written 6 November 2022
published 13 November 2022
The 29 October UDJ column by George Will denigrated the Federal Reserve for beginning to assess the fiscal impact of the climate crisis, trivializing the economic impact. Because Will believes the Fed can only affect the next 5 years, any climate response is irrelevant to the long term. He embraces the illusion that the "our modern, diversified, industrialized, service-oriented economy is not affected by the weather." He claims the worst-case climate scenario would reduce GDP by only 10 percent by 2100, without mentioning where he got that number. In the real world, weather events keep hammering the planet.
After a record heat wave, hitting 124°F, three months of torrential rain in Pakistan this summer delivered five times as much water as usual. This flooded 1/3 of the country, displaced 15 percent of the population, destroyed infrastructure, radically reduced food production, and left large areas contaminated and disease infested. The economy of Pakistan will not get back to "normal" for years.
In just the month of October, the Guardian reported the following. Intense rain in Thailand flooded 59 of the country’s 77 provinces. Residents described the recent storms as the worst in 30 years. In Venezuela, El Castaño was the latest town in Aragua state to be devastated by heavy rains, and mudslides ripped through the town of Las Tejerias, after 35 days’ worth of average rainfall fell in a single day. The worst floods in a decade in Nigeria, affecting at least 18 of its 36 states, displacing over a million internally, with hundreds of communities cut off without access to food, clean water and fuel. In south-east Australia the second ‘once-in-a-century’ flood in 11 years forced thousands of people from their homes in the states of New South Wales and Victoria, as well as the island state of Tasmania. In Victoria state, the town of Echuca braced for the worst flood in 150 years, and the town of Kerang expected to be cut off from the rest of the state for two weeks. In a single hour, Melbourne received half its average monthly rainfall.
The other side of inundation is drought. A recent study from the California Environmental Protection Agency reports impact on every resident from record-high temperatures, drought, and unprecedented wildfires. This September, the West Coast broke nearly 1,000 temperature records during a 10-day heat wave, with many areas baking under triple-digit heat for several consecutive days, straining the electric grid. The Trinity Alps glaciers and snowfields have virtually disappeared, and the largest glaciers in the Sierra Nevada have lost 65% - 90% of their area. This decline in crucial freshwater supplies impacts agriculture. More than a third of the country’s vegetables and 75% of its fruits and nuts are grown in California.
There were over 6,800 fires in California this year, although no huge ones. However, the last 20 years saw a severe uptick in wildfires, with more than 4 million acres burned in 2020, double any previous year. Half of the state’s largest wildfires in the past 70 years happened in 2020 and 2021. The fire insurance industry is beginning to exit California, or increase prices. We can see our future by looking at the home insurance industry in Florida, already priced four times the national average, now collapsing due to ever increasing storm damages.
Our economy is global, massively interconnected, subject to congestion, and vulnerable to sudden, unexpected changes, as witness the pandemic distorting "supply chain issues." These economic relationships developed over decades, within a relatively stable climate system, which is now changing rapidly. Of all CO2 we humans have injected into the atmosphere, half has been in the last 30 years, and the heat we experience now lags behind by 15 years. This means we will experience the world heating by at least another third more.
Furthermore, we are adding more carbon every day. At the very least, we must not make things worse. The challenge is to decarbonize the global economy as soon as possible. This will take commitment, money, and resources, much like mobilizing for war, only this is to preserve our habitable planet, not kill it. To minimize climate concerns by suggesting an economy independent from the natural world, delays response, dooming society, if not our species. When a firestorm comes over the hill, it is too late to prepare.
