Rising Temperatures and Heat Shocks Prompt Job Relocations, Study Finds (techtarget.com) 55
dcblogs writes: A recent study in the National Bureau of Economic Research has found that companies are quietly adapting to rising temperatures by shifting operations from hotter to cooler locations. The researchers analyzed data from 50,000 companies between 2009 and 2020. "To illustrate the economic impact, the researchers found that when a company with equal employment across two counties experiences a heat shock in one county, there is a subsequent 0.7% increase in employment growth in the unaffected county over a three-year horizon," reports TechTarget. "The finding is significant, given that the mean employment growth for the sample of businesses in the study is 2.4%."
Heat shocks are characterized by their severe impact on health, energy grids, and increased fire risks, influencing companies with multiple locations to reconsider their geographical distribution of operations. Despite this trend, states like Arizona and Nevada, which have some of the highest heat-related death tolls, continue to experience rapid business expansion. Experts believe that factors such as labor pool, taxes, and regulations still outweigh environmental climate risks when it comes to business site selection. But heat associated deaths are on the rise. In the Phoenix area alone, it experienced 425 heat related deaths in 2022 and a similar number in 2023 -- record highs for this region.
The study suggests that the implications of climate change on business operations are becoming more apparent. Companies are beginning to evaluate climate risks as part of their regular risk assessment process.
Heat shocks are characterized by their severe impact on health, energy grids, and increased fire risks, influencing companies with multiple locations to reconsider their geographical distribution of operations. Despite this trend, states like Arizona and Nevada, which have some of the highest heat-related death tolls, continue to experience rapid business expansion. Experts believe that factors such as labor pool, taxes, and regulations still outweigh environmental climate risks when it comes to business site selection. But heat associated deaths are on the rise. In the Phoenix area alone, it experienced 425 heat related deaths in 2022 and a similar number in 2023 -- record highs for this region.
The study suggests that the implications of climate change on business operations are becoming more apparent. Companies are beginning to evaluate climate risks as part of their regular risk assessment process.
Maybe (Score:1)
Maybe moving to Phoenix, a place named after a burning bird, wasn't the smartest move.
Re: Maybe (Score:2, Funny)
Maybe if Nikki Haley wins, Arizona will freeze over.
Why don't they relocate from cold? (Score:5, Insightful)
https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
More likely is that there is no causative effect on job locations from temperature either way and the "other factors" are the only ones that matter.
Re:Why don't they relocate from cold? (Score:4, Insightful)
Considering that the states experiencing the largest population growth are mostly the miserably hot ones, [census.gov] it would seem that you're correct. People do hate the cold more than the heat.
Also, you never hear anyone whining about losing range on their EV in the "winter" here in Florida, so there's that too.
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From my own experience, the heat seems easier to deal with as long as you can stay/work/live inside. Then it is definitely easier / less annoying. But if the electricity goes out? I'd rather be in the cold and start a fire than in the heat and can do ... nothing. I have experienced both multiple times. Normal living is easier in the hot states, but emergency living is more survivable when its cold. YMMV
Both suck if you lack resources, or lack the ability to help yourself otherwise (e.g., old age, physical l
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As a life long New Englander I gotta disagree. In the cold you can always throw on another layer. In the heat there's a limit to how much you can shuck off. Also, the pumps that run the water loop in my gas furnace draw like 2 amps and can run for days in the event of a blackout off my EV battery. The condenser for the heat pump, on the other hand, is more like 30A.
I'm sure the cold is much worse if you are homeless or desperately poor, but if you are relatively secure financially, I'd take a temperature cl
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I wonder if that trend will reverse as climate change gets worse.
Personally I'd rather live somewhere cold, in a nicely insulated house. I hate the heat and it is easier to warm the place up. Air conditioning is okay, but nowhere near as comfortable as underfloor heating.
The only thing I'm not so keen on is rain.
