnover. much higher percentages of people leaving and fewer people wanting take the jobs where they would be exposed to heat interesting. So when the cost in terms of productivity, which I assume companies understand in a kind of trying to think about, to mention, of course, basic human decency having a sea when it's a hundred degrees Why have employers Ben allowing their facilities to get so hot? No again one of the sort of big eye opening moments for me and reporting. The story was specifically discovering how many factories and Sort of indoor industrial facilities in the united states are not air conditioned again in part, because many of them, are decades old, built in places.

and at times where we did not consistently experience so much extreme. He so it wasn't nessus and then now it is wildly expensive too, install cooling units in gigantic industrial facilities. I'm talking hundreds of millions of dollars and so for the story. We did talk to a school ass manufacturing plant in tulsa and this the place that makes most of the year school buses. We see you ask where the workers, consistently working at over ninety degrees and decide to go ahead and install a hundred million dollar cooling system. But that's that's a really hard chapter eight, I think for a lot of companies, especially if you're not sort of a gigantic national company rightly you're a tiny moment, business, the expense might just be too much to bear exactly, and so I think

This is genuinely a set of costs that employers have to look at our looking across the country. There saying you know on one side we're losing worker. activity were losing. Worker hours, paying more workers, cobb we're having too clothes on super high days. All of that is like a really clear laws. One side of ledger on the other side is well. You know do I invest? a hundred million dollars on indoor cooling or do I just the head in productivity, but can employers just do that like ignore what he is doing to their work? worse, like aren't there rules about that in most the country, there are no rules about that again soon. Getting to the point that this is really a new experience for workers for employees For the economy, this level of exposure to heat so right now no ocean

which is the federal agency that regulates workplace safety and has many many rules in place. For a time limits on work and for safety and for exposure to all kinds of hazardous conditions, ocean now, there's no federal regulation that protects workers from exposure to heed or compels employers to protect their workers made exposure? There are seven states currently that have signed kind of state level regulation but nothing in place at the national level right or Where is trying to make some given our new heat reality. Yes, the Biden administration has directed OSHA to begin the process of crafting new federal regulations on heat and worker exposure this is very new. This process. It could as long as ten years? This is a their thing. I was surprised to learn when I did. This reporting is just how long it can actually take to write

national workplace safety regulations, the station is in a wide osha is working on, is expected to set some kind of, standards in a workers who are working over a certain temperature or exposed certain temperatures for a certain amount of time must be given breaks must be given water, indoor workplaces, Workers are exposed to heed, may need to install air conditioning that sort of the expected standard that were likely to see from this, but that could be years away in in time. There are a lot of business groups that are coming out and say: Hey. We don't want to see this. This could be too expensive. We can figure this out ourselves. This is burdensome government regulation right, but given our new heat reality. Do we something has to change well,

I mean it's changing already rate workers are already suffering we're already taking the economic head. Someone who I interviewed and reporting this story was a former senior official at OSHA who said this is going to cost a lot, no matter what either employers are going to have to incorporate these new cos. You know installing cooling, giving a lot more breaks, all the other costs that they will have to pay to protect their workers in the new world of heat, and it's going to cost them a lot, and if they don't pay it, then we're going to see workers die. Coral. Thank you. It was great to be with you sabrina, after the break what extreme heat actually does to the body we write back.

Hi, I'm megan laura the director of photography at the new york times. A photograph can do a lot of different things. It can connect us. It can bring us to places we ve never been before it can capture a story, any universal visual language, but one thing that all these photographs have in common is that you know they don't just come out of the ether. We spend a lot of time, anticipating news stories working with the best photographers across the globe. These are photographers who have spent years mastering their technical craft developing their skills as visual chroniclers of our world. You know getting certified as a scuba, diver and learning how to shoot underwater or to document climate change or tremendous cardiovascular training in order to ski on the slopes next to the limping athletes. This is an effort that takes tons of time and consideration and resources. All of this is possible only because of new york times subscribers, if you're not a subscriber. Yet you can become one at and why times, dot com slash subscribe.

