The impact of climate change will be far worse now that the U.S. federal government is radically reversing course on energy and climate. The mantra is “Drill baby drill” — putting the pedal down on more oil/gas production PLUS policies to drive up demand for oil/gas and discourage renewable energy. As a result, led by the US, global emissions are sure to keep going up. They’ve doubled from 20 billion tons a year in 1990 to 40 billion in 2025. The CO2 concentration in our slender 7-mile-thick atmosphere is increasing at triple the rate of the 1960s. Average global temperature is up almost 3 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 100 years and accelerating higher.
Climate consequences will now grow in frequency and magnitude.
Well into my 60s, your Editor in Chief hoped enough progress would be made that Calamitous Climate Events (CCE) would post-date my lifetime. Now, I don’t think so. A CCE in my view is one that truly shakes world opinion — in a way that the last 20 years of climate events haven’t. We’ve become inured to your "run of the mill" hurricane, drought, heat wave, fire or flood. For example, we’ve had 16 hurricanes the past 20 years with economic damage from each between $16 billion and $200 billion (Katrina). It’s now estimated the Los Angeles fires caused $250 billion in economic loss. It turns out a few hundred Billion of losses is manageable in the context of US GDP of $30 Trillion. However, insurance covers less and less of these losses making the human impacts more extreme. When it comes to DEATHS, the 10,000 lives lost in Katrina and the tens of thousands lost in European heatwaves haven’t moved the needle.
So, we are introducing the Million/Trillion rule: A Calamitous Climate Event is one with 1 Million people dead and/or a $1 Trillion of uninsured economic loss. We think one or more events meeting the Million/Trillion rule is likely in the next 15 years. What kinds of events do we envision?
*A category 6 hurricane that blows across Florida or Houston with flooding and a storm surge destroying a million homes.
*An extreme heatwave that shuts down the electric grid, fresh water supply and air conditioning in a multi-million population city with prolonged temperatures of 105 Fahrenheit and high humidity. The human body lasts about 6 hours in such conditions.
*We were surprised by the LA fires; there’s a combination of heat, drought and high winds that could, in some place in the US or elsewhere, quadruple the LA losses.
*Simultaneous droughts in multiple global agricultural centers cutting global food supplies.
Perversely, a Calamitous Climate Event in, say, 2032 could “Shock the System” to get the needed global policy change. Otherwise, we’re probably looking at multiple CCEs each year in the latter part of this Century.
