Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Columbia University have released a statement on all the ways global warming will allegedly impact our lives. But like many such efforts the claimed impacts fail to consider simple adaptions already practiced by people who live in warm climates.
My comments in italics
10 Climate Change Impacts That Will Affect Us All
BY RENEE CHO |DECEMBER 27, 2019
1. Damage to your home
Floods, the most common and deadly natural disasters in the U.S., will likely be exacerbated and intensified by sea level rise and extreme weather.
Even if this is a problem, the solution is flood control, like our politicians should be doing anyway but all too frequently don’t – dredging rivers, building and maintaining dams, pumps and diversion channels. And decent drainage infrastructure, like municipal authorities build in the tropics, to rapidly remove large volumes of rainwater from tropical downpours, before they cause any harm.
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2. More expensive home insurance
As insurance companies pay out huge amounts to homeowners whose houses have been damaged by climate change impacts, many are raising premiums to offset their costs. Home insurance rates increased more than 50 percent between 2005 and 2015.
I wouldn’t be surprised if fire insurance in California has risen – because the government failed to properly manage Californian forests. Manage the risk, mitigate the insurance premiums.
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3. Outdoor work could become unbearable
With continued global warming, heat waves are expected to increase in frequency, duration and intensity. Jane Baldwin, a postdoctoral research scientist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, found that compound heat waves—heat waves that occur in sequence, one after the other—will also increase, making recovery from heat waves more difficult.
Assuming people perform the same outdoor work in 2100 as they do today (unlikely), there is a simple solution practiced by construction workers and factories in the tropics – work at night. All you need is cheap electricity to run high powered floodlights, to turn night into day on the worksite.
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4. Higher electric bills and more blackouts
As temperatures rise, people will need to stay cool for health and comfort reasons. Climate Central analyzed 244 cities in the U.S. and determined that 93 percent experienced an increase in the number of days that required extra cooling to remain comfortable. As we rely more heavily on air conditioners and fans, electricity bills will get higher.
The increased demand for electricity, especially during peak periods, can also over-tax the electrical grid, triggering brownouts or blackouts. Extreme weather, such as hurricanes, heat waves or snowstorms, can cause power outages too.
The solution is to invest in the most resilient and inexpensive energy infrastructure available. If demand for electricity does rise, more revenue will be available for power companies to invest in supply resilience, providing they are not forced by politicians to spend that additional revenue on expensive unreliable energy infrastructure, like renewables.
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5. Rising taxes
Municipalities are recognizing the need to make their communities more resilient in the face of climate change impacts. Although measures such as building seawalls or hardening infrastructure are hugely expensive, the National Climate Assessment determined that resiliency measures save money in the long run — for example, by reducing coastal property damage to about $800 billion from a projected $3.5 trillion. Paying for mitigation and adaptation measures, however, will likely have to be funded through higher property taxes or “resilience fees.”
A few mm / year sea level rise is not a threat to any but the most low laying properties. Anybody who buys a property on the foreshore is wealthy enough to take care of their own house, without trying to push the cost onto taxpayers who can’t afford a foreshore property.
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6. More allergies and other health risks
Warmer temperatures cause the pollen season to be longer and worsen air quality, both of which can result in more allergy and asthma attacks. Ground-level ozone, a major component of smog, which increases when temperatures warm, can also cause coughing, chest tightness or pain, decrease lung function and worsen asthma and other chronic lung diseases.
If this was true, tropical regions would be uninhabitable for asthmatics and people with allergy problems, like myself. As an asthmatic who lives in the tropics, I’m happy to report this is simply not true – modern medicine is well capable of managing any issues.
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7. Food will be more expensive and variety may suffer
In the last 20 years, food prices have risen about 2.6 percent each year, and the USDA expects that food prices will continue to rise. While there are several reasons for higher food prices, climate change is a major factor. Extreme weather affects livestock and crops, and droughts can have impacts on the stability and price of food. New York apple farmers, for example, are facing warmer winters and extreme weather, which can wipe out harvests. They are trying to save their apples with new irrigation systems and wind machines that blow warm air during cold spells, but eventually these added costs will be reflected in the price of apples.
