Our Rising 'Climate Costs': Are They Really Proof of Climate Change Causing More Devastating Extreme Weather Events?
Dr. Jessica Weinkle argues that a practical approach rather than emotional media coverage is needed to make necessary conclusions about extreme weather and other climate events.
Jessica Weinkle, associate professor at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, says the rationale of the media coverage on climate change and its consequences often leaves much to be desired. She cites examples of how natural disasters and extreme weather events have been communicated. Following the news, one might get the impression that the increase in extreme weather events is an undeniable fact. The fact that the damage caused by natural disasters, measured in monetary terms, has increased significantly is often offered as proof of this.
However, Weinkle explains that this is a little misleading. Of course, weather events such as hurricanes or floods caused by heavy precipitation are a major problem for a society experiencing them. However, it is misleading to attribute the associated material losses, which have increased over time, necessarily to climate change. “There's two separate issues in that. There's the geophysical event, and then there's the social impact. And you might measure the social impact by cost,” Weinkle explains. This social impact, or the financial damage associated with these events, which increases over time, is importantly linked to the state of the society as a whole, she says. For example, one would have to examine how many houses are there and how much could their location be potentially affected by a disastrous event. Or how many cars would be damaged by extreme weather conditions? What kind of property is there in those houses and cars that could potentially be destroyed? It is logical that if extreme weather destroys property in, say, the United States, the amount of property destroyed and hence the financial cost of the event would be significantly greater than in a poorer country.
Inflation is another separate issue. If economic losses are increasing nominally over time, this does not automatically mean that the situation in general has gotten any worse, since the depreciation of money or inflation has to be taken into account as well.
Extreme weather events are not on the increase
And if we do take these things into account, can we say that extreme weather events have become more frequent, and more powerful and that the associated losses are increasing? “If you adjust disaster losses or economic losses from these events for changes in inflation over time, changes in population, and changes in wealth, the trend is minimized. There's no trend afterwards,” Weinkle says. In fact, she adds, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) does not detect increasing trends in the types of extreme weather events that are the leading causes of disaster losses. The finding is either an inability to detect trends or the message is so nuanced that it is of little practical meaning for understanding societal experiences with disasters.
But at the same time, Weinkle argues, it doesn't even matter if climate change is causing slightly more heatwaves in some regions and a bit more rainfall in others. She says that linking problems to climate change does not help to create any practical solutions needed to deal with extreme weather events. She cites the example of wildfires in the US state of California. Because it is hot and dry in California, the risk of wildfires is always high. This is regardless of whether or not climate change has made California a little drier. At the same time, the fact is that forest management in California has been very poor for a long time. “And so now when we have fires, they're very bad. They're big. But there are all sorts of reasons for them because of the policy choices that we've had in the past,” Weinkle explains. “So climate change makes it perhaps a bit drier, perhaps a bit hotter there. But the fires would be an issue still. They're not necessarily more of an issue because of the overall warming,” she adds, noting that the same logic can be applied to the analysis of all other extreme weather events.
What would help probably best, would be practical steps, and the more wealthy the society is, the easier it would be to take them. If, on the one hand, more wealth means greater potential damage from extreme weather events, on the other hand, it makes society more resilient to extreme weather. “These disaster events are incredibly challenging for individuals, communities, and nations that don't have the wealth to deal with them,” Weinkle says.
Climate science and climate industry
Losses associated with extreme weather events are just one of the topics in which Weinkle, as a scientist, has been interested in and has written extensively about. As an expert, she has also testified before the US Senate on the topics of her research. Weinkle holds a PhD in Environmental Studies and is currently focusing on climate science and policy analysis and mapping conflicts of interest in the field.
It is on the conflict of interest front that Weinkle makes an interesting observation. One of the cornerstones of modern climate science, she says, is the 'emission scenarios', or models, that the IPCC uses as a basis for calculating the increase in the greenhouse effect and the future temperature rises. “There's been a lot of controversy about those emissions scenarios. Not only in the extent to which they constrain the way that we understand the future, but in some of them, and the most prominent ones, being incredibly implausible, misleading,” Weinkle says.
