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Earth is COOKED: Excessive spending, scorching heat, and preventative infrastructure
The earth is cooked and so are our pockets. According to a recent government report extreme weather events over the last decade have cost the US more than $350 billion.
The Government Accountability Office audit report is real AF. GAO warns that climate change will effect various industries and regions differently. They suggest that the Trump administration take heed and start to prepare accordingly.
Climate change threatens the economy and GAO recommends that the Trump administration “crafts appropriate federal responses.”
According to the report, storm losses from sea level rise, more intense storms, and increased flooding in coastal communities, like NYC, could cost the US as much as $89 billion by 2099.
Changes in labor productivity from lost work hours could cost the country as much as $150 billion by the end of the century.
Value of life is going to cost the US too. Changes in temperature-related mortality costs based on the value of statistical life will cost as much as $506 billion by the turn of millennium. The report noted,
“The impacts and costs of extreme events — such as floods, drought and other events — will increase in significance as what are considered rare events become more common and intense because of climate change.”
That’s a lot of dough to be dishing out for something that can be somewhat controlled.
If you still don’t believe that climate change is real take a look at the weather in Southern California this week.
We are one week away from November, yet Southern California’s temperatures came in range of triple digits. According to the National Weather Service, both Marine Corps Air Station Miramar and San Luis Obispo topped out at 108 degrees.
LA was setting temperature records.
Another day of record heat across SW CA today. Preliminary record highs – some could go higher. #LAHeat #LAWeather #cawx #SoCal pic.twitter.com/IrzeaPvnG6
— NWS Los Angeles (@NWSLosAngeles) October 24, 2017
The US is not the only country at risk, they’re basically the only country turning a cold shoulder to the climate change threat.
Forward-thinking countries like Japan spent billions on an underground system to control water around the capital.
Peep the Metropolitan Area Outer Discharge Channel
To put in perspective how far behind the US is in terms of battling future climate change threats like storm surges and flooding, Japan completed this bad boy in 2006.
This $2 billion underground anti-flood system diverts water away from the region’s most vulnerable flood plains. The tunnel stretches nearly four miles and features five massive tanks that move unwanted flood water along.
You could fit the Statue of Liberty inside this system of cisterns. Once water fills up the discharge channel the heart of the system which is powered by four turbines pumps floodwaters back into the Edo River.
Prevention is always better than cure. This underground tunnel protects Japan’s capital and surrounding metropolitan cities from flooding and tropical cyclones.
Like Typhoon Lan
The Metropolitan Area Outer Discharge Channel looks to protect 13 million of the area’s inhabitants.
Hopefully, disaster prevention infrastructure like this will inspire the US and other countries all over the world. According to the NYT, “Houston city officials have pleaded for state and federal funds to help build a new $400 million reservoir that could keep storm water from inundating downstream neighborhoods.”
This is what our tax dollars should be investing in. If we don’t do something about this now the repercussions might be too devastating and costly for us to pay.
According to a research study done by Yale’s Climate Change Communication program, 12 percent of Americans still don’t believe in climate change.
Government heads all over the world believe that climate change is real. President Trump, who removed us from the Paris Agreement, doesn’t agree. We have to either adapt, change our carbon emitting ways, or risk extinction at our own hands.
Even the Pope feels some type of way about people’s ignorance on climate change. BBC reported his comments regarding the belief in climate change, he said,
“You can see the effects of climate change with your own eyes and scientists tell us clearly the way forward.”
The papal homie even dropped some old testament on climate change skeptics,
“Man is stupid, a stubborn, blind man.”
Think about future generations. What will they have to inherit? A barren wasteland of nothingness.