From the costs of recovery after megastorms and wildfires to soaring prices for home and flood insurance, the climate crisis is increasingly putting the squeeze on Americans.
We’re feeling the pain of rising household costs caused by America’s reliance on carbon-emitting energy, oil producers’ grip on power, and natural disasters made worse by climate change.
Meanwhile, the invasion of Ukraine has laid bare how dependence on fossil fuels lets autocrats like Russian President Vladimir Putin finance war and destroy lives.
Extreme weather, made worse by the heat-trapping emissions warming our planet, played a pivotal role in the growth of 2021 inflation. Then came Putin’s brutal assault on Ukraine. All around the world, alarming events have impacted supplies of raw materials, which in turn lifts prices here in the Pioneer Valley. From milk and eggs to paint and gardening tools, everything seems to cost more.
If that wasn’t enough, the cost of rebuilding from climate-related storms, floods, and wildfires is sky-rocketing. Last August’s Hurricane Ida didn’t just cost American lives. It also topped a list of 2021’s most expensive weather disasters, with a price tag of $65 billion. And in the months since Ida, the human and financial toll of climate change has continued to mount.
In December, the Marshall wildfire, fueled by hurricane-force winds, burned more than 1,000 homes and businesses in Colorado, with an expected clean-up cost of $52.6 million.
That same month, a tornado outbreak killed at least 90 and devastated Kentucky. The clean-up costs could reach $3.7 billion. It’s clear that conditions for the unprecedented winter tornadoes were enhanced by unseasonably high temperatures bearing the hallmarks of climate change.
As climate change affects our quality of life, how bad will we let things get? Unless we quickly reduce the heat-trapping gases warming the planet, climate catastrophes will soon outpace our ability to recover and adapt. And the financial costs? They will keep on going up.
Air pollution from fossil fuels is linked to millions of deaths worldwide. But polluting industries continue to get a free pass to spew greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, leading to still more warming. This, in turn, exacerbates the extreme weather and climate disasters already harming us. It’s a market failure that has the true cost of carbon being paid elsewhere, most often by those who can least afford it. Frontline communities are disproportionately vulnerable to the first and worst impacts of climate change; small towns are struggling to rebuild, and people are burdened with soaring homeowner insurance and flood insurance in places once deemed low risk.
Americans are losing out to a complicated and volatile global fossil fuel market, yet coal, oil, and natural gas received $5.9 trillion in subsidies in 2020! Meanwhile, the conflict in Ukraine threatens European countries dependent on natural gas. Experts agree that a faster transition to clean energy would lead to more stable energy economies worldwide.
Now for some encouraging news: A recent report from Stanford University shows that transitioning away from the unpredictability of dirty fossil fuels to cleaner renewables would reduce per capita household annual energy costs by around 63%. It would create millions of new jobs, too, and save lives by reducing pollution.
It would also take the strain off struggling electrical grids. In February 2021, an unexpected winter storm left Texas less than five minutes away from grid collapse. Although the worst was averted, frigid temperatures led to massive power outages, hundreds of deaths, and agricultural losses exceeding $600 million.
A federal carbon fee on polluting industries would speed up this essential transition and let the market determine which clean technologies win out. What’s more, the money from the fee could be returned as a “carbon cashback” check to American households, providing invaluable monthly support.
As both sides of the aisle in Congress discuss solutions to climate change and consider our energy future, volunteers with the Pioneer Valley chapter of Citizens’ Climate Lobby are urging Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey to support a price on carbon with a dividend returned directly to households already impacted by rising costs.
The transition to cheap, reliable, green energy is already happening, but it needs to happen faster. We can’t afford any more foot-dragging. Our elected leaders must make sound economic decisions to secure a livable world and leave Americans with more cash in their pockets, too.
Madeleine Para is executive director of Citizens’ Climate Lobby. Linda Butler is a volunteer with the Pioneer Valley chapter of CCL. Here’s where you can join for free: https://citizensclimatelobby.org.