So, according to her, the most unlikely scenarios should be discarded, but they are not. And one of the reasons they are still run is that there are commercial interests behind the retention of these models. “There is a lot of business that's been set up on these emissions scenarios. And they work with the financial industry,” Weinkle says. She is talking about analytical firms that offer their services in assessing climate change risks. Initially used by insurance companies, these climate risk analyses based on misleading scenarios are now being sold much more widely, particularly to the financial sector. This has led to a situation where these misleading emission scenarios are already being relied on by basically the entire financial system, from central banks and insurance companies to real estate lenders who are governing mortgages. “That's a lot of weight on the IPCC to hold on to those conceptions, because it's holding up this entire industry that has engaged itself with the financial structures, financial institutions of the world,” Weinkle comments. “Because you have a lot of people that are deeply embedded within the IPCC, also consulting with financially oriented groups, and because the IPCC work has become embedded within and as a legitimacy for this climate analytics industry, it's a lot of pressure to keep things the way that they are, to keep the narrative the way that it is,” Weinkle adds.
Trapped in climate anxiety
One issue that Weinkle has also analysed is the emergence of climate anxiety, particularly among young people. It is worth pointing out that for some interest groups – such as climate activists or renewable energy developers and their associated lobbyists – the widespread dissemination of messages about climate catastrophe is useful for promoting their interests and making profits.
The emergence of climate anxiety among young people is probably an inevitable consequence of our current media environment. When the media constantly talks about natural disasters and says that they are the result of man-made climate change, it is to be expected that there will be anxiety and even guilt among the population. Or even blame put on the older generation for making the wrong choices in the past. It is also understandable that this anxiety is fuelled further when prominent political figures use particularly colorful imagery to talk about climate catastrophe. For example, UN Secretary-General António Guterres recently declared that humanity is on the highway to climate hell.
One of the possible consequences of such messaging and this kind of framing of the whole climate issue is the traumatisation of younger people in particular. “They're told that they are experiencing climate change through the disasters which are traumatic. Now it's like a cascade of trauma that's being lumped up under climate change,” Weinkle notes.
While for some people at least, climate anxiety is a logical outcome of such an environment, something else is happening as well, Weinkle says. “If you're anxious about it, you should become more advocacy-oriented. And so it's kind of like breeding advocacy, it's breeding advocates,” she says, adding that she doesn't think it's very fair to these young activists. The point is that young people are genuinely concerned about what they see or read in the media. For example, they are surfing on their phones and are told that climate change is to blame for extreme weather conditions when in reality there is no such direct causal connection. Or they are told that we should quickly abandon fossil fuels and use only wind and solar power to save the planet, but the problems with this choice – e.g. that such electricity can only be guaranteed when the conditions are right, i.e. when the wind blows or the sun shines – are not explained to them at all. “None of them really want to see the lights turned off, right? They need their electricity, so they need to be engaged in a more pragmatic discussion about energy and how nations need energy and you need energy and how are we going to have this cheap energy to keep you plugged in while also addressing the other problems that you're concerned about,” Weinkle says.
In conclusion, Weinkle's message here is that be it energy policies, urban planning, reactions to extreme weather, or something else, the approach should always be a practical one, trying to solve the problem instead of succumbing to emotions. All in all, it does not matter whether you experience a great storm because of climate change or something else. What matters is how you can cope with it and what kind of resources you have at your disposal.
There is a lucrative 'Climate Change' industry that is dependant upon people getting very anxious and worried about climate change.
Those inside the industry, those benefitting from it, will continue to create reports saying that climate change is a 'crisis', because their jobs and grants depend upon it.
The UK is supposedly increasing electricity supply charges by 77% in October 2024. Can this really be happening? Unjabbed Mick (UK) I'll live longer without medical interference!