A significant part of the reason for high food prices is climate policy, especially biofuel. In 2008, Obama’s biofuel push caused widespread starvation and riots in poor countries. If governments stop incentivising people to burn food, more food might be available for eating.
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8. Water quality could suffer
Intense storms and heavy precipitation can result in the contamination of water resources. In cities, runoff picks up pollutants from the streets, and can overflow sewage systems, allowing untreated sewage to enter drinking water supplies.
Only for municipalities which underinvest in water infrastructure, and try to lay the blame on climate change.
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9. Outdoor exercise and recreational sports will become more difficult
Reduced snowfall and early snowmelt in the spring will have an impact on skiing, snowmobiling and other winter sports. Less water in lakes and rivers could also affect boating and fishing during summer.
Hotter temperatures, especially in the South and Southwest, will make summer activities like running, biking, hiking and fishing less comfortable and potentially dangerous to your health.
If Summer is too hot, do your recreation and bushwalking in Fall or Spring. In the hot, tropical part of Australia where I live, we tend to spend Summer sitting around the BBQ or swimming pool drinking beer. Bushwalking is more of a Winter / Spring / Fall activity. As for skiing – still waiting for the end of snow.
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10. Disruptions in travel
As temperatures rise, it may get too hot for some planes to fly. In 2015, Radley Horton, associate research professor at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, and then Ph.D. student Ethan Coffel published a study calculating how extreme heat could restrict the takeoff weight of airplanes. Hotter air is less dense, so planes get less lift under their wings and engines produce less power. Airlines may be forced to bump passengers or leave luggage behind to lighten their loads. This concern is one reason why long-distance flights from the Middle East leave at night; the practice could become standard for the U.S. as well.
Utter nonsense. Aircraft lift does tend to be lower in hot weather. But if this becomes a persistent problem, manufacturers will adjust aircraft designs to produce more lift, to accommodate expected operating conditions.
Read more: https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2019/12/27/climate-change-impacts-everyone/
Are people who write such fear mongering climate articles actually aware of how flimsy their arguments are?
With regard to too hot to work, I guess they could take some advice off blast furnace casthouse and coke ovens battery top workers.
Reduced snowfall and early snowmelt in the spring will have an impact on skiing, snowmobiling and other winter sports. Less water in lakes and rivers could also affect boating and fishing during summer. – dimwitted quote from article
Well, I have YET to see ANY reduced snowmelt around here, but this winter/spring may be the exception. Due to early snow in October (Hallowe’en was canceled) and then snow again in November, and lack of subfreezing temps all around (fine by me), we’ve had rain but not a lot of snow, so the local watershed is still full to the brim, the geese are taking their sweet time migrating south (they have food, open water, and it’s warmish), and frankly, after the past few heavy-duty winters, I’m quite happy to have a rather mild one this time. All that arctic air has been pushed west of us, and that’s fine by me. I think we deserve an occasional break, although we still have January/February and maybe March to face. 🙁 May interfere with this season’s ice fishing escapades locally, but we’ll see. There’s still time ahead for the WEATHER to be as obnoxious as always.
I still don’t know what the panic is all about, other than getting money out of me.
So flying into to Telluride in the cold is nothing? Really???? Snow and cold, storms shut down air flight, as does a volcano eruption. Thousands and thousands of flights are cancelled ALL WINTER LONG. Thousands. Fourth of July, there are virtually NO cancellations except due to hurricanes or violent rain storms.
While the news harps on Phoenix in 2017 shutting down flights “due to heat”, I was there in 1994 and it was equally HOT, but no flights shut down. We call this LYING and PROPAGANDA, problems caused by government demanding we believe in the Climate Cult. Prior to the 80’s there was zero publicity about heat and flights, assuming any were shut down. Scare tactics, and contemptible behavior.