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Seems a bit jaded. The safe "unprotected range" where humans can survive w/o shelter and other mitigation techniques is geared towards warm. Hence, much easier to survive +40 C than -40 C. It seems ironically easier to protect yourself *from* the cold than from the heat if you have to be outside and have resources available. It's effort, though. I have schlepped furniture in +48 C outside and gone hiking in -42 C outside. And you many guess which one I liked more. Almost passed out in the heat after a half
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The safe "unprotected range" where humans can survive w/o shelter and other mitigation techniques is geared towards warm.
No argument, however the article also points out that colder places can better economically afford mitigation techniques for temperature in general than warmer ones. There is a good likelihood that fact also prevents far more deaths from cold than would otherwise happen if poorer people mostly lived in colder places.
It was much easier to mitigate the cold.
That is likely true for you and me. The statistics suggest it is not true for an awful lot of people though.
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The safe "unprotected range" where humans can survive w/o shelter and other mitigation techniques is geared towards warm.
No argument, however the article also points out that colder places can better economically afford mitigation techniques for temperature in general than warmer ones. There is a good likelihood that fact also prevents far more deaths from cold than would otherwise happen if poorer people mostly lived in colder places.
It was much easier to mitigate the cold.
That is likely true for you and me. The statistics suggest it is not true for an awful lot of people though.
Article is paywalled so its really hard to tell what's driving the deaths. Drunk people passing out and dying of hypothermia? Homeless people trying to rough it in -30?
I'd argue that it's economically easier to avoid the cold than the heat. An extra layer of clothing makes it livable outside, and in your home a furnace is more common than AC.
And given that 33,000 people died from heat waves in France in the last 10 years [lemonde.fr] I'm fairly skeptical that developed countries are experiencing the same mortality from
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Article is paywalled so its really hard to tell what's driving the deaths.
Here is the study the article references, though there are certainly others if you care to look.
https://www.thelancet.com/jour... [thelancet.com]
I'd argue that it's economically easier to avoid the cold than the heat.
It is economically easiest to not have to be able to afford any artificial adaptations to temperature.
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It is economically easiest to not have to be able to afford any artificial adaptations to temperature.
what an empty statement
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How much heat you can survive depends very much on the humidity. If the wet bulb temp goes over 95F/35C, you die. And that's if you are young and healthy and motionless in the shade. It's lower if you are exerting yourself, have confounding health issues or are elderly.
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Wet bulb temps can kill at 97-100F. You literally just sit and cook to death. Fans don't help.
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Threats from cold climates are; polar bears, being alone, exhaustion. The threats from hot climates are simple; lack of shade and lack of water. (There are a lot of poisonous animals but they, unlike polar bears, avoid humans.)
While not a threat, human effectiveness/efficiency degrades with heat. So businesses want a location that doesn't have the frequent trouble of heavy snow, sleet and ice and also, where keeping humans cool, is affordable.
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Why not make our life goals something more along the lines of ha
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Places aren't getting colder, so there's no incentive to move. Places are getting hotter, and crossing from 'pretty hot' into 'unbearably hot'.
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The obvious solution is to move underground.
Do you want morlocks? Because that’s how you get morlocks.
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AGW denialism has gone from "fake" to "fake but nothing we can do" to "fake but natural" real fast. Next it'll be "real but too expense to fix" then "real and we have to pay these late-coming big-oil-owned climate-fixing companies-that-we-own-lots-of-stock-in lots of money". Hopefully peo
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Was with you till you got to the voter shaming in the end. Democrats are in the middle of incredibly rigging their presidential primary for the third cycle in a row. No real primary to try and prop up Geocide Jim Crow Joe's corpse but now they'll probably replace him with Newsome after Republicans have their party convention, when Democrats have theirs in Chicago. Selected by party insiders, not voters. Good thing Dem conventions in Chicago have always been peaceful events, eh?
But both parties have colluded
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This will be different than anything we've experienced before
standard vague doomsday statement. surely by now we can say something concrete about it?
