California & Florida Rank In Top 5 States Impacted By Climate-Related Natural Disasters
A New Federal Report Shows How The Climate Crisis Is Worsening Across The United States.
We need to call it what it is: a crisis. Climate change continues to impact us all, and now we have even more data about the economic consequences, along with the impact to nature and human life.
“Future climate change impacts depend on choices made today.”
That phrase sits at the top of a recently released report, The Fifth National Climate Assessment, a federal look at climate change impacts, risks, and responses.
This congressionally mandated interagency effort, a massive 2,000 page report, provides a scientific foundation to support informed decision-making across the country.
If you’ve been asking yourself, what does climate change look like for me?At this point, look no further than your own backyard.
The short of it is: Climate impacts are here; they are getting worse, and they cost a lot.
Florida exceeded $90 billion in economic damages from billion-dollar disasters between 2018 and 2022, with California, Texas, North Carolina, and Louisiana closely behind, with total damages between $30 billion and $90 billion, according to the report.
Are you surprised?
People’s lives and livelihoods depend on access to water. About 90 percent of natural disasters relate to water, according to the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature).
In California, where I've lived for decades, I've never seen temps in the triple digits and no snowpack, and such little rainfall. The fires are burning hotter than ever.
I think people don't talk about climate change in this way because they think of climate as the sky and the air. I keep saying climate change is water events, too. Too much rain. Intense storms. Rising sea levels. Melting snow caps. Extreme drought. Water scarcity. Pollution problems are only compounded by all of these changes.
“It is not something that happens in the future here,” says UCLA climate scientist Aradhna Tripati, a co-author of the report. “It is not something only happening in places far away from where we live. All weather is now being affected. And this is human caused.”
Major natural disasters are a devastating impact of climate change, destroying homes, claiming lives, and putting school and work on hold.
For context, in the ‘80s, the U.S. experienced a billion-dollar disaster about every four months when adjusted for inflation, according to the report. The average today is once every three weeks.
Between 2018 and 2022, the country experienced 89 disasters that each cost at least $1 billion in damages. That’s from a mix of droughts, floods, severe storms, tropical cyclones, wildfires, and winter storms. During that time, Texas alone experienced $375 billion in disaster damages.
Again, we keep thinking someone else is handling these issues. Well, here we are.
We have to change if you want them to change. We have to make a conservative, in-sync correction and solution-driven effort to save water, conserve it, stop polluting it, change our practices, reduce emissions, and help this planet get stabilized.
We are all in this together.
One chapter in the report covers the risks and effects in the Southwest (which includes California) with a long and alarming list of projections, including the impact of drought on water supplies, agriculture, diseases, and ecosystems.
“Droughts are projected to increase in intensity, duration, and frequency, especially in the Southwest….Human and natural systems are threatened by rapid shifts between wet and dry periods that make water resources difficult to predict and manage,” the report reads.
Even though mega-drought conditions have impacted California and surrounding states, this area is vulnerable to flooding from extreme storms and rapid snow melts.
“Inland, decreasing snowpack alters the volume and timing of streamflow and increases wildfire risk,” the report details. “Small rural water providers that often depend on a single water source or have limited capacity are especially vulnerable.”
The report predicts that the Southwest will experience more extreme heat and smoggy days, contributing to more illness and premature death. Drier air could lead to more dust storms, doubling the deaths attributed to fine dust during the final two decades of this century.
The report also predicts wildfires will continue to have a major effect in the region. Of the 50 largest U.S. wildfires in 2020, 22 occurred in California, and the 7 largest wildfires recorded in California have occurred since 2018, the report noted.
Drought impacts our food supply too. Drought cost the agricultural industry an estimated $1.28 billion in 2021 alone. Warming temperatures are expected to reduce yields of valuable crops, including almonds and wine grapes.
Science can’t tell us how hot the planet will get because that depends on what we, the people, and our elected leaders, decide to do.
In the U.S., and throughout the world, people have a choice to take action and prevent much worse warming. Start small and local. Go to your city council meeting and ask what provisions are being made for climate change. Volunteer to be part of the steering committee to make future plans. Talk to your neighbors and read more on the topic!
The climate crisis. Overexploitation of resources and pollution. These issues are real and getting worse.
An article that came out today in The Guardian talked about the continued destruction of nature across the planet and how it will result in major shocks to food supplies and safe water.
“Research indicates humanity must work to restore nature across the planet, adopt more environmentally friendly farming practices, reduce meat consumption, stop the spread of invasive species, and dramatically cut the use of fossil fuels,” according to the article.
James Dalton, director of the IUCN global water programme, said the impact of human pollution has been seen underground, in the world’s groundwater.
“We use [water] and often don’t put it back where it came from, meaning we don’t recharge the groundwater with any excess water we took out and didn’t use,” he told The Guardian. “The water we use, we pollute, and some of those pollutants go back into the ground. This then slowly infiltrates into our future water supply, sometimes permanently. In the U.S., they have polluted groundwater that can never be cleaned (think Erin Brockovich).
There’s never been a better time to care about water.
“The future holds difficult choices,” Dalton said. He called for: “far better regulation of groundwater use; far, far stricter controls on pollutants and monitoring of pollutants; leaving some areas of the planet free from development on the land to protect the water resources underneath.”