Lost Productivity. Higher than normal rainfall in farming areas can result in loss productivity and financial burdens for farmers. Just a couple of bad seasons could make or break a small farmer. More extreme hurricanes and tornadoes, droughts and wildfires could result in lost days at work and school and could affect manufacturing production and trade. It would most certainly affect transportation and tourism. Fisheries are especially vulnerable to the effects of global Warming. Just a few degree difference in the temperature of the oceans and many species either do not reproduce or reproduce far less than normal. Either way is a disaster in the making for the fishing industry. There are so many more ways we lose productivity, they just can’t all be listed here. But it will negatively affect the bottom line of people, towns, cities, states, and global governments.
Disruption from lost productivity on local economies. The negative Economic Effects will be most acute in rural areas, where farm-related commerce fuels the economy, experts said. But repercussions will reach into cities like Des Moines, too, where agribusinesses, lenders and other enterprises also rely on a healthy farm economy. The corn that motorists see as they drive around Iowa is not directly eaten by humans. The corn and soybeans are used both for livestock feed and for food manufacturing. Consumers could see slightly higher prices for milk and meat, because feed represents more than half of the expense of producing those products. Higher market prices fr corn and soybeans would have little effect on most processed-food prices, however, since those raw commodities represent a tiny portion of the cost of producing foods, such as cereals.
Cost Associated With Adapting To Climate Change in Localized Areas: As countries, states, cities and local governments try to cope with the changes necessary to adapt to global warming, there will be additional cost burdens associated with this change. Irrigating in areas where rainfall used to enable farming will add costs to farmers that will inevitably be passed along to consumers. More or less rain each bring new challenges to farmers in controlling pests and either would add to their bottom lines. Governments could being to legislate that homes become more energy efficient, thereby adding to the financial burden of home ownership. Many families may not be able to absorb this cost and this could lead to a mass sell off of homes and associated loss of stability. Governments may also have to invest in more infrastructure upgrades to sewers, seawalls, bridges, subways and roadways. All this will pose even more costs upon average citizens financially. And waiting to rebuild after disasters could be cost prohibitive which could result in loss of government services such as water, sewerage, even schools. The possibilities are endless and frightening.
Property/Infrastructure Damages: There are so many ways that property and infrastructure will be affected, it is impossible to list them all here. Included would be: in the extreme northern areas, a reduction in the layer of permafrost would be catastrophic to communications. Poles are set into the permafrost layer and with the melting of that layer thousands of telecommunications poles are falling and snapping lines. In coastal areas, as sea levels rise, hundreds of thousand of people would lose their homes and businesses and the travel industry would be devastated. In drought areas, wildfires pose threats to home, businesses and forested areas. In areas receiving higher than normal amounts of rainfall, flooding would impact many lives, homes and businesses including highly productive farmland that would be unable to be farmed. Extreme storms would impact necessary infrastructure such as roads, bridges, airports, dams, levees and seawalls, homes, railroad tracks and power lines. The costs would be astronomical!
Population Effects: Not only would many die as a result of famine, flood, drought and disease, there would be other costs to the populations of the world. Food costs would increase as well as energy costs. Health care would be directly impacted due to the increase of disease due to flooding and/or drought and the effects of storms and floods. Communications would be disrupted and families could be disrupted.
Security Costs: As global warming displaces vast numbers of people from lands in which they usually lived, they would, in essence, become “global warming refugees”. As we have already seen with the droughts in Africa, mass migrations of people lead to social disruption may lead to civil unrest, and might even spur military intervention and other unintended consequences.
Scientists have long been talking about and grappling with the serious implications of not dealing with global warming. It is just recently that governments worldwide are beginning to see the light. Now it is time for each and every individual to make a stand about this issue in their own personal lives and voice their opinions in the voting booth and in the store aisles. We need to make purchasing decisions based on being globally conscious. In the next post, we will outline how we can do this in our everyday lives.
The most expensive thing we can do is NOTHING!
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