Climate change costing U.S. households up to $900 per year

AccuWeather

AccuWeather Vice President of Forecast Operations Dan DePodwin and AccuWeather Climate Expert Brett Anderson discuss the top headlines related to climate change in the December 5 edition of Climate In The News.

Transcript

00:00Today we'll first look back 56 million years ago and then we'll examine how climate change

00:06has already cost U.S. households near $1,000.

00:10Brett, our first story from the conversation looks at plants 56 million years ago during

00:16a prolonged period of heat across the world and how plants were impacted.

00:22Yes, over a 5,000 year period, Dan, we saw a rapid increase in atmospheric CO2 and therefore

00:28temperatures responded worldwide, increasing as much as 10 degrees Fahrenheit and so many

00:33of the world's plants could no longer survive. That's a big problem. What is really scary though,

00:38I will say, is today the Earth is warming 10 times faster than it was 56 million years ago.

00:44That certainly raises concerns about what impact our warming now will have on plants today.

00:48Why are plants so important to the carbon cycle? Well, they are. Let's look at photosynthesis.

00:52Plants take up carbon dioxide, absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere,

00:56and release oxygen. So if we limit that, again, we're going to see more CO2 in the atmosphere

01:02and more problems. It also seems like there are certain parts of the world that the study found

01:07where this may not have been disrupted as much, actually, and there were some benefits of this,

01:11but it didn't seem to outweigh the negative impacts. Right, and not talking about the far

01:14northern latitudes, the high latitudes, I should say, we're seeing more drought-resistant plants

01:21thriving in these areas, and therefore, less problems up in those areas.

01:26It certainly raises questions about how our systems on this planet will keep up with this rate

01:30of warming. Our second story today from Heatmap, that was an interesting study by three economists,

01:36Brett, that did not look forward in time, but rather back in time at how much climate change

01:41has already cost U.S. households, and it has cost them up to $900 per year.

01:45Yeah, $900 per year, $50 to $110 billion nationwide per year. One great example they used, wildfires.

01:54We're seeing more large fires, extreme fires now, and so therefore, more destruction,

02:00higher insurance costs to replace these homes. That's affecting a big part of the population.

02:05Smoke also, much more widespread across the country. That's increasing health insurance costs, so both sides.

02:11Yeah, the insurance costs, a big chunk of that cost per year. It also was an interesting note here

02:17that the U.S. has adapted quite well to heat with air conditioning installed across most of the country,

02:22but there's many other hazards where we have not adapted as well.

02:24No, flooding is the big one, really. We're seeing many more extreme rainfall events and flooding in

02:30areas that really never saw such sudden massive floods. And again, this is causing tremendous amount

02:36of property damage, much higher insurance costs. And one other interesting thing I thought was

02:42that was noted here was the impact on the real estate market overall.

02:46Yeah, we're seeing a removing of climate risk scores from some sites

02:51because I think it was affecting the real estate market a little bit, but those scores are very important.

02:55They are important. More information is generally good and it helps people make decisions.

02:59Also important for us to know what the climate risks are so we can build ways to adapt.

03:04Well, thanks, Brett. For other stories about climate, you can find that at acciweather.com.

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