Climate Change Resources

November 8, 2019

Climate Shock: The Economic Consequences of a Hotter Planet, by Gernot Wagner and the late Martin L. Weitzman, is not your typical “the world is ending” book on climate change. Rather, it is a fairly rigorous look from an economist’s perspective at how to think about the range of probabilities that underlie climate change predictions. In the authors’ words, “Climate change is unlike any other environmental problem, really unlike any other public policy problem. It’s almost uniquely global, uniquely long-term, uniquely irreversible, and uniquely uncertain—certainly unique in the combination of all four. These four factors, call them the Big Four, are what make climate change so difficult to solve.”

Although somewhat technical in nature, the book’s discussion of these Big Four issues provides a solid foundation on which one can integrate further climate change forecasts and policy discussions that result. It also provides a useful and unemotional discussion of the use of a carbon tax, which in the authors’ view is an important potential tool in addressing the presence of extreme externality of the climate change phenomenon.

August 31, 2019

The pace of climate change has accelerated to such a degree that what was only a few years ago a reasonable and theoretical debate has been replaced by a daily torrent of undeniable, real-world evidence. Readers wishing to acquaint themselves with the issue now have numerous options, ranging from their personal observations to technical scientific studies and government- and nonprofit-sponsored research.

We recommend that David Wallace-Wells’s book The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming be added to the list. Wallace-Wells is not a scientist—he is a deputy editor of New York magazine, where he has focused for several years on climate change. This, therefore, is the vantage point from which he has written this book, and we recommend it as part of the breadth of resources available to us on the subject. Wallace-Wells forecasts for us what life on earth decades from now might be if we do nothing to slow the rate of climate change. His descriptions of famine, flooding, mass starvation, migrations, and super-storms may strike some as more speculation than hard science, and we understand that. Having said that, when read with this caveat in mind, surely this work merits some attention—if only to stretch your imagination about the world we will inhabit if the worst actually comes true.

May 15, 2019

The discussion of climate change has often been characterized by hyperbole on both sides. For some, the world is about to end; for others, climate change is a giant hoax. As always, the objective of OurFutureAmerica® is to help our readers separate fact from fiction as we consider the issues. We think that Climate of Hope: How Cities, Businesses, and Citizens Can Save the Planet by Michael Bloomberg and Carl Pope provides a helpful contribution to the discussion.

The very reasonableness of the writers’ approach is exemplified by Bloomberg’s first paragraph of Part One of the book, where he begins by saying, “I’m not exactly your stereotypical environmentalist. I don’t own a pair of Birkenstocks, eat granola, hug trees, lie down in front of bulldozers, oppose GMOs, or lose sleep over spotted owls, I don’t want to ban fracking (just do it safely) or stop the Keystone pipeline (the oil is coming here one way or another), and I support nuclear power. I’ve spent most of my career in finance, and the technology my company makes is used by traders, financiers, and executives around the world (the smart ones, at least). So why did a guy like me become a crusader against climate change? Very simply: to save and improve lives.” 

The book provides a very approachable overview of climate change, what it is, how it happens, and what the consequences are likely to be if left unchecked. It also provides a helpful review of many of the logical and affordable responses to it, including the very important role that cities can and do play in the solution. 

February 26, 2019

While President Trump continues to deny the relevance of climate change, his own administration appears to suffer no delusions about the meaning of the scientific evidence. For our readers who want to learn more from our own government than we have shared in our Climate Change Research, we suggest you review the recently released Fourth National Climate Assessment, Volume Two: Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States. Here for your convenience are a few of the summary findings, lifted directly from the report.

1. Communities

Climate change creates new risks and exacerbates existing vulnerabilities in communities across the United States, presenting growing challenges to human health and safety, quality of life, and the rate of economic growth.

2. Economy

Without substantial and sustained global mitigation and regional adaptation efforts, climate change is expected to cause growing losses to American infrastructure and property and impede the rate of economic growth over this century.

3. Interconnected Impacts

Climate change affects the natural, built, and social systems we rely on individually and through their connections to one another. These interconnected systems are increasingly vulnerable to cascading impacts that are often difficult to predict, threatening essential services within and beyond the Nation’s borders.

4. Actions to Reduce Risks

Communities, governments, and businesses are working to reduce risks from and costs associated with climate change by taking action to lower greenhouse gas emissions and implement adaptation strategies. While mitigation and adaptation efforts have expanded substantially in the last four years, they do not yet approach the scale considered necessary to avoid substantial damages to the economy, environment, and human health over the coming decades.

5. Water

The quality and quantity of water available for use by people and ecosystems across the country are being affected by climate change, increasing risks and costs to agriculture, energy production, industry, recreation, and the environment.

6. Health

Impacts from climate change on extreme weather and climate-related events, air quality, and the transmission of disease through insects and pests, food, and water increasingly threaten the health and well-being of the American people, particularly populations that are already vulnerable.

8. Ecosystems and Ecosystem Services

Ecosystems and the benefits they provide to society are being altered by climate change, and these impacts are projected to continue. Without substantial and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions, transformative impacts on some ecosystems will occur; some coral reef and sea ice ecosystems are already experiencing such transformational changes.

9. Agriculture

Rising temperatures, extreme heat, drought, wildfire on rangelands, and heavy downpours are expected to increasingly disrupt agricultural productivity in the United States. Expected increases in challenges to livestock health, declines in crop yields and quality, and changes in extreme events in the United States and abroad threaten rural livelihoods, sustainable food security, and price stability.

11. Oceans & Coasts

Coastal communities and the ecosystems that support them are increasingly threatened by the impacts of climate change. Without significant reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions and regional adaptation measures, many coastal regions will be transformed by the latter part of this century, with impacts affecting other regions and sectors. Even in a future with lower greenhouse gas emissions, many communities are expected to suffer financial impacts as chronic high-tide flooding leads to higher costs and lower property values.