Also: Housing recession, Netflix results, and U.K. inflation.
Good morning. David Meyer here in Berlin, filling in for Alan.
What a difference a stinking hot day makes.
“It’s not the end of the world! Just stay cool and carry on,” advised the Monday front page of the U.K.’s Daily Express tabloid. “Listening to apocalyptic climate change pundits and the BBC, you’d think Britain was about to spontaneously combust,” scoffed an editorial in the hugely influential Daily Mail on the same day.
Their tunes changed quite dramatically following a Tuesday on which temperature records were shattered across the country, bringing an array of wildfires that even encroached on the capital’s outskirts. “Britain burns in 40.3C [104.5F] heat,” thundered this morning’s Express. “Nightmare of the wildfires,” read the Mail’s front page, over an image of homes combusting in the east-London village of Wennington.
Life comes at the Daily Express pretty fast… pic.twitter.com/ebU01noTbB
— Harry Wallop (@hwallop) July 19, 2022 Mail editorial yesterday… Mail front page today 🤔 pic.twitter.com/yVKLyee4HY
— Clifford Singer (@cliffordsinger) July 20, 2022 This heatwave is an example of what educators might call a teachable moment.
Brits learned that extreme heat will melt runways, buckle railway lines, knock out power grids, and even upset the cloud facilities of companies like Google and Oracle.
The French have been learning how soaring temperatures mean cuts to nuclear-energy output, because the river water needed for cooling is too warm. (As Fortune’s Tristan Bove notes in this piece on how extreme heat lowers solar-panel efficiency, the same problem can afflict other thermal power stations, including the coal- and gas-fired plants that contribute to all this heating.)
Meanwhile, drought-laden Germany may be about to revisit its 2018 nightmare of the Rhine being too low to transport goods such as food and car parts, which is just what we need during food-price and supply-chain crises. Yes, climate skeptics, it’s weather—but there’s overwhelming scientific consensus that human-driven climate change is making it more extreme, more frequently.
Even if one were to cold-bloodedly leave aside the human impact of this heat in Europe—the hundreds if not thousands of deaths; the losses of homes and livelihoods—that still leaves a significant economic cost, particularly when viewed in conjunction with the energy crisis, inflation and other ingredients of the stew we find ourselves in.
As London Business School economics professor Lucrezia Reichlin told the New York Times: “The combination of these things is all negative—the question is how negative it’s going to be.”
And this is just the start—the effects we’re seeing from a 1.2C global average temperature rise from pre-industrial levels. The odds are 50-50 that we’ll clear 1.5C just several years from now. Just imagine how costly our timidity and equivocation will prove to be then.
More news below.
David Meyer
@superglaze
david.meyer@fortune.com
|
|
|
Discover why it pays to know Fortune for $1 a week! Subscribe to Fortune.com for access to global news, insights and rankings. Subscribe Today |
|
|
Housing recession
The U.S. housing market has entered a recession. Fortune’s Lance Lambert identifies the bubbly markets that are likely “barreling towards price cuts in both 2023 and 2024”—and the role that investors’ herd mentality could play in the contraction. Fortune
Netflix results
Netflix yesterday reported worsening losses—970,000 in Q2, versus 200,000 in Q1—but they were only half as bad as Wall Street expected, and they came alongside 8.6% year-on-year revenue growth, plus a forecast of 1 million new s in Q3. So Netflix’s stock got an 8% bump in after-hours trading. Fortune
U.K. inflation
Inflation in the U.K. hit a four-decade high of 9.4% in June, up from 9.1% the previous month. Expect the Bank of England to unveil a bumper rate hike at the start of August. Wall Street Journal
|
|
|
Board effectiveness and the chair of the future Across organizations and countries, the board chair role has been amplified. Explore five key forces behind this expansion—and how chairs are stepping up to meet new demands. Read the report
|
|
|
How are high-performance organizations attracting and retaining talent? Explore key findings from a new Fortune and i4cp global study. Download The Talent Imperative now. |
|
|
Thanks for reading. If you liked this email, pay it forward. Share it with someone you know. Did someone share this with you? Sign up here. For previous editions, click here.
To view all of Fortune's newsletters on the latest in business, go here.
|
|
|
|
 |
