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U.S. Regions and Business Sectors Face Significant Economic Risks From Climate Change
Risky Business ^
| June 24, 2014
| Press Release
Posted on 06/25/2014 4:08:12 PM PDT by CedarDave
New York, June 24 The American economy could face significant and widespread disruptions from climate change unless U.S. businesses and policymakers take immediate action to reduce climate risk, according to a new report released today. The report, Risky Business: The Economic Risks of Climate Change in the United States, summarizes findings of an independent assessment of the impact of climate change at the county, state, and regional level, and shows that communities, industries, and properties across the U.S. face profound risks from climate change. The findings also show that the most severe risks can still be avoided through early investments in resilience, and through immediate action to reduce the pollution that causes global warming.
The Risky Business report shows that two of the primary impacts of climate changeextreme heat and sea level risewill disproportionately affect certain regions of the U.S., and pose highly variable risks across the nation. In the U.S. Gulf Coast, Northeast, and Southeast, for example, sea level rise and increased damage from storm surge are likely to lead to an additional $2 to $3.5 billion in property losses each year by 2030, with escalating costs in future decades. In interior states in the Midwest and Southwest, extreme heat will threaten human health, reduce labor productivity and strain electricity grids.
Conversely, in northern latitudes such as North Dakota and Montana, winter temperatures will likely rise, reducing frost events and cold-related deaths, and lengthening the growing season for some crops.
The report is a product of The Risky Business Project, a joint, non-partisan initiative of former Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson, Jr., Mayor of New York City from 2002-2013 Michael R. Bloomberg, and Thomas P. Steyer, former Senior Managing Member of Farallon Capital Management.
(Excerpt) Read more at riskybusiness.org ...
TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Extended News
KEYWORDS: climatechange; climatechangefraud; climatefraud; economy; globalwarming; globalwarminghoax; hankpaulson; reich; robertreich; steyer
Full title:
Risky Business Report Finds That U.S. Regions and Business Sectors Face Significant Economic Risks From Climate ChangeThis is the most alarmist, by far, climate disaster scenario I have ever encountered. If not for it's "all star" cast of members, it would immediately be discounted as over-the-top hype.
First lets look at the group putting it out:
- Henry Cisneros - Founder & Chairman, CityView Capital; former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD); former Mayor of San Antonio, TX
- Gregory Page - Executive Chairman, Cargill, Inc. and former Cargill Chief Executive Officer
- Robert Rubin - Co-chairman, Council on Foreign Relations; former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury
- Donna Shalala - President, University of Miami; former US Secretary of Health and Human Services; former Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison
- George Shultz - Thomas W. and Susan B. Ford Distinguished Fellow at the Hoover Institution; former US Secretary of State; former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury; former U.S. Secretary of Labor; former Director, Office of Management & Budget; former President, Bechtel Group
- Olympia Snowe - Former U.S. Senator representing Maine
- Dr. Al Sommer - Dean Emeritus, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University
Examples of what they claim are likely impacts include:
- Large-scale losses of coastal property and infrastructure .
- If we continue on our current path, by 2050 between $66 and $106 billion worth of existing coastal property will likely be below sea level nationwide, growing to $238 to $507 billion by 2100.
- There is a 1-in-20 chance that by the end of this century more than $701 billion worth of existing coastal property will be below sea level, and that average annual losses from hurricanes and other coastal storms along the Eastern Seaboard and Gulf of Mexico will grow by more than $42 billion due just to sea-level rise alone. Potential changes in hurricane activity could raise this amount to $108 billion.
- Property losses from sea-level rise will disproportionately affect the Southeast and Atlantic coasts, where rise is expected to be higher and the losses far greater than other coastal areas.
- Extreme heat across the nationespecially in the Southwest, Southeast, and Upper Midwestthat threatens labor productivity, human health, and energy systems.
- By the middle of this century, the average American will likely experience 27 to 50 days each year with temperatures reaching more than 95°Fup to more than three times the average number of 95°F days weve seen over the past 30 years. By the end of this century, this number will likely reach 45 to 100 additional days reaching 95°F each year on average.
- As with sea-level rise, these national averages mask regional extremes, especially in the Southwest, Southeast, and upper Midwest, which will likely see several months of successive 95°F days each year.
- Labor productivity of outdoor workers, such as those working in construction, utility maintenance, landscaping, and agriculture, could be reduced by as much as 3 percent, particularly in the Southeast.
- Over the longer-term, during portions of the year, extreme heat could surpass the threshold at which the human body can no longer maintain a normal core temperature without air conditioning. During these periods, anyone whose job requires them to work outdoors, as well as anyone lacking access to air conditioning, will face severe health risks and potential death.
- Demand for electricity for air conditioning will surge in those parts of the country facing the most extreme temperature increases, straining regional generation and transmission capacity and driving up costs for consumers.
- Shifting agricultural patterns and crop yields, with likely gains for Northern farmers offset by losses in the Midwest and South.
- Absent agricultural adaptation, if we continue on our current path, national commodity crop production (corn, soy, wheat and cotton) could decline by 14 percent by mid-century and up to 42 percent by late century as extreme heat spreads across the middle of the country.
