MIght as well make it three California stories in a row.
By Dale Kasler at the Sacramento Bee
Higher crime rates and electric bills. Crops and laborers wilting in the sun. A new study says California’s economy is going to lose billions of dollars a year to climate change.
But hey, it will be a picnic compared to states like Florida and Texas.
The groundbreaking study, led by two UC Berkeley scientists, says global warming will punish some areas of the country more severely than others. California will suffer, but not as badly as the national average. The situation will be far worse in Gulf Coast states, which can expect to get ravaged by increasingly frequent hurricanes, and areas of the Deep South and Midwest, where agricultural yields will plummet.
The study, published in late June in the journal Science, concluded that climate change will also widen income gaps between poor and wealthy areas of the country. That’s because hotter parts of the country, where incomes already tend to be lower, will take the brunt of the impact from global warming.
The same factors will play out in California. Coastal regions, where much of California’s wealth is concentrated, will be somewhat buffered because of the breezy ocean climate. The hot inland regions, the poorest areas of the state, will take more of a beating.
“Within the state of California, we have a mini-version of what we see across the county,” said study co-author Solomon Hsiang, associate professor of public policy at UC Berkeley. “The poor regions are getting really heavily hit and the coastal regions, which are wealthier, aren’t hit as hard.” The study is the first attempt at documenting the economic impacts of climate change on a county-by-county level.
All told, California can expect to lose 1 percent of its annual economic output for every 1-degree Celsius increase in average temperature, said co-author James Rising, also of UC Berkeley. While that’s slightly better than the 1.2 percent loss predicted for the U.S. economy, the 1 percent effect is still going to translate into a $26 billion annual hit to the state’s gross domestic product. A 1-degree Celsius increase is the equivalent of 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit.
Greater Sacramento doesn’t fare particularly well under the authors’ projections. Sacramento County and Yolo County’s economies will fall by about 4 percent a year for every 1-degree Celsius increase in temperatures, or about 4 times worse than the statewide average. The economies of Placer and El Dorado counties, which spill into the relatively cool air of the Sierra Nevada, will see declines closer in line with the rest of California.
Other Central Valley counties will do more poorly, with Fresno losing 6 percent of its annual economic impact, Merced 5.6 percent and Stanislaus 4.4 percent for every 1-degree Celsius rise in temperatures.
The actual economic effects are likely to be worse as the years go by. Temperatures are expected to increase by more than 1 degree during this century; a study by NASA, for example, says temperatures could climb 2 to 6 degrees Celsius by 2100.
Hsiang and Rising acknowledged the study has flaws, some of which mask the true costs of climate change in California. They include a failure to calculate the economic impact of rising sea levels gradually inundating beaches and coastal communities.
Predictions about rising seas in California are dire; a just-released study by the Union of Concerned Scientists said the Bay Area can expect chronic flooding by 2035 in well-heeled communities such as Alameda, Redwood Shores and Corte Madera. Another recent study, released by the state Ocean Protection Council, said, “Hundreds of miles of roads and railways, harbors and airports, power plants and wastewater treatment facilities, in addition to thousands of businesses and homes, are at risk from future flooding, inundation, and coastal retreat.”
However, the authors of the Science article said the financial effect was difficult to assess compared to, say, the damage done by a devastating hurricane.
Despite its shortcomings, the study is resonating with economists. University of the Pacific economist Jeff Michael, who wasn’t involved in the study, said it makes sense that inland California will be more vulnerable than the coast to the effects of global warming.
“In general, I think there’s some truth to that, particularly when you think about heat and energy costs and agricultural effects,” Michael said. “They are going to be felt more in the inland areas.”
HT/Rob Dawg
This is the same BS they’ve been doing in the public health sector for decades (a virus is going to mutate at any time wiping out mankind).
That risk is much more realistic than any of the RCP8.5 scare stories.
The climate projections they speak of are based on models that to date have been unsuccessful in predicting today’s global temperatures. The projections are hence nothing more than fantasy.
Climate change has been going on for eons and will continue to happen whether mankind is here or not. Based on the paleoclimate record and model results, the climate change we have been experiencing is caused by the sun and the oceans over which Mankind has no control. There is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate and plenty of scientific rational to support the idea that the climate sensivity of CO2 is zero. The AGW conjecture is severely flawed. The AGW conjecture is based on a radiant greenhouse effect that has not been observed on Earth or anywhere in the solar system. The radiant greenhouse effect is science fiction. Hence the AGW conjecture is science fiction as well.
Good point. The ice core readings suggest that the climate has been changing (up and down) for millions of years. As far as we know, perhaps the climate has been changing for billions of years.
Since most of that changing came before mankind and the release of man made CO2 — what caused all that change? Should we not answer that question before we pin the blame for global warming on mankind and industrialization?
The most dangerous thing to farming in central California is a late frost. It can wipe out entire fields and orchards. With global warming there should be fewer instances of frozen crops, leading to increased yields.
Forgive me for not caring about climate in California, but as an Alabamian, I’m more concerned about them saying, “The situation will be far worse in Gulf Coast states, which can expect to get ravaged by increasingly frequent hurricanes, and areas of the Deep South and Midwest, where agricultural yields will plummet.”
Well now, what will happen? Is it going to get miserably hot and humid here in the Summer? Oh noes!
And hurricanes…We now my teenage kids barely remember the last bad one (Ivan-2005) although I remember we had plenty of horrible storms growing up in the 60s and 70s (back when we were on the verge of an Ice Age).
Seriously, the Science article is behind a pay-wall…I am not giving THEM money! So what’s going to cause the deep South to have plummeting agricultural yields when CO2 (not Brawndo) got what plants crave?
California’s economy is indeed in decline due to climate change, but not because of the weather. Companies and the middle class workers they employ are fleeing the state in droves. Some people even just abandon their houses and leave. It’s the measures to combat climate change which have pushed electricity prices too high and the over regulation that goes with it which is fueling the mass exodus. It is turning into a state of welfare claimants and unskilled workers.
Color me shocked after following some links and discovering that the “scientists” behind this were of the political variety.
Interesting that they can take two incredibly complex systems – climate and economics – in which predictions have been wildly wrong, and nevertheless produce specific forecasts down to the level of states and cities.
Clowns.
they can easily reduce the state carbon footprint/energy use….ban all air conditioning….go back to living just as their parents did in the 40’s and 50’s (and before)…..the governor should shut off his office and home to show the way forward….open the windows and breath the fresh air…it is cleaner since they don’t burn coal for electricity.
Charles the moderator,
Thanks so much for turning my link/tip into a readable post. I was luaghing too hard to put anything together myself. I couldn’t figure out if it was about the children, the planet, the economy or the poor.
This study needs a label that says for California consumption only.
This alleged “study” had my ROTFLMAO!!!! Take the worst case scenario out of the IPCC report, and DO NOT QUESTION IT!!! Use that as the starting point for your study and voila!!!! instant disaster!!! Not even a nod given to the fact that reality is not cooperating with even the low-end scenario declared as absolutely certain by the IPCC, it’s going to be Worse Than We Thought™!!!
Oh, I forgot an eye-roll or two.
They are cult members …
Well, I was with it all the way up to increasingly frequent hurricanes
I cut my losses and spared myself the effort of reading yet more climatorubbish.
A horoscope in the paper is every bit as accurate
Astrology is to Astronomy as Climate Science is to Science.
When was the last time anyone at Berkley published anything positive about the future? I can’t remember anything. Sometimes Princeton, maybe MIT, never Berkley.
We need to put Berkley out of it’s misery.