"Donald Trump has long railed against emissions-cutting policy as an expensive hoax and scam. But the climate crisis itself comes with a major price tag for Americans, a new study shows. Previous research has found that global heating has driven up utility costs, home insurance premiums and healthcare bills. But according to the new study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, it has also slashed US incomes by more than a tenth since 2000 a severe national economic jolt."
"Trump has repeatedly spoken out about the costs of tackling the climate crisis. He has dismissed renewables as too costly, erroneously called wind the most expensive energy there is and decried efforts to combat global heating as an expensive con job. Much of the prevailing narrative around going carbon neutral has also focused on the massive upfront investment needed, and the costs that could be passed on to households and businesses."
Rising temperatures have eroded Americans’ earning power by more than ten percent since 2000, producing a sustained national economic loss. The income declines have occurred as many small, steady losses rather than a single collapse, accumulating over two decades. Observed daily temperatures were compared with counterfactual climate model estimates without human-caused heating, and those temperature differences were linked to US income data from 1969–2019 to quantify impacts. Global heating has also driven up utility costs, home insurance premiums and healthcare bills, adding further financial burdens. Political rhetoric has emphasized mitigation costs, yet unchecked warming is already imposing major economic harms.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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