- At the same time, warmer temperatures and carbon fertilization may improve agricultural productivity and crop yields in the upper Great Plains and other northern states.
- Food systems are resilient at a national and global level, and agricultural producers have proven themselves extremely able to adapt to changing climate conditions. These shifts, however, still carry risks for the individual farming communities most vulnerable to projected climatic changes.
The Risky Business Project found that early action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution can substantially reduce future risks. Impacts that are likely to occur between now and 2030 are largely the result of past emissions, and thus less avoidable.
1
posted on
06/25/2014 4:08:12 PM PDT
by
CedarDave
Comment #2 Removed by Moderator
To: CedarDave
And all because of the alleged pollutant CO2, a trace gas necessary for life.
Total non-scientific horse apples.
3
posted on
06/25/2014 4:11:46 PM PDT
by
beethovenfan
(If Islam is the solution, the "problem" must be freedom.)
To: CedarDave
More drivel from the the political elite.
To: DeepInTheHeartOfTexas
It’s not Obama Incompetence ,It’s Global warming
5
posted on
06/25/2014 4:14:09 PM PDT
by
molson209
(Blank)
To: CedarDave
◦If we continue on our current path, by 2050 between $66 and $106 billion worth of existing coastal property will likely be below sea level nationwide, Now I have more of a reason to try to live to 2050. To see this BS projection be proven to be a fantasy. Note that the most extreme projections are projected to come true in 2100 after we are all dead. How convenient. These jokers won't fix Social Security and Medicare, which will be in crisis within 20 years, but are screaming that we fix this problem, which will occur in 100 years.
6
posted on
06/25/2014 4:14:27 PM PDT
by
Opinionated Blowhard
("When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.")
To: beethovenfan
What’s strange about the CO2 argument is CO2 is produced naturally... is any man made CO2 tagged differently then natures? The answer is no, period.
7
posted on
06/25/2014 4:14:30 PM PDT
by
SIRTRIS
To: CedarDave
Nonsense. Pure nonsense. Common Core will guarantee that education is not what it should be but pure indoctrination.
8
posted on
06/25/2014 4:20:09 PM PDT
by
Fungi
To: CedarDave
We should start engraving the names of these lunatics in granite along with the date and their claim! Especially claims that refer to the rise in sea levels and increased hurricane activity.
To: DeepInTheHeartOfTexas
Only as “bipartisan” as was Hitler’s first government - one crippled German president, Nazis, and Good Germans.
There is more risk to the health of the US in bullshit articles and reports like this, than there is from global warming, climate change, and Michael Mann’s hockey stick (which should be shoved up where the sun don’t shine).
I just wish I could package and sell this bullshit, aka “100 percent pasteurized pasture patties” (movie:”Hard Bodies”). I’d be a billionaire and would work to put Bloomturd, Steyer, Cisneros etc. in jail for being crooks and/or marxists traitors.
To: CedarDave
Wait, I thought the COLD weather caused a 2.9% drop in GNP last winter.
Sorry progressives, inconvenient “truth” here.
To: CedarDave
I agree, the first step is to impose a 500% (or more) “Green Tax” on any and everything coming from China or India.
We’re good here....
12
posted on
06/25/2014 4:31:05 PM PDT
by
ASOC
(What are you doing now that Mexico has become OUR Chechnya?)
To: CedarDave
I’ll wager that they are all heavily invested in the carbon tax FRaud scheme, and have devised a way to make money out of this!
13
posted on
06/25/2014 4:31:51 PM PDT
by
Taxman
Comment #14 Removed by Moderator
To: CedarDave
Considering the increasing output of ‘greenhouse gases’ from other countries overseas and south of the border, whatever drastic ‘reductions’ we take will be pointless if they are correct (and they’re full of it).
This barrage about global warming/climate change is to continue the push to regulate our citizens into oblivion and tax them into slavery.
15
posted on
06/25/2014 4:46:10 PM PDT
by
Pox
(Good Night. I expect more respect tomorrow.)
To: Pox
Considering the increasing output of greenhouse gases from other countries overseas and south of the border, whatever drastic reductions we take will be pointless if they are correct (and theyre full of it).
This barrage about global warming/climate change is to continue the push to regulate our citizens into oblivion and tax them into slavery. But, but, someone has to first take the lead in reducing carbon emissions for the good of the planet. And that has to be the US! And we must save the polar bears!!
/sar
To: CedarDave
The greatest reduction in CO2 could be accomplished by strangling all the Global Warming fakery proponents .... a dead Global Warming freak exhales no CO2.
17
posted on
06/25/2014 6:01:39 PM PDT
by
RetiredTexasVet
(Surgeon General Warning: Operation of Government Motors vehicles may be hazardous to your health)
To: CedarDave
18
posted on
06/25/2014 6:30:18 PM PDT
by
Candor7
(Obama fascism article:(http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/05/barack_obama_the_quintessentia_1.html))
To: Opinionated Blowhard
Weren’t they claiming 20 years ago that “The oceans will be dead in 10 years”?
19
posted on
06/26/2014 6:39:05 PM PDT
by
DuncanWaring
(The Lord uses the good ones; the bad ones use the Lord.)
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