"Water, Shade And Rest": How Extreme Heat In US Is Threatening Economy

Rising temperatures are increasingly threatening workers in the United States, endangering their health as well as their performance.

Irma Gomez has worked in California's Central Valley, one of the world's most productive agricultural regions, for nearly a decade -- but she has never experienced a year as hot as this one, so hot that a colleague collapsed and died in the fields.

"It's worrying," Gomez says. "It could happen to any of us."

Rising temperatures are increasingly threatening workers in the United States, endangering their health as well as their performance.

And that has major economic consequences for the entire country, according to two recent studies.