There is no end in sight to a dangerous heatwave around a hundred million americans under excessive heat alerts this morning to know Paso texas temperatures have hit a hundred for forty three straight days, while phoenix arizona has seen a scorching, a hundred and ten degrees. For nearly thirty days in a row, he may have led to the death of a local man and death valley. The seventy one year old, from los angeles, collapsed outside a restroom yesterday, when the temperature was a hundred and twenty one degrees, and we ve learned the letter, terrier dog tuesday, will walk. It is wrong to Dallas texas inmates are dying in sweltering prisons. At least nine inmates have died since the relentless heat wave has gripped taxes as July. Eleven twelve people have died due to heat with fifty five additional new numbers released by maricopa county reveal so far this year, twenty five people have died from our relentless he town tracking thirty nine hate related death this summer, with more than three hundred cases, still waiting on confirmation that medical examiner is telling errors on his family. We are on track to have a record summer for deadly heat.

Dana welcome to the show, thanks for having me so data. We judge heard from our colleague coral davenport, about the economic effects of heat course that has everything to do with how heat affects people and their bodies, and I Everybody has a kind of basic understanding that he can be bad, but I dont think people really understand how, like the science of it like what actually happens to our bodies in extreme heat. So tell me about that yeah a lot of people think of heat as an annoyance. I grew up in north carolina where it is famously hot and human in the summers and it's kind of a pain, but you don't think that its deadly, but I what is there a real surprise? Her people is that heat is actually the number one cause of death when it comes extreme weather events. So it really is a very serious thing that we have to account. especially now with a warming planet, the number one cause of weather, related deaths like more than hurricanes or floods. Yes, that's right.

It is the number one cause of death it's to weather related events. Is heat amazing. So, let's on packet, what actually happens to people's bodies when their exposed to extreme heat so body has two main ways to call itself down. I think the this one we are all familiar with, which is sweat so are sweat, lands on our skin start to produce sweats, and the goal. Is that that sweat, evaporates off the body and when it does, it calls the area underneath. Ok, that's you re pretty known. So, what's the other one, so the really cool part is the second asked. of the bodies cooling mechanism, which is that it starts to increase blood flow, so when it does that the body is pushing more blood that normally circulates around your internal organs and now its redirecting that blood out to the surface of the skin and that helps partly because

the body can actually dissipate heat out through the skin, so it just releases heat into the atmosphere, but the really crazy is that when the sweat evaporates off your skin and cools the area underneath, it's actually also cool. that blood that is now closer to the surface and cooler. Blood can recirculated back to your internal organs and call them down god it. Okay, so organs get hot blood takes, keep away from those organs to the surface of your skin? It has contact with air which is cooler and calls you down exam. so. There's a really cool can a two step process with that's. Why evaporation than calling the blood underneath the skin and then hope cooling down the internal organs as recirculated back through the body got ok, enter extreme heat so what happens when it gets hotter outside, so these two press

These work really well and most conditions, but they do start to fail when it gets too hot or to human so you have to think of your body and the environment kind of ana gradient in terms of temperature and moisture. So when your skin temperature, which is normally about ninety five degrees, fahrenheit, is hotter than the air outside your skin. Actually release heeds out into the environment. But when the air temperature is hotter than your skin, your skin starts to gain heat from the environment, and you can no longer cool down that way through the increase. Blood flow, ok, the same happens with humidity, is its who human outside. If there's too much moisture in the air, the water on your skin, the sweat on your skin can't evaporate, and so it just sits there or pulls off so again

that cooling mechanism as lost got it all about this gradient. Basically, all of these processes in your body are interacting with the atmosphere around your body. What's going on in the air and Two humid can't sweat if it's too hot your bodies gonna, again heat, as opposed to give it off. So that's a problem for the body exactly what exactly happened like inside your body when it gets too hot and humid right? So because that increase circulation, the heart is really the most important oregon when it comes to cooling down your body, so the is having to pump harder and faster. So your heart rate increases because it's trying to push blood further out so out of the very surface of your skin, so it's working a lot harder right. At the same time, blood pressure can start to drop because there is

really an increased amount of blood volume, you're just pushing same amount of blood to a wider surface area so it is working harder, but your blood pressure is dropping because Blood is trying to get all over the body instead of just in one area, around the organs. Therefore, the pressure is weak. Weaker the further out. It gets that's exactly right, yes and a drop Blood pressure is actually one of the most common causes of injury, because someone might stand up what they been set, and they don't have enough blood going up to their head and then they can feel dizzy or faint. So these often really early signs that someone is really struggling from the heat is low, blood pressure, dizziness and potentially even fainting august. Your bodies were in extra hard to increase your circulation and mrs taxing your heart. Exactly an older people or people who have a pre existing condition, especially one related to the heart. This can

