New Books in Economics R. Jisung Park, "Slow Burn: The Hidden Costs of a Warming World" (Princeton UP, 2025)
Oct 25, 2025
R. Jisung Park, an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania specializing in environmental and labor economics, sheds light on the everyday implications of climate change in his new book, 'Slow Burn'. He discusses how the hidden costs of warming, like productivity losses and impaired health, accumulate in our daily lives. Park reveals cognitive biases that shape our perception of climate risks and explores the adverse impacts of heat on work and education. He advocates for pragmatic climate dialogue and equitable policy design to combat these challenges.
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Pandemic Smoke Sparked The Book
- Park describes feeling trapped in Los Angeles during pandemic wildfires and smoke that heightened his urgency to write the book.
- That personal experience motivated him to connect research with practical, local responses to climate harms.
Hidden Cumulative Harms Add Up
- Small, cumulative harms from moderate heat and wildfire smoke add up to large societal costs over time.
- These slow, distributed impacts often exceed the visible damages from discrete disasters.
Mental Heuristics Skew Climate Perception
- Cognitive heuristics make people gravitate to emotionally salient climate stories rather than statistical realities.
- Park urges adding a 'shades of gray' heuristic to better weigh nuanced, policy-relevant climate evidence.
