The Scary Truth About How Much Climate Change is Costing You

http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/the-scary-truth-about-how-much-climate-change-is-costing-you-20130207

by Coral Davenport, nationaljournal.com
February 19th 2013

NORFOLK, Va.—Jimmy Strickland can tell you exactly how much money rising sea levels have cost his business. In 1989, he opened his accounting firm in a one-story brick building near Norfolk’s historic cobblestoned Hague district, which surrounds one of this low-lying city’s many tidal rivers.

Dressed in pinstripes and a large, gold class ring, the white-haired Strickland is a consummate Southern gentleman—and also a consummate small-business owner. In his soft coastal accent, he tells the story of how the rising tides of Norfolk have eroded his bottom line. “I was here for 14 years, and nothing happened. We had no idea this area flooded. It had never happened before,” Strickland says. “Then, over the past 10 years, we had three big ones.”

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Strickland wants a more permanent solution. He has thought about selling the building, but he’s worried that after being hit by three floods in 10 years, he’ll have a hard time finding a buyer. Instead, he’s looking into elevating the structure on stilts. Local contractors have bid the job at $1.5 million to $2 million. He’d like to use the post-Sandy $250,000 from FEMA to help offset the cost, but the federal government pays for cleanup only, not prevention.

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And Strickland fully expects someone, whether it’s him or taxpayers, to pay more in the future, as sea levels climb higher. “In the last couple of years, we’ve seen more and more evidence of the waters rising,” the accountant says. “I’m just a small businessman. I’m looking at my building, on the impact of this on me and my employees; but other people are going to start thinking, am I going to want to relocate my business here?”

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rapidly rising sea levels due to climate change. Among the chief causes for that rise, according to the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, are carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels, which trap heat in the Earth’s atmosphere, melting polar ice sheets and driving up the tides. Over the past century, the planet’s sea levels have risen about 8 inches. Globally, scientists now project sea levels to rise another 1 to 4 feet by the end of this century.

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In the 1980s, when then-Rep. Al Gore, D-Tenn., first sounded the alarm about climate change, it was a frightening specter, but it sounded far off, like someone else’s future. But that future is starting to arrive. Scientists and economists agree that we’re now experiencing the measurable, real-world effects of human-caused climate change. Those effects are hitting Americans where they notice first—in their wallets. Climate change is quantifiably slowing economic growth, raising government spending, and creating new layers of risk and uncertainty for investors.

Michael Roberts, an agricultural economist at the University of Hawaii who has studied the impact of global warming for the National Bureau of Economic Research, says, “We’re starting to see the first price tags on climate change.”