Ah, summer. The season of long days, warm nights, and the creeping suspicion that the planet is slowly cooking us alive. In the northern hemisphere, this is supposed to be our good half of the year.
At TDL, the office AC gave up this week — perhaps in solidarity with the planet. We attempted to carry on in the name of shareholder value, but it turns out the human brain has a hard time prioritizing strategic planning when hot… make… thought… go… dumb.
Indeed, heat doesn’t just make us uncomfortable; it makes us irritable, impulsive, and spectacularly bad at thinking. There’s a reason we have phrases like “hot-headed” and “in the heat of the moment.” These classic sayings have long captured how heat scrambles our judgment.
Today’s newsletter looks at how extreme heat messes with our minds, strains the economy, and even worsens inequality, and what that means for keeping our cool in these warmer months.
Until next time, Charlotte and the melting minds @ TDL
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Today’s topics 👀
🫠 Deep Dive: Heat’s Hidden Costs
🧊 Field Notes: Cold Air, Hot Takes
🌡️ Viewpoints: Keep Your Cool (Literally!)
DEEP DIVE
🫠 Heat’s Hidden Costs
Cognitive crash. A Yale-led study in China found that abnormally hot days (over 89.6°F) reduced teens’ math test performance. The effect was worse in regions that are typically cooler and only partly offset by AC, raising red flags about everyday decision-making and reasoning as temperatures rise.
Cranking up the AC might feel like the only sane response to a heatwave, but it comes at a cost. In this TDL article, we explore the paradox at the heart of air conditioning: it cools us down and heats the planet up. Psychologically, it also makes us more sensitive to heat over time and less likely to adopt long-term, sustainable solutions.
Add to that a growing wave of eco-anxiety, and we’re caught in a cycle that’s hard to break. But understanding the behavioral traps at play — from status quo bias to hyperbolic discounting — is the first step.
VIEW POINTS
🌡️ Keep Your Cool (Literally!)
Rather than power through the blistering heat, science (and common sense) suggests we’re better off adjusting how we work.
Fighting the fog. In the summer, it may feel like your brain is running on a different operating system. But, instead of forcing focus, tips from a productivity expert reveal we should lean into short work sprints, reflection breaks, and creative tasks during “foggy hours.” But it’s not just about finding ways to stay cool; rising temperatures demand scalable, systemic solutions. After all, we can’t just hide indoors forever.
Climate-smart cities. In Boston, combining cool roofs and tree canopy expansion was the most cost-effective way to cut urban heat exposure. This approach, which reduced temperatures by up to 0.7°C for 80,000+ residents, offers a scalable model for cities everywhere seeking to cool down quickly and equitably.
Heat survival starts local. Cities can boost heat resilience by expanding access to cooling centers and freshwater. Long-term change points toward building tailored heat-health plans in collaboration with scientists, health experts, and communities.
Hot, new tech. Wearables and heat-sensing apps are being developed to flag overheating risks before symptoms hit, giving workers a crucial head start in mitigating heat-related illness. For those participating in outdoor activities, smart, timed nudges may seem small, but they can help toward more proactive heat management.
Hot-Cold Empathy Gap
Think you’ll be just as level-headed in 95°F as you are now? Think again.
The “hot–cold” empathy gap is our tendency to underestimate how much visceral states (like heat, hunger, or anger) will influence our future behavior. In “cooler,” rational moments, we assume we’ll make calm, rational choices. But in a “hot” state, emotions hijack our decision-making.
That’s why we agree to stressful social plans we later regret or think we’ll handle a heatwave just fine — until we’re sweating, short-tempered, and splurging on an iced latte we didn’t budget for.
