Slow Burn

The Hidden Costs of a Warming World

By: Robert Jisung Park

Narrated by: Davis Brooks

Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins

Publisher's summary

This audiobook narrated by Davis Brooks reveals how the subtle but significant consequences of a hotter planet have already begun—from lower test scores to higher crime rates—and how we might tackle them today

It’s hard not to feel anxious about the problem of climate change, especially if we think of it as an impending planetary catastrophe. In Slow Burn, R. Jisung Park encourages us to view climate change through a different lens: one that focuses less on the possibility of mass climate extinction in a theoretical future, and more on the everyday implications of climate change here and now.

Drawing on a wealth of new data and cutting-edge economics, Park shows how climate change headlines often miss some of the most important costs. When wildfires blaze, what happens to people downwind of the smoke? When natural disasters destroy buildings and bridges, what happens to educational outcomes? Park explains how climate change operates as the silent accumulation of a thousand tiny conflagrations: imperceptibly elevated health risks spread across billions of people; pennies off the dollar of productivity; fewer opportunities for upward mobility.

By investigating how the physical phenomenon of climate change interacts with social and economic institutions, Park illustrates how climate change already affects everyone, and may act as an amplifier of inequality. Wealthier households and corporations may adapt quickly, but, without targeted interventions, less advantaged communities may not.

Viewing climate change as a slow and unequal burn comes with an important silver lining. It puts dollars and cents behind the case for aggressive emissions cuts and helps identify concrete steps that can be taken to better manage its adverse effects. We can begin to overcome our climate anxiety, Park shows us, when we begin to tackle these problems locally.

©2024 Robert Jisung Park (P)2024 Princeton University Press

Might Maybe Possibly Could Envision ...

Review title says it all with respect to the conclusions drawn in this book. Lots and lots of qualifications. If you are not a sociology or a statistics student, don't bother listening to this book. Regarding presentation: by the end of the book, the insistence of ALWAYS expressing temperature in BOTH Centigrade and Fahrenheit (and I'm talking hundreds of times) was like fingernails screeching on a blackboard.