Anyone who’s had to go to work on a hot summer day knows how exhausting it can be. Brain function slows, commuting is more uncomfortable and, for people who work outdoors, simply staying safe becomes a challenge. All of these factors combined add up to a heat-related hit on worker productivity, which stands to get more pronounced as climate change drives more intense heat waves.
"We used to think, ‘Well people get hot and they sweat and they’re fine.’ But now we know that’s not necessarily the case,” says Jill Rosenthal, director of public health at the Center for American Progress, which this month released a report on the threat extreme heat conditions pose to workers in the U.S.
Quantifying that threat can be difficult. Broadly speaking, it includes everything from weather-related commuter disruptions to diminished cognitive performance, poor sleep and added time off when kids are kept out of schools that lack air conditioning.