The High Cost of Climate Change

While many people consider economic issues like inflation more important than climate change, they are tightly linked. Climate change is driving up the cost of goods and services across sectors. 

Increases in temperatures have an immediate effect upon power bills because of the increased demand on air conditioning. This affects residential power bills, but is also passed on to consumers in the form of increased prices in everything from the cost of restaurant meals and hotel bills to supermarket prices and the cost of manufactured goods.

Increases in the frequency and intensity of natural disasters from hurricanes to forest fires drive up the cost of new construction to mitigate these events as well as the cost of homeowners’ insurance, which may not even be available for disasters like hurricanes in coastal communities. The cost of the disasters themselves is escalating. Whole communities, like Sanibel Island and Ft Myers Beach, FL, have been wiped out. State and Federal governments shoulder much of the cost of rescue, cleanup and reconstruction, which will ultimately increase taxes and the national debt, destabilizing the economy. Depending upon the locations of these disasters, supply chains may be disrupted, driving up prices.

Worldwide increases in heat threaten food production and will inflate food prices. Current examples include the price of olive oil because of unfavorable growing conditions in the Mediterranean and the price and availability of cocoa products. But as previously fertile lands become arid, food staples will also become scarce and more costly. Livestock will be stressed. Some will die. The cost of keeping them alive and thriving will increase. Warming waters will threaten fisheries, killing fish and microorganisms at all levels of the food chain, further depleting already diminished populations. At best, we can expect the cost of all kinds of food to escalate. At worst, we may be faced with famine.

For all these reasons, climate change should rise to the top of voters' priorities in the coming election, particularly given the stark difference in perception and priorities between the candidates on both state and federal levels. Inflation has been referred to as a “kitchen table issue” because of its immediate perceived effect on well-being. But the inextricable link between climate change and the cost of living, not just for the distant future but for the present should place climate at the center of the table.