Feeling the Heat (and Other Climate Change Impacts)

 September marks the end of a very hot summer for much of the United States. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, this July averaged 2.7°F higher than the 20th century average and was the fourth warmest month on record. For some areas, July 2011 was their warmest month since record-keeping began in 1895; Dallas, Texas endured temperatures over 100°F on 30 of the month’s 31 days – and 70 days total in 2011.

Record-breaking heat waves were only part of this year’s severe weather. Americans experienced tornadoes, extreme precipitation events, severe flooding, and devastating drought and wildfires. The increasing frequency and severity of these events are consistent with the changes scientists have predicted due to our mounting greenhouse gas emissions.

What climate change impacts will we see in the coming years? A recent report by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) tells us that with each degree Celsius (or 1.8°F) of warming, we can expect:

• 3-10 percent increase in amount of rain falling during heaviest precipitation events
• 5-10 percent less streamflow in some river basins, including the Arkansas and Rio Grande
• 5-15 percent reduced yield of U.S. corn
• 200-400 percent increase in the area burned by wildfire in parts of the western United States.

These impacts are likely to cost us billions or even trillions of dollars. In the past 30 years, 99 U.S. weather-related disasters have surpassed $1 billion (adjusted for inflation) in damages and costs, and their cumulative costs exceeded $725 billion. And those are just domestic events. Extreme weather and rising sea levels in other parts of the world also impact us by serving as a “threat multiplier” in unstable regions, putting greater demands on our military. (See what the U.S. military is doing to reduce its fossil fuel use on page 4).

In April, EESI brought two authors of the NAS report to Capitol Hill to brief Congressional staff on this important research . Dr. Gary Yohe, an economics and environmental studies professor from Wesleyan University, explained that policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions should be thought of as an investment in reducing risk – and the science shows policymakers exactly what is at risk. While a policy can never guarantee avoided damages, we invest in homeland security for similar reasons.

Unfortunately, despite the observation of climate changes underway and scientific projections of more to come, many elected leaders have not made greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction a priority. Some are even trying to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating GHGs at all. To clarify some of the misinformation among policymakers about the EPA’s actions on GHGs, we published a fact sheet, “Timeline of EPA Action on Greenhouse Gases” and an issue brief, “Fossil Fuels in the Era of Greenhouse Gas Permits” . EESI will continue to defend EPA’s authority by educating Congress on the historical benefits of EPA regulations and the non-partisan research that has been done on the costs and benefits of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.