Eighteen weather disasters cost US $165 billion in 2022 – National & International News – FRI 13Jan2023
Weather disasters cost US $165 billion in 2022.
Exxon accurately predicted costs of climate change in 1970s.
Cubans, Haitians continue dangerous sea journeys to FL despite policy changes.
NATIONAL NEWS
Weather disasters cost US $165 billion in 2022
A new report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has totaled the damage from 18 extreme weather events in 2022 to $165 billion. Each of these 18 events caused $1 billion or more in damage, while the damage from Hurricane Ian alone was $113 billion. This is not a complete total of the cost of weather disasters in the US last year, which is likely to be much higher.
Five of the last six years saw weather damage totals over $100 billion, and the overall trend is going up rather than down. In that same six year period, at least 5,000 people have died in 122 separate billion-dollar weather events.
Severe weather events are becoming more intense and more frequent, but this is only part of the equation. The damage total and death toll are also climbing because people continue to move into disaster-prone areas, vulnerable to wildfires, hurricanes and floods.
Some of these vulnerable areas are beauty spots that attract the wealthy, such as Sanibel Island which was devastated by Hurricane Ian, or the wilderness retreats around Lake Tahoe, which have had to be repeatedly evacuated due to wildfires. Other vulnerable spots are home to a disproportionately high percentage of low-income people who can’t afford to live elsewhere or don’t have the resources to move.
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Exxon accurately predicted costs of climate change in 1970s, continued to deny its impact
Researchers combing through more than 100 internally-produced reports from oil giant Exxon have found that the company’s own scientists accurately predicted the costs of human-induced climate change, starting as early as 1977. Despite having this information, Exxon and other oil producers continued to actively lobby against any government climate action or fossil fuel curbs.
In a paper published in the journal Science, the authors reveal that Exxon projected an average warming of around 0.2 degrees Celsius per decade. “That allows us for the first time to put a number on what Exxon knew, namely that fossil fuel burning was going to hit the planet by 0.2 degrees Celsius per decade,” Geoffrey Supran, one of the