[MCN] I see a story still largely untold : Climate change endangers environment and the economy at the same time

[Lance Olsen]

Excerpt : Worse, campaigns to protect the environment have long been painted as an enemy of the economy. That old habit won’t change easily. Even at grassroots level, many still believe that blaming humans for a hotter world is “a conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. economy <https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/01/27/climate-change-politics-224295>.” 

But the joke’s on them, because we’ve come to point of endangering the environment and the economy at the same time. 

Indicating the worldwide scale of threat to the economy, World Finance <https://www.worldfinance.com/markets/climate-change-continues-to-wreak-havoc-on-the-global-economy> magazine recently pointed out that, “It is becoming more and more apparent that the developing threat of climate change is not simply damaging the earth’s natural ecosystem, but is also harming the world economy.”

Indicating this risk specifically for the US economy, a 2018 Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond staff analysis <https://doi.org/10.21144/wp18-09> found that even a modest one degree Fahrenheit temperature increase begins to take the wind out of the economy’s sails. In fact, the study found evidence that “rising temperatures could reduce U.S. economic growth by up to one-third over the next century.”

The concern didn’t stop with that one report. In January 2019, American Banker <https://www.americanbanker.com/news/why-banks-should-stress-test-for-climate-change> magazine warned that “The planet is warming at an alarmingly rapid rate, and unless swift action is taken to curb the emission of greenhouse gases, the economic costs will be severe”.

Citing “huge costs seen in climate inaction,” Business Insurance <https://www.businessinsurance.com/article/00010101/NEWS06/912325939/Huge-costs-seen-in-climate-inaction> magazine points directly to what we all face if we fail to stop “the potential dire economic consequences of climate change.

The Bloomberg Climate Changed newsletter summarized the situation on February 7, 2019: “The last five years were collectively the world’s hottest on record <https://link.mail.bloombergbusiness.com/click/15941830.21105/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYmxvb21iZXJnLmNvbS9uZXdzL2FydGljbGVzLzIwMTktMDItMDYvMjAxOC13YXMtdGhlLWZvdXJ0aC13YXJtZXN0LXllYXItb24tcmVjb3JkP3V0bV9tZWRpdW09ZW1haWwmdXRtX3NvdXJjZT1uZXdzbGV0dGVyJnV0bV90ZXJtPTE5MDIwNyZ1dG1fY2FtcGFpZ249Y2xpbWF0ZWNoYW5nZWQ/58ffbaf7dd4c29967b8b4646Be4f6e8fd>. That warming, which NASA and NOAA directly link to human activity, has immediate financial consequences.” The summary added that “Climate change isn’t just an expanding threat to the environment; it’s already a massive drag on the economy.”

It’s not just banks and insurance companies at risk from a hotter world. Households and individuals galore will take direct hits, some from rising seas that destroy homes once regarded as the epitome of the the American Dream, others from the heat and drought so basic to fires that burn homes to the ground, and yet others when drought dries up household wells — what’s a house worth when it loses its water? 

Household and personal exposure to climate risk doesn’t end there. Thanks to low interest rates, many households pulled money out of savings accounts and used it to buy shares in the stock market. Pointing out that households are exposed to climate risk from this quarter, too, Financial Advisor <https://www.fa-mag.com/news/climate-change-could-threaten-investments-42339.html> magazine recently warned that “Climate change could sandbag investment portfolios in 2019”.

As if all that isn’t risky enough for individuals and households, their pension funds are exposed to climate risks. A pensions industry newsletter, P <https://www.professionalpensions.com/professional-pensions/news/3027746/parliamentary-committee-probes-uks-top-25-pension-funds-over-climate-risk-mitigation>rofessional Pensions <https://www.professionalpensions.com/professional-pensions/news/3027746/parliamentary-committee-probes-uks-top-25-pension-funds-over-climate-risk-mitigation>, has warned of “the major economic impact of climate change and the serious long-term threat that it poses to pension funds’ investments.”

Something’s happening here, and what it is is becoming increasingly clear. After decades of claims that protecting the environment endangers the economy, it turns out that we’ve been endangering both. I have to count myself among those who see this emergent risk as an emergency. If our politicians won’t tell us that, we have to be telling it to them.

Counterpunch FEBRUARY 14, 2019
Heat and the End of the World as We Know It <https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/02/14/heat-and-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it/>by LANCE OLSEN <https://www.counterpunch.org/author/lance-olsen/>
<<https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/02/14/heat-and-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it/ <https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/02/14/heat-and-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it/>>>
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“A new area of study is the field that some of us are beginning to call social traps. The term refers to situations in society that contain traps formally like a fish trap, where men or whole societies get themselves started in some direction or some set of relationships that later prove to be unpleasant or lethal and that they see no easy way to back out of or to avoid."

John Platt. Social Traps. American Psychologist, August 1973





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