Political leaders who pledge to reduce taxes while in full-throated denial of human-generated climate change are actually setting the stage for a tax increase.
If these leaders' do-nothing environmental policy should prevail, the public should anticipate future hefty tax hikes to offset the damages from proliferating extreme weather events. Scientists identify release of greenhouse gas emissions at their current rate as the cause for the projected increase in the intensity (and in some instances the frequency) of extreme weather events. These events will undoubtedly wreak economic havoc that the insurance industry won't begin to cover if the past is any indication. Between 1980 and 2014, insurance companies made good on only one-quarter of the nation's climate-related losses. It was left for the American taxpayer to shoulder the remainder of the tab.
Scientists at the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) forecast that at the current rate of greenhouse gas emission release, more category four and five hurricanes will occur globally. With that will come a 20 percent increase over the current amount of rainfall in such tempests, which already produce devastating flood damage.
Even without super storms, climate-related seal level rise provides sufficient evidence for NOAA scientists to declare with "high confidence" that coastal flooding will increase dramatically by the end of the century unless the global warming threat is aggressively addressed.
Moreover, additional billions of dollars in damage will result if the projected climate-related increases in drought, heat waves, wild fires, and water shortages materialize. You can be confident that as in the past, the insurance industry's liability won't come close to covering all the losses. Clearly, the American taxpayer will be left holding much of the proverbial bag.
The past gives some sense of the future challenges. Between 2005 and 2015 in the nation, there were 93 natural disasters that resulted in more than $586 billion in losses largely made whole by federal aid. Nor does that sum account for the expense of assisting displaced people and battered businesses to return to some degree of normality.
During that 10-year period, the Federal Emergency Management Agency distributed $49.5 billion in taxpayer-funded assistance for hurricane recovery alone-.
So when you hear politicians complain about the cost of combatting human-influenced climate change, keep in mind two thoughts--the potential tax liability from inaction as well as the venerable adage "penny-wise, pound-foolish".