she turned fatal. This is how he can kill them in the end, is by really taxing their heart, but in young healthy people isn't as much of a problem. The heart is pretty resilient. The body is pretty resilient and eventually the increase in court, picture will plateau. But if the but you are really extreme a hundred degrees and more if someone working out or working in the heat. Then problems can start to arise here. You can still continue to heat up so he'd exertion are heat. Stress is one of the first really serious p. Was that can arise and scientists think that's generally, when the internal temperature of the body reaches a hundred two hundred and three degrees and what exactly is he'd, exhaustion, Dana I'm here at all. in feeling myself. I have experienced it, but what's going on scientifically in the body yeah, so it's a real general sense of

teague also, your muscles might start not to function very well, and scientists think that actually a protective signal from the brain, so your brain is actually telling your body to stop working to sit down to get more shaded and cool so that it can try to call itself off So it makes you tired so that you do that exactly that is a really protective mechanism to try to prevent the next stage in the process, which is heat stroke which can be deadly Please tell me about he struck. What is that So knowing a body is really good at trying to then your body from heating up too fast by it. Mechanism start to fail. So

say that you're in really extreme conditions, maybe you're a worker and you have on heavy work equipment so that your sweat can't evaporate out into the environment or, if you're, working hard or exercising and you're generating internal heat as well as gaining it from the outside, then you're internal temperature. Can continue to rise, even power. the point of heat exertion and that's when things get really dangerous and what happens then so. Sign think about a hundred and four degrees is generally the cut off for heat stroke, and at that point you can start have multi organ failure. Ok, multi, organ failure so, which organs are we talking about so the organ that are most immediately and dangerously affected are the heart which we ve talked about a little bed and then also the kidney is the guide and the brain. Ok, so

or kidneys god, braids would start with a heart. So I talk about this a little bit, but the heart. is pumping harder and harder and harder. So your heart is increasing. Your blood pressure is dropping and what happened? when your blood pressure drops is that blood can't circulate chew everywhere, that it needs to go, and so your or and slowly start to become deprived of oxygen, and that includes your heart. So it can even look like a heart attack. Were your heart was actually starved of oxygen because it just wasn't able to pump enough blood to organs, including to itself he okay. So that's the hard. What about the kidneys? The kid this is really interesting, because the brain actually sends a signal to the body that it should stop sending as much blood to the kidneys as it starts to get dehydrated. So a quick refresh You know your kidneys are what are cleaning your blood and then the waste gets excreted as urine. But that means You're gonna be losing a little bit of liquid, so if

dehydrated. Your body wants to preserve as much liquid as it possibly can, and so blood stops being pushed as much to the kid he's so that you don't lose any as urine. But as a result, your kidneys are then also star of oxygen and those cells can start to suffer and die interest They got it so bodies just trying to preserve liquid anyway can. But the effect of that is that oxygen stops flowing to the kidneys exactly an kidneys can survive for a little bit of time with reduced blood flow and reduce oxygen. But if that gets prolonged, you can start to have kidney failure. I'll get. You said also Dana the got so how's my gut affected, the guy another area? Thy blood is diverted from pretty quickly and ask brazil also has less oxygen going there. When that happens, the got can start said fail. Down a little bit, and you can start to have what we know as leaky god. So the bacteria that's

got can actually start to travel out into the bloodstream, causing inflammation and in a really extreme and long term situations sepsis sepsis from sea that's kind of crazy, exactly one of the emergency room physicians. I spoke with said that sepsis is not a common cause of death when it comes to heat normally, because your other organs fail faster frankly, but it is something that can occur I'll get to your heart is working overtime, kidneys, Getting enough oxygen got is leaking so full on multi organ failure is you're, saying yes, and not only the heart, the kidneys and the guy, but also your brain and when the brain is affected. Things are getting really bad. So its troke by definition, means that the brain is being affected here. You think stroke you think brain and so reduce blood flow, the lack of oxygen, the increase

but you're are affecting your brain just like every other organ. So what is really I'm kind of perverse about keystroke is that the bodies internal thermometer is kate, it in a part of the brain called the hypothalamus, and if thou starts dysfunction or malfunction. Then body, can actually stop calling itself down so often, I was when people have really extreme heat stroke, they stopped flooding, their skin might feel cool and clammy? You know they are no longer trying to call their body down, even though their internal temperature is continuing to rise, so basically cut like the instinct to sweat and to have the body deal with this. Natural emergency state has gone the brain is off kilter exactly it started to fail so p. also start to have dizziness

