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We’re all aware of the obvious, in-your-face elements of climate change. Hurricanes coming earlier, more powerful, more often. Heat records falling all over. We see the big numbers and the obvious, media-friendly displays of what we’ve done to the world.
But I’d like to talk about the more subtle things. The ones we may well miss because of the Big Numbers. The ones that build up.
So let me talk about exercise.
I walk 60-120 minutes a day for exercise. It’s great, it’s refreshing, and when done at a brisk pace, very effective. I mean I think I need to do some ellipticals to work on my arms, but brisk walking is my preferred method.
Now when heat waves hit, that means my walking time is either early in the morning or late at night. My schedule is changing because of climate change, which changes everything else in my day and in my life.
Now I wake up 30 minutes early OR have to sign off from my other projects to walk at night. It changes when I log onto and log off of work, affecting my co-workers. It affects what I eat and when, if I order or go out, and so on. It changes how I interact with friends. All based around the fact I have to build my workouts around the heat waves.
Simple, of course, but there’s more. Small numbers add up for my exercise, but also for other changes made due to heat. It adds up for others as well, and between all these small changes, the world changes. Maybe not in spectacular ways, but ways that are important and ways we may miss.
Imagine how climate change affects when people commute, shop, work, sleep. Where what you do and what you can do shifts. You don’t want to deal with the heat, so you don’t do one thing and do another, or you shift your schedule up. Go to work later or earlier. Buy this not that.
Consider how maybe some things are “too hot to do X” or even equipment and vehicles won’t operate in certain times of day – as we’ve seen in recent news Our risk profiles change what we do when or can do when. Life changes.
With a more extreme client we get more “extreme extremes.” What happens when a sudden heat wave derails plans, requires things to shut down, or just disrupts a major holiday? How do we plan next time just in case – and we shift entire industries and airports and states around without noticing.
It all seems petty, but that’s why it’s important as petty things add up. One day you’re skipping a barbecue for the 4th of July, but when airlines are suddenly dealing with unfilled flights and shipping goods becomes harder, you notice, little changes piling up.
As we watch the “Big Numbers” a million small changes are going on in our lives, our culture, our economy, all driven by climate change. The temperature changes the time we do things and take time for.
So what are the repercussions of that for relations, for lives, for the economy?
I don’t know, but maybe we need to be asking outside of Big Numbers. Maybe we need to look at the small numbers adding up too.
Steven Savage