The Cost of Climate Denial: America's $1 Trillion Wake-Up Call
A recent report by Bloomberg has found that the price tag of climate disasters in the U.S. totaled almost $1 trillion over the past year to May. That's not a typo — one trillion dollars for disaster relief, insurance claims, rebuilding infrastructure, and emergency services. As Kate Aronoff cautions, these astronomical figures are not merely environmental data; they are warning bells from the economy that the nation cannot afford to keep neglecting.
This trillion-dollar cost contains direct federal spending as well as the rising cost facing average Americans. Among the most immediate effects has been on home insurance premiums, which have risen on average by 40% over the past six years. Home insurance is becoming prohibitively costly or simply unavailable for many families, especially those residing in disaster-prone areas.
While wildfires in California or hurricanes in Florida make the news, the most sensational increases in insurance premiums are really occurring in the Midwest. Nebraska, which has experienced a long period of being underreported in climate conversation around the country, is a prime example. Rates there have increased by 72% as increasingly frequent hailstorms and tornadoes sweep across the state.
Disasters Are Increasing — So Why Is the Government Retreating?
The Nebraska case is a warning in the making. In the 1990s, it suffered only four climate catastrophes that were over $1 billion each. In the past decade, it has had 22. That's a five-fold rate of increase in billion-dollar disasters, within a span of one generation. This is no accident — it is a measure of growing climate instability.
But even in the presence of this recognized and growing danger, the federal government appears to be going the other way.
Trump's administration has axed a llot of climate science research projects, meaning we'll have less data to inform us about climate change.
Then there's the proposal to dismantle the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) after the hurricane season this year. This means it's down to the local level, the States to bear the costs of climate related disasters.
The problem here is that local institutions simply don't have the resources to be able to manage climate level disasters such as wild fires at the local level.
FEMA was established exactly because it is only when an entire area is ruined that federal direction and assistance are needed. Cutting national emergency infrastructure will not eliminate climate catastrophes — it will merely make it slower, more deadly, and more costly.
The Price of Denial
Ultimately IMO this is not an issue of willful ignorance. Ignoring the cost of the economic harm of climate change, outsourcing it to someone else to pay, and pretending the damage isn't occurring won't solve the problem. Rather, it will continue to grow — economically, socially, and environmentally.
But then again this is classic neoliberalism... establish policies that enable the super wealthy to avoid cleaning up their mess.
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As insurance gets more and more expensive or hard to get, families find themselves at risk from the severe effects of climate-related disasters.
I don't think we should up-end the world when we can take concrete steps to lower the temperature in cities. Using different building materials and planting thousands of trees for shade will go a long way.
I work in the roofing industry in Denver, Colorado, where we chase hail storms. This business has grown five fold in the last ten years..
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They cut fema funding and the administration denies climate change even though exists so things will become even worse in the years to come
Some parties can profit of chaos, after all!
The fossil fuel industry has a lot to answer for. They knew about climate change decades ago, but pushed back against any restrictions. They bought this US government to do what they want.
It's shameful, right, and short sighted obvs to cut costs!
I find it questionable to attribute the increased cost of weather-related damages to climate change. There is inflation, more people and more homes (growing population), insurance-required improvements that drive up cost, and a gaggle of other factors that influence the increase in cost of disaster recovery. Climate change seems to be the catch-all bogeyman for anything that goes wrong. It's like six degrees of separation, but instead of Kevin Bacon, it's climate change.
FEMA, for the most part, isn't directly responsible for emergency response. The emergency response framework designed by FEMA, known as NIMS (National Incident Management System), which uses ICS (Incident Command System), is bottom-up. Local responders are ALWAYS in charge of emergencies. From there, they work their way up. For example, a city can request resources from the county, and the county can request resources from the state. The state, in turn, will request federal resources. Most needs can be resolved at the county and state level. FEMA's role is largely in supplementing coordination and in reimbursing local agencies for their emergency response expenses, and providing otherwise unavailable resources. For example, you wouldn't expect Arizona to have an abundance of rescue boats at any level of government, which FEMA could provide. One of their main contributions are mobile morgues and body bags.
What NIMS does is that it makes emergency responders interchangeable in any community. The response is handled the same in any community that has the NIMS training. They have the same language, same forms, and same roles in any incident from an auto accident to a hurricane.
You are correct in your assessment that emergency response is down to the local level. That is by design. Most municipalities have MOUs (memorandum of understanding) with nearby communities to share resources in major emergencies, which include terms for reimbursement of cost. When emergencies are anticipated, counties and states will often pre-deploy resources to be on standby if/when they are requested by local communities. Texas, in particular, isn't highly reliant on FEMA. TDEM (Texas Department of Emergency Management) is constantly training emergency response personnel in field work and use of NIMS and ICS. It's even to the point where our largest grocery store chain, HEB, has its own emergency response team at the ready to roll out supplies to affected areas, both to give away and have available for purchase upon reopening their grocery stores. I can't speak for the other 49 states; however, Texas has it together when it comes to emergency management.
Although, one thing Texas has that other states don't have is a separate militia, the Texas State Guard, which only answers to the Governor of Texas. TSG is highly active during emergencies. If TSG isn't sufficient, there is also the Texas National Guard, which answers to the Governor or President, depending on who called them up. Suffice it to say, FEMA getting sidelined won't have much effect given that their role is mostly reimbursement, if they haven't given away their budget to pet projects already.
Now's the right time to be concerned about the future of our planet. It's degrading day by day.