fusion delirium here, no longer responding to you external environment and that can really be deadly. So what's the fastest way to cool somebody off in save somebody. If they get into this dangerous situation, it's an ice bath, it sounds really simple, but it actually is the fastest way took full down your internal temperature and try prevent organ failure, so this is, What they use in emergency rooms is kind of a glorified ice bath, and you can also do. in your home, but is that now to drastic a temperature contrast. I asked and exercise physiologist about this because I thought the same but he's, that there has been a fair amount of research on this and there is a greater risk of heat than there is of a can of temperature chine shock to your body so

the most important thing you can do is to call someone down ass, fast, ass, possible and an ice bath is the way. Ok, so ice bath got it. I will remember that now dinner. You mentioned earlier that people with her Conditions can be particularly susceptible to the dangers of extreme heat which you just laid out in pre frightening terms, I'm wondering: are there other people? groups who are really vulnerable. I think this is really fastening. An earlier article, I wrote during the summer heat waves looked at. elderly people are really uniquely vulnerable to heat, and that's because, both of our true cooling mechanisms, the sweating, an increase blood flow are hampered in Of older adults, so older adults, just don't sweat very much in other sweat, glands produce less sweat than they used to, and so that really important way to kill yourself down is really not as available to you in that a lot of older adults, partly just because of,

age, and partly because of pre existing conditions have decreased blood flow. So again, the heart is just not as able to push as much blood to the surface of the skin happens in a younger adults The good news is that older adults who are physically fit. They do still maintain these coin mechanisms better, then unfit older adults so exercises. almost always the most important thing you can do for yourself. How flies- and it's the same when it comes to extreme heat dean. I think what do you think were actually realizing. Is that this extreme heat is here to stay right. This is our new climate reality and will have, plenty more subjects like this, so many This is our new normal, so I'm wondering. Is there anyway to adapt? To this, there is some research that the human body can adapt to heat, and that is more we in extreme athletes, so athletes who are

doing your long endurance, training in high temperatures and what, and to see is that they actually start these cooling mechanisms faster, so they started at lower temperatures, they have increased blood flow at lower temperatures they also more cardiovascular, only fit for their heart is just well to withstand the stress of that increase blood flow. heart rate for longer interesting. You know I I was over, or in baghdad in iraq for a number of years- and it was a time when I was doing a lot of running and we had this strip, we would run on and it was in a hundred and twenty degrees at eight p m and I remember doing that run and just feeling, like you know, my body was so taxed, but I got good it and then coming back to new york and running in central park and thinking? Oh, my god, this is, is it was so much easier to run in a normal temperature than to run it one twenty, but I did get used to the one twenty exactly so The body is remarkable and it actually can adapt to these extreme temperatures but via,

not realistic? Frankly, for most people, especially again older adults and people with pre existing conditions who are the most are? Who are the most at risk for heat so well is possible, is really not the best strategy that we should just think that biologically we can adapt to these extreme temperatures. I think we just really have to respect the heat and take it seriously, and I think that we're going to have to continue to adapt our behaviors our lifestyles going forward as we do with hotter and hotter temperatures so that means air conditioning, cooling centres, dehydration and doing those really practical, behavioral ways to cool yourself down in these hot pot, climates so just smart about heat, is really essential and can be lifesaving Dana. Thank you,

Thank you we'll be right back. Here's what you should know today: fast moving wildfires killed. Thirty six people on the island of maui in hawaii in the past two days as gusty winds were amplified by hurricane dora, hundreds of miles to the south. Some residents survived by swimming to the ocean where they were later rescued by the? U s: coastguard the fire burned much of the historic town of le Heiner, hawaii royal capital They had been largely contained by wednesday night and president Biden escalated his confrontation with china by signing an executive order that bans american investments in key technology industries.

the order will prohibit venture capital and private equity firms from putting money into chinese efforts to develop semi conductors and other micro. like electronics, quantum computers and certain artificial intelligence applications, American officials stressed that the move was tailored to guard national security, but china is likely to see it as part of a wider campaign to contain its rise today's episode was produced by diana with Carlos creative in summer tomorrow with her From nina feldman and sydney harper, it was edited by devon taylor, with help from page coward, contains original music violation that youtube marian lozano and ruining bestow and was engineered by Alyssa moxley, our theme music is by jim run and Ben lands for of wonderment

That's it for the daily I'm sabrina, tyrannies, cinema.