Parker’s “Did Someone Say ‘Climate Change’?” lays out the ways in which climate change has significantly affected humanity throughout history. To be confronted with the very real crisis extreme weather brings about in quantitive terms was shocking, however this was made all the more shocking when upon doing some of my own research I found that “data released in 2020 shows that the average global surface temperature has risen over 1 degree Celsius—about 2 degrees Fahrenheit—since the pre-industrial 19th century. That’s faster than at any other time in the Earth’s history—roughly eight times faster than the global warming that occurred after the ice ages.” (Amadeo) Comparatively, Parker states: “Finally, in the mid-seventeenth century, the earth experienced some of the coldest weather recorded in over a millennium. Perhaps one-third of the human population died.” (15)
When reading the two in tandem, the rate at which the climate change is currently occurring and escalating led me to consider the ways in which we may see climate change affect parts of life that we don’t traditionally associate with extreme weather. When thinking of climate change, images of natural disasters and extreme conditions come to mind. It is less common to consider factors like disease or GDP when thinking about modern climate change.
An example of the modern impacts of climate change
This interested me greatly, and I was surprised at the amount daily, economic factors which climate change affects.
- Insurance
An increase in extreme weather occurrences will naturally lead to an increase in insurance premiums. This may become unattainable for some, leaving them uninsured in case of this extreme weather. The 2018 California wildfires say $18b dollars of insured damage (of $24b total), meaning insurance companies may begin raising their premiums as this extreme weather becomes more frequent. - GDP
A 2015 Stanford study has found that there is a 71% change climate change will have a negative impact on global GDP. The study found there was a 51% chance that global GDP could fall by 20%. To contextualise this, GDP fell 26.7% during the Great Depression. - Economic Inequality
It is impossible to discuss GDP without considering the economic inequality this brings. A Stanford News piece found that “the gap between the group of nations with the highest and lowest economic output per person is now approximately 25 percent larger than it would have been without climate change” and “the biggest emitters enjoy on average about 10 percent higher per capita GDP today than they would have in a world without warming”. (Garthwaite) This climate driven fall in GDP is therefore clearly likelier to affect those countries already most economically vulnerable. - Immigration
As natural disasters increase in frequency, the devastation they bring will lead to an increase of climate refugees. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has estimated that between 2008-2017, 22.5m people were displaced due to climate-related events. This will likely have ensuing political effects, particularly in areas with already fraught tensions such as the southern US border. - Food Prices
Immigration and food prices are intrinsically linked. The factors leading to climate-driven immigration, such as drought and shifting rain patterns lead to crop issues, causing migrants go leave their homes due to food insecurity whilst also driving up food prices. This may lead to fresh produce becoming less attainable for some, a big indicator of the economic inequality caused by climate change.
References
Amadeo, Kimberly. “What Has Climate Change Cost Us? What’s Being Done?”. The Balance, 2021, https://www.thebalance.com/economic-impact-of-climate-change-3305682.
Garthwaite, Josie. “Climate Change Has Worsened Global Economic Inequality | Stanford News”. Stanford News, 2019, https://news.stanford.edu/2019/04/22/climate-change-worsened-global-economic-inequality/#:~:text=Climate%20change%20has%20worsened%20global%20economic%20inequality%2C%20Stanford%20study%20shows,new%20research%20from%20Stanford%20University.