A recent Colorado Sun article claims that climate change could cost the state up to $37 billion due to high temperature extremes and drought. This is false, built almost entirely on speculative claims about future weather and ignores the fact that reductions in extreme cold will positively influence health related costs.
The Colorado Sun’s (TCS) post, titled “What will climate change cost Coloradans? Up to $37 billion, a new study says,” discusses a study put out by a group called the Colorado Fiscal Institute (CFI), “which uses research to promote equitable economic policies.” In other words, this is a left-wing activist, advocacy group, not a firm that performs straightforward economic analysis.
TCS says that the study “largely avoids scare scenarios about climate vortexes and unlivable homelands,” which is a refreshing change from studies that rely heavily on model scenarios like RCP8.5 and other extremely unlikely scenarios. However, the study still focuses on “predictable costs of higher heat and more frequent drought from now to 2050.”
The $37 billion figure is called a “conservative estimate of real costs” for the state. It primarily comes from the costs due to projected increases in extreme heat, from needing to build out cooling infrastructure, wildfire related costs, and human deaths, which CFI says will increase due to extreme heat over the next 25 years.
Colorado is one of the few states where the number of very hot days (days with temperatures over 95°F) has increased in recent years; however, it’s no worse than it was during the 1930s and 1940s, according to data on Colorado’s weather history from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). (See figure below)
Nowhere in the article is extreme cold mentioned, which is notable, because deaths due to extreme cold are declining as the planet has slightly warmed over the past hundred-plus years. In fact, data on heat-and-cold related mortality show that the number of deaths due to extreme cold have declined at a faster rate than deaths due to heat have increased over the same time period. Estimates say that as many as 20 times more people die of cold than heat. This means that global warming has actually been a net life saver, rather than killer. And indeed, extreme cold instances have declined in Colorado over the years even more consistently than highs have increased. (See figure below)
Regarding TCS’s claims about drought, there is little to no evidence that rainfall related drought is striking Colorado more frequently than usual in recent years, or that recent droughts have been more severe than in the past. Data show no consistent decline in precipitation over time. (See figure below)
What is true is that what water exists is under more pressure than in the past, as population growth and agricultural development come with rising water demands in an otherwise fairly arid part of the country.
Climate Realism has covered the fact that Colorado’s water problems are not a function of changes in rainfall patterns or amounts but rather increased development and demand, here, here, and here, for example. This also brings us to the wildfire question: is climate change making wildfires more intense or widespread in Colorado?
Again, the answer is no.
Data from the National Interagency Fire Center show that the acreage burned from wildfires in recent years is actually much less than what fires burned in the early 1900s. As discussed in the first of the Climate Realism posts linked above, much of the Western United States’ woes, when it comes to fire, has to do with poor forest management and an increase in the number of people moving into areas historically prone to wildfires. Not to mention the decline of the timber industry, which has led to less clearing of fuel for fires, and fewer maintained forest access roads that used to serve as fire breaks and critical paths for firefighters to reach isolated fires before they destroyed developed areas.
The study referenced by TCS is yet another in a long line of fearmongering economic studies on climate impacts, which rely heavily on fallible climate models while eschewing real world data that would otherwise show that there is no looming emergency. Trying to appeal to the public’s pocketbook probably doesn’t mean as much as the study authors would like, when enacted climate policies like restrictions on energy use and sources are always so expensive themselves. TCS should stick to the facts and not promote speculative scare stories uninformed by real world data.
