Heat, imitation learning, and quitting strategies

Your new Strategy Toolkit newsletter (August 19, 2024)

(1) It’s too darn hot…

With average temperature records being broken left, right, and centre, we’re all looking for coping strategies to help go about our daily lives. Where better to find ideas than in Phoenix, Arizona, that classic American desert city?

For a glimpse into what the future life may be like, a team of Swiss reporters paid a visit, noting popular habits such as exercising in the dark, putting special shoes on dogs, shopping as the sun goes down, and starting social activities way before the sun rises.

“Like the saguaro, people who live in Phoenix only open the door at night to get some fresh air. If you want to meet people on the street in the city's residential areas, you have to get up early. Joggers who want to run around the block more than twice set off at half past four at the latest, when it is coolest. Dogs are taken for a walk between five and six, and after sunrise it is rare to see a baby carriage on the street. A greenhorn who has gone outside without a water bottle is kindly but emphatically told by passersby how dangerous this is. You sweat almost constantly in this climate. You often realize that you haven't had enough to drink only when your head starts to pound.”*

* Althaus, N., “Too Hot Even For Cactuses: Phoenix Offers a Taste of Heat’s Dangers,” Neue Zuercher Zeitung (August 2 2024), https://www.nzz.ch/english/climate-baked-phoenix-offers-a-foretaste-of-heats-dangers-ld.1841765