Climate-change skeptics point out that climate science is full of uncertainties. At best, researchers can only provide wide ranges of how temperatures, precipitation, storm intensity and other climatic factors may change as greenhouse gases accumulate in the atmosphere.
Climate Change Skeptics
Skeptics argue that these uncertainties make taking actions to cut carbon dioxide emissions, develop alternative energy sources, or ward off possible impacts of climate change a foolish or even dangerous waste of resources.
George Will states the skeptic’s case well in his Washington Post editorial of December 6, 2009. “The travesty is the intellectual arrogance of the authors of climate-change models partially based on the problematic practice of reconstructing long-term prior climate changes. On such models we are supposed to wager trillions of dollars -- and substantially diminished freedom.”
Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have now turned that argument on its head. They point out that uncertainty about how much the climate will change actually increases the risk of inaction.
If we knew, for example, that sea levels would rise by exactly one foot by 2050, we could take appropriate steps to protect low-lying areas. However, if all we know is that sea levels might rise as little as six inches or as much as three feet, we face more risk and will have a more difficult time preparing for it.
“Greater extremes in climate conditions imply greater social consequences should those extremes occur. Accordingly, the greater the uncertainty is, the greater the risk,” the study’s authors write. “Risk derives and increases from ‘not knowing.’”
Systems modeler George Backus, and lead author of a new state-by-state assessment of climate change risks, says that this is just applied common sense. "I don't worry about my house on a day-to-day basis, but I take steps to prevent fires and I buy fire insurance," he says. "We all take steps to protect ourselves against those extreme events that can hurt you the most."
In an effort to help decision makers deal with the range of climate related risks, the Sandia Labs researchers combined the most probable range of climate-change predictions with detailed economic models to calculate the likely state-by-state economic impacts. Their best estimate is that the U.S. economy stands to lose $ 1.2 trillion and the equivalent of seven million full-time jobs over the next 40 years from just one aspect of climate change -- precipitation.
Calculating Economic Risk
The researchers set out to estimate the economic risks over the next 40 years to the 48 contiguous states and to the U.S. as a whole from just one kind of climate change – precipitation. They chose precipitation because the availability of water directly impacts agriculture, mining, energy production and many other core economic activities.
The research team used a set of advanced climate models that factored in continued worldwide economic and population growth and a gradual shift towards alternative energy sources through 2050. They connected the models’ precipitation predictions on a county-by-county and then state-by-state level to 70 areas of economic activity such as oil and gas extraction, construction, manufacturing and retail trade.
That process allowed them to estimate the range of risks to economic activity, jobs, and population in the 48 contiguous states. This is the first time this kind of analysis has been carried out.
State-by-state Winners and Losers
The Sandia study predicts that 42 of the 48 contiguous states will suffer financial and job losses due to reduced availability and predictability of precipitation. Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico in the Southwest, Oklahoma, and most of the southeastern states will be hardest hit, with predicted losses to their gross domestic product (GDP) of up to 1.1 percent.
California, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana actually stand to gain economically, up to 0.14 percent of their GDP. These slight gains, however, do not represent good news to the U.S. as a whole, since they are largely based on immigration from harder-hit states. As happened during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, hundreds of thousands of people may be lose their jobs and livelihoods in states whose economies are hardest hit by reduced water supplies, and migrate to the few states that are doing better in search of jobs.
Conclusions of the Sandia Study
After assessing the range of risk to the U.S. economy and job market from just this one aspect of climate change, the authors say that it is urgent to act now to reduce the magnitude of climate change over the next four decades, and to take steps such as building sea walls and planting drought resistant crops to try to minimize the damage from a warming and drying climate.
Backus says that by the time these predicted changes directly impact enough people to by undeniable, it will be too late to prevent massive and escalating economic damage, job losses, and social disruption.
Just as it makes sense to a family to buy medical or homeowner’s insurance, Backus says, it makes sense for the U.S. to take steps now to protect itself from the economic and social impacts of the likely range of climate change.
It’s by ignoring the climate and economic models and not taking sensible steps now that Americans are wagering more than a trillion dollars – and substantially reduced opportunities for their children and grandchildren.
Backus and his colleagues hope that their systematic, risk-based approach to assessing the economic impacts from the likely range of climate change in the near future will help policy makers at all levels. By frankly and fully recognizing the limits of climate change science, yet at the same time recognizing that societies need to plan and act despite uncertainties, they think that their study offers a common ground for climate change advocates and climate change skeptics to work together.
Source: George Backus et al., Assessing the Near-Term Risk of Climate Uncertainty: Interdependencies among the U.S. States. Sandia Report SAND2010-2052, May 2010.
Robert Adler - Robert Adler is a science and technology reporter and book author. He divides his time between Santa Rosa, California and Oaxaca, ...
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