The Summer Of Extreme Weather, GM’s Plans For One Million EVs And Turning Trash Into Cash

This week’s Current Climate, which every Saturday brings you the latest news about the business of sustainability. Sign up to get it in your inbox every week.

Earlier this week, the city of St. Louis saw over 8 inches of rain overnight, breaking a record that had stood since 1915, which caused flash floods and road closures. In Kentucky, rains have caused flooding severe enough to cause over a dozen deaths and the President has declared it a “major disaster.” Meanwhile, heat waves in other parts of the country have sparked wildfires and temperatures got so high that it’s killing livestock in Kansas.

This extreme weather is likely to go on, especially the increased heat, as the climate changes over the coming years and decades. Heat is already the number one cause of weather related deaths in the U.S., meteorologist and Forbes contributor Jim Foerster writes. But in addition to the human cost, extreme heat is also a drag on the country’s economic outlook. Foerster notes that extreme heat quantifiably reduces productivity and GDP. But more importantly: much of the world wasn’t built for a hotter climate.

“These challenges with extreme temperatures are likely not going away, so business leaders will need to be prepared for ongoing challenges with these temperatures,” Foerster writes. “Not only with the direct – and critical – effects of high temperatures such as health and safety, but also the secondary effects that affect business operations and productivity.”

Special thanks to Forbes Fellow Ariyana Griffin for her assistance in this week’s newsletter.

The Big Read

How Bill Gates-Backed Republic Services Turns Trash Into Big Cash

Garbage was the ultimate commodity business until a young McKinsey consultant saw how Republic Services could transform itself into a profit machine by pricing all sorts of trash at a premium. Now he’s CEO of the outperforming junk giant. Read more here.

Discoveries And Innovations

The CDC announced that a potentially deadly bacteria, Burkholderia pseudomallei, has been detected in soil and water samples in the U.S. for the first time.

Planting trees to reduce carbon dioxide is great, but if you want to reduce carbon dioxide in marine environments, you need to plant seagrass.

Climate change is causing the brunt of extinctions among birds to be borne by unique species that live in particular ecological systems.

Engineers have created a biodegradable battery partially made out of paper, which they hope could be used to reduce e-waste from items like smart packaging.