Welcome to Axis ProRata, a podcast that takes just 10 minutes to get you smarter on the collision of tech, business, and politics.

I'm Dan from Mack. On today's show, the government threatens to end vaping and a possible problem for Sprint's mega merger with T-Mobile.

But first, the big storm.

As you've certainly heard by now, the Carolinas in Virginia are bracing for Hurricane Florence,

which can make landfall as early as tomorrow.

And it's going to be a whopper, particularly in coastal areas where the storm might simply hover for hours,

with winds exceeding 100 miles an hour.

A million people have been evacuated, and a lot of us with friends and family in that region

are at this point just kind of keeping our fingers crossed.

Now, to be sure, the single most important thing is keeping people safe.

But the longer-term reality is that extreme weather is on the rise, which becomes as much an economic issue as a human one.

And we're not just talking about hurricanes here, but tornadoes and heat waves and ice storms and droughts.

In fact, last year, the World Economic Forum said that extreme weather was the top concern for business leaders,

outpacing both cyber attacks and natural disasters.

And since 2014, companies are required by law to

communicate material climate change risks to investors. So here's an example. Storms associated

with the heat waves have been known to knock out internet infrastructure, like data centers.

And this week, companies from Boeing to Pfizer have already taken manufacturing facilities

in the Carolinas offline in preparation for Florence.

The bottom line is that in our collective absence to be proactive about climate change, we're

now all forced to be reactive.

And the costs in terms of both life and treasure is only likely to increase over time.

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