Fact is, snow, rain, and volcanoes cancel flights. Heat is a MINOR player. It works to tell the Cultists heat is bad, of course, and people living under rocks. How obscene.
The report claims that “reduced snowfall and early snowmelt in the spring will have an impact on skiing, snowmobiling and other winter sports.”
In Scotland we are already using the solution:
Almost 100 tonnes of snow has been artificially produced every day for more than a month at an outdoor ski centre.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-50657901
“A significant part of the reason for high food prices is climate policy, especially biofuel. In 2008, Obama’s biofuel push caused widespread starvation and riots in poor countries. If governments stop incentivising people to burn food, more food might be available for eating.”
I also think biofuels are a waste, however, as I have commented on a couple of occasions over the last few years, biofuels were NOT a primary cause of the spike in food prices. In fact, the linked Wiki article discusses 14 different possible causes. Regardless, the reason I’m convinced biofuels were not a significant factor is that I actually went back and looked at prices for all major commodity groups during the 2007-2008 timeframe. If corn-for-ethanol was a major factor, then ag commodities, especially maize/corn, should have decoupled from other commodity groups such as metals, for example. They did not. ALL commodities increased in virtual lockstep, just as they soon decreased in lockstep.
Has anyone looked at long term commodity indexes lately to see where ag commodities are today versus several decades of history? Corn is CHEAP. World stocks are at or near record highs.
Has anyone thought about anything else that was going on in the US and the world in 2008? Remember a worldwide financial crisis during 2008? Remember what oil prices and the value of the dollar were doing at that time?
Anyway, like I said, biofuels don’t make any more sense than any other utility-scale renewable energy source. I just don’t think they can honestly be used as the scapegoat for what happened with food prices during that time. That’s lazy thinking.
There must be some parts of the world which will get an improvement in climate; apart from places which could afford to get a bit warmer, I find it hard to believe that everywhere is going to get drier.
COLUMBIA …? only 10?
1. Damage to your home
Floods, the most common and deadly natural disasters in the U.S., will likely be exacerbated and intensified by sea level rise and extreme weather.
Even if this is a problem, the solution is flood control, like our politicians should be doing anyway but all too frequently don’t – dredging rivers, building and maintaining dams, pumps and diversion channels. And decent drainage infrastructure, like municipal authorities build in the tropics, to rapidly remove large volumes of rainwater from tropical downpours, before they cause any harm.
Indeed. Back in the 60s/70s, when my neighborhood was new, it was prone to the occasional flood. I’m talking sandbags in front of your doors, bail our your basement and take a swim in your back yard actual flood (none of this 1 inch deep puddle stuff). In the late 70s the local government put in a system of drainage pipes, we haven’t had a flood in all the years since.
Never underestimate the value of proper drainage infrastructure.
The drains on my street are large enough for a person to crawl down, because my area is prone to rainstorms which deliver a couple of inches of rain in a few minutes. None of this inadequate 1ft drain nonsense.
“simple adaptions already practiced”
Dictionary.com doesn’t recognize that word. Brings up “adaptation” instead.
As someone said the report sounds like a 9th grade science project.
“…In cities, runoff picks up pollutants from the streets, and can overflow sewage systems, allowing untreated sewage to enter drinking water supplies…”
Drinking water supply contamination due to street runoff and sewage overflows is rare. And since the drinking water must be treated before sent to customers, problem solved.
Moreover, aside from combined sewer systems, runoff doesn’t really overflow sewage systems. Rainfall-derived inflow and infiltration does…and aside from sewer entry at the tops of manholes, by definition none of this is runoff.
It is disturbing to see universities turning activist and partisan. Maintaining scientific objectivity is prerequisite for their relevance. Speculations are in nobody’s interest.