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This will be different than anything we've experienced before
standard vague doomsday statement. surely by now we can say something concrete about it?
I can say something concrete, but perhaps lacking in specifics because I don't have a crystal ball. I think pressures at the US / Mexico border will increase drastically as people from Central America start to move North where it's cooler. I think there will be a significant shift from the Southern states to the North. I also foresee a lot of Americans coming here to Canada, and Alaska's population may swell significantly as well.
Then there's Africa - I think many lives will be lost as Africans try desperat
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mass migrations, wars... i know, but we have both of those now so of course theyll exist in the future, and itl be too easy to just say its climate related. every time theres a storm or flood now, its definitely climate change for the simple reason climate change exists and the storms are climate related.
climate science is one thing but claiming you can predict all this stuff as well is a step too far for me
Don't forget to vote Slashdot (Score:4, Insightful)
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I'll take mine with extra covfefe.
Turns out the Apocolypse... (Score:2)
Turns out, you get what you vote for. (Score:1)
... is bad for business... who could have foreseen such a thing?
Despite this trend, states like Arizona and Nevada, which have some of the highest heat-related death tolls, continue to experience rapid business expansion. Experts believe that factors such as labor pool, taxes, and regulations still outweigh environmental climate risks when it comes to business site selection.
You and the experts have a funny way of saying fucking California and their apocalyptic politics. We know what is driving the exodus to Arizona and Nevada. Just say it already.
like every one moving to Florida or Texas (Score:3)
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Businesses are moving from NY, MI, and DE to FL, TX, and NV because it's cooler.
QED Global Warming.
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whats your story? are you a terry davies waiting to happen?
We're better than clickbait (Score:2)
I usually don't comment when a slashdot article is bad - there's more than a couple - but this one is really, really bad. The effect they're talking about is cherry picked and nigh unmeasurable, the text of it refutes the headline as unlikely given a lack of evidence, and the study methodology is ridiculous. This is just clickbait about a contentious issue, reporting on somebody who published a useless study. It doesn't matter if you're pro or anti the unspoken contentious issue, this just isn't meaningful
Oh, so adaptation to climate change is possible. (Score:2)
Yes, if the earth warms up significantly, people will move towards the poles, or install airconditioning. If the sea level rises by something more dramatic than the current inch and a bit a decade, people will move away from the shoreline, or build seawalls. All those responses are logical and feasible, whereas reducing anthropogenic CO2 is of unproven efficacy (CO2 is not THE thermostat) and not economically feasible.
Cue hivemind response.
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Could you give an example of how you would go about conducting an experiment on the efficiency of reducing anthropogenic CO2 on reducing global mean temperature please?
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I'm not sure where you've got the impression that there is no way to test complex models from. This is done routinely via hind-cast methods. It's also how the impact of new data sources is assessed. For example, it was recently shown that integrating satellite derived assessments of Arctic sea ice thickness over the summer months into numerical weather prediction models increased the skill of those models.
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Phoenix is growing (Score:2)
Progress! (Score:2)
But how long has it taken us? & how long will it be before we can dispel the nonsense ideas from the oil & gas lobbies about delaying the transition away from fossil fuels? & how about dealing with the massive increases in plastics production over the past few decades?
Plastics are the oil & gas lobbies' Plan B to keep making profits out of destroying our environment & ma
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I guess no sane, rational person is trying to deny fossil fuels caused global heating anymore
im skeptical of the extent, and claimed apocalyptic scenarios. we survived an ice-age with spears and fur. i seriously doubt the world will end because miami lost some coastline
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cdn (Score:2)
How much of their dataset is Californian? (Score:2)
"Heat shocks are characterized by their severe impact on health, energy grids, and increased fire risks"
So how much of it is due to heat and how much of it is due to blackouts and people reconsidering living next to a forest which will burn uncontrallably at some point, regardless of climate change.
Or, (Score:1)
Soylent Green (Score:2)
Soylent Green will be People, it seems.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]