Politicians pay attention to polls, especially those that claim to reveal voters’ priorities. This is one of the reasons political candidates often pay little attention to climate change. Polling services report that “the economy” — often bundled with “jobs” or “inflation,” depending on which one is the crisis du jour — always tops the list of voters’ biggest concerns.
On the other hand, “climate change” generally appears far down the list. In a May 2024 Pew Research poll, 62% of respondents named inflation as a very big problem, while only 36% said that about climate change. There are many reasons for this. Climate change, to many, still feels distant in both space and time, not relevant to their day-to-day concerns. And some politicians dismiss global warming as an economy-stifling obsession of radical tree-huggers.
This is a mistake. In the aptly titled, “The Climate Is the Economy,” recently published in Slate, the author points to weather disasters that are already depleting the Federal Emergency Management Agency budget.
According to the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration, 2024 is on pace to beat 2023 for the most billion-dollar weather disasters. Insurance premiums are climbing in storm- and flood-prone states like Florida and Texas and also in wildfire-plagued states like California and Colorado. Some insurers are even abandoning those states entirely, leaving taxpayers to cover the costs of relief and rebuilding.
The annual U.S. financial burden of home insurance losses is $97 billion.
It’s not only insurance. A recent study by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco concluded that extreme heat would cause long-term damage to the economy by affecting worker productivity, especially in construction. Even Consumer Reports is weighing in on this, with an analysis showing that an American child born today could face lifetime climate-driven costs of $500,000 up to $1 million.
So let’s concede that climate change costs money, and it’s going to get worse unless we take stronger action. But what about those other top-line public concerns? That Pew poll found that 57% of Americans identified “the affordability of health care” as a very big problem. What does that have to do with our changing climate?
A lot. This year, the World Economic Forum reported that extreme weather would threaten public health in ways that can be directly translated into costs. If we don’t get serious about cutting emissions, health costs in North America could exceed $1 trillion in the next 25 years, mostly due to floods, storms, wildfires and extreme heat. That’s how climate change bleeds over into our health costs.
What about “illegal immigration,” which has dominated the news cycle for years now and was flagged as a top concern by 51% of Pew respondents, still far ahead of climate change? Isn’t that a separate issue?
Nope. Climate change is one of several factors convincing people to pick up and leave their homes simply to survive. Zurich Insurance predicts that there could be 1.2 billion “climate refugees” by 2050.
In November 2020, a pair of Category-4 hurricanes hit Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, fueling torrential rains and landslides that destroyed homes, livelihoods and access to clean water. Desperate people poured into Mexico and then toward the U.S. But when storms are not raging, that same region — labeled the “dry corridor” by the United Nations — is uniquely susceptible to heat-driven drought that makes it impossible to grow crops for 11 million people.
I could go on with other issues that voters worry about. National Security? NATO calls climate change a “threat multiplier.” Federal deficits? The Congressional Budget Office says climate change deepens deficits by reducing revenues and increasing mandatory spending.
The lesson here is that pollsters and pundits do a disservice to the public by ignoring the deep connections between climate change, the economy, health care, immigration and other important concerns. As long as voters see climate change as something that only matters to environmentalists and science nerds, political leaders will not elevate it to its appropriate place in the hierarchy of national issues.
Like it or not, the unrestrained burning of fossil fuels, while it has brought great prosperity, has now reached a point where its costs are excessive.
Fortunately, we have the technologies we need to solve this. All that’s missing is the political will to challenge the status quo. I urge everyone to set aside partisan preconceptions and let your elected officials know that you want prompt, rational action on climate change to protect our economy. You could be the one who tips the scale.
Rick Knight is a chemical engineer and research coordinator at the nonprofit Citizens’ Climate Education Corp.
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