$185 Billion Annually for Catastrophic Climate Change: How You Can Prepare

November 11th, 2010 by Susan Kraemer

The United Nations has published a very instructive manual for a civilization hurtling towards the increasingly expensive catastrophes looming right ahead of us, and projected to cost world governments, and their taxpayers, an expected $185 billion every year by the end of century.

Jam-packed with data and conclusions, the UN manual is intended as a how-to guide for the finance ministers of governments on mitigating the catastrophic expense of the increase in natural disasters, whether due to climate change, like the increase in floods, droughts, and hurricanes and cyclones, or not (mitigating tsunamis and earthquakes is covered as well).

But it is not just some bureaucratic tome. It is so beautifully written, (and with such hope and faith in human intelligence) that the wealth of lessons it offers in its 290 pages are easy to absorb for the rest of us too.

And that’s a good thing. Natural Hazards, UnNatural Disasters: The Economics of Effective Prevention is full of smart ideas for improving our resilience in ameliorating the expected expenses of the expected increase in disasters.

Some pieces of advice take no investment on the part of governments. One example is just altering laws on the books that currently offer perverse incentives for poor building practices, such as building in forests now prone to wildfire, or with inadequate engineering for coastal flood zones.

Where investments are needed, they come with data-rich cost/benefit analysis. For example, (pg 150) comprehensive data on exactly how big an investment in a mangrove forest will yield how large a savings in dollars for its natural services, based on past disasters.

Some things we cannot prepare for. We don’t even know what all of the effects of climate change will be. While some effects can be modeled and predicted, as was the now melting arctic, and estimates can be made for the increased cost of the modeled increase predicted in floods, droughts, crop failure and sea level rise, there will be more surprises.

While scientists can (and did) generalize that eco systems will adapt at different rates, leading to new pest invasions in general – no scientist specifically predicted that the pine beetle would decimate forests from Colorado to British Columbia, for example (to my knowledge). There will be more surprises ahead.

As future climate changes rip yet more of our complex ecosystems out of sync with each other, there will be more unexpected effects that no one could have predicted.

Both the scale of the oncoming disasters, and the surprises it will bring, is unprecedented in human history.

Yet the tone of the manual is positive, and its faith in human intelligence in finding solutions for the problems that we face makes for a refreshing read in these times when it is easy to doubt that we are Homo Sapiens, and not those other guys that didn’t make it past history’s big evolutionary IQ test.

Image: Georgie Sharp
Susan Kraemer@Twitter

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Tags: Adaptation, climate zombies, mitigation, Natural Hazards UnNatural Disasters The Economics of Effective Prevention, United Nations

About the Author

Susan Kraemer writes at CleanTechnica, CSP-Today, PV-Insider , SmartGridUpdate, and GreenProphet. She has also been published at Ecoseed, NRDC OnEarth, MatterNetwork, Celsius, EnergyNow, and Scientific American. As a former serial entrepreneur in product design, Susan brings an innovator's perspective on inventing a carbon-constrained civilization: If necessity is the mother of invention, solving climate change is the mother of all necessities! As a lover of history and sci-fi, she enjoys chronicling the strange future we are creating in these interesting times. Follow Susan on Twitter @dotcommodity.

Roger L

Hey Susan:

You say, “scientists can (and did) generalize that eco systems will adapt at different rates, leading to new pest invasions in general – no scientist specifically predicted that the pine beetle would decimate forests from Colorado to British Columbia, for example (to my knowledge). There will be more surprises ahead.”

In most parts of the national forest system, it was prohibited to thin the damage caused by the pine beetles by court action. This non action therefore set up significant parts of the national forest ripe for wild fires of uncontrollable nature. These wild fires caused collateral damage to homes/people, businesses, caused future flood damage due to the lack of trees to hold the moisture and positively polluted the atmosphere. I only bring this up as an example of unforeseen adverse consequences to what some (those that prevented forest thinning) thought was a good thing. You never know. I personally believe that because of the law of unintended consequences that incrementalism is the best approach in handling climate challenges. Doom and gloom approaches turn people off and some of us remember past gloom and doom that never came about. Anyone remember in the 70s when scientists claimed a new ice age was approaching and the 80s would be the coldest on record?? What became of that. Regardless of how well the UN report is written one has to wonder whether the writers seek advantage for their countries over another. I do agree with your premise and the reports that we as humans can figure our way out of any challenge, I might disagree with others on the approach taken to that way out.
- http://cleantechnica.com/author/susan Susan Kraemer
  
  Cooling was not the consensus, at the time, merely a possibility. Scientists consider and discard many ideas. Here’s some insight by scientists that would put it in context for you
  http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/01/the-global-cooling-myth/