September 10th, 2009

By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

Not convinced that climate change matters? The Union of Concerned Scientists has concluded that if Americans adopt that stance, they’ll be gambling not just with their lungs, but with their pocketbooks.

The UCS surveyed 60 studies to better examine the anticipated financial toll of global warming if we fail to “dramatically curb emissions.” The nonprofit released the findings today in a report called “Climate Change in the United States: The Prohibitive Costs of Inaction”.

It found that rising sea levels, intense hurricanes, flooding, impaired public health and strained energy and water resources would all add up to one monumental price tag.

“By late this century, the Midwest could be inundated with more torrential rainstorms costs tens of billions of dollars [in crop and property damage]. California, Washington and Oregon could be hit with an additional billion dollars in property damage from wildfires every year. The Northeast and Northwest, meanwhile, could lost most of their snowpack, which would kill the ski industry,” said Lexi Shultz, deputy director of the Climate Program at UCS.

But wait, there’s good news: The US Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration says that developing clean energy and taking steps to slow global warming emissions would be affordable. The EIA says that the cost of fighting global warming would only cost each American household about $10 a month in increases in their energy bills by 2020.

The UCS wants us to stack that price tag of about $120 a year against the staggering costs of inaction. If climate change continues unchecked, with temperatures climbing by 7 to 11 degrees by 2100, the UCS report projects that:

• The federal government could end up spending billions fighting wildfires (which would increase by as much as 53 percent in 2100) considering the feds spent $200 million fighting just three wildfires last year in California.

• California would also suffer from heat-related public health issues and associated costs of billions to mitigate the human effects of ground-level ozone, which would worsen under climate change.

• The loss of snowpack would make many recreation areas in the Northeast and the Northwest unsuitable for skiing and snowmobiling, costing, conservatively, a loss of $405 million in annual skiing revenues.

• Reduced snow melt in all of the nation’s mountainous regions could affect water flow in streams and ultimately cost farmers, such as those in New Mexico where the loss of water from reduced snowmelt could cost $21 million a year by 2080.

• Shrinking snowpack would have huge impact in Oregon and Washington on many industries. Losses to the coldwater fishing (angling) industry could ultimately cost about $1 billion annually.

• In the Northeast, sugar maples would lose habitat, meaning annual loss of $5 to $12 million just to that industry.

• Sea level rise all along the East Coast would require seawalls. Possible cost in the Northeast: Up to $1.2 billion, and more in the Southeast

• In the Southeast, where a projected rise of 18 inches is anticipated in sea levels, the beach recreation industry could incur $11 billion in cumulative damages by 2080.

• Georgia alone could lose 5,000 tourism jobs.

• Florida could be especially hard hit, experiencing residential real estate losses of as much as $60 billion a year by 2100, due to sea level rises. The tourism industry could be slapped with more than $175 billion in annual losses due to beach erosion. Property damage from hurricanes could top $100 billion annually by 2100.

• In the Midwest, flooding and heavy downpours predicted by a collaboration of 13 federal agencies, could cause billions of dollars of crop damage and exacerbate erosion, raising the price of food production. Looking at just one state, Illinois, the annual costs to agriculture could reach $9.3 billion.

• Alaska, where warming is occurring disproportionately faster than in other states, would suffer continued damage to infrastructure as the permafrost melts, costing up to $6 billion just by 2030.

As for those who might ask whether these projections are alarmist, a spokesman for the UCS notes that the report was based on “mainstream” studies and that scientists, if anything, tend to err on the of conservatism.

“Most climate scientists acknowledge that current methods of predicting the consequences of climate change may underestimate the real impact and costs of climate change. More carbon dioxide is staying in the atmosphere as the ocean absorbs less and less over time. At the same time, ice sheets appear to be melting more rapidly than scientist have expected,” said Aaron Huertas, press secretary for the UCS, which is based in Massachusetts.

“…If these costs seem large it’s only because our dependence on the relatively stable climate of the past century or so is immense,” Huertas said. “Every home, every crop, every road — our entire civilization — has been built for today’s climate. A rapid shift in our climate will mean major disruptions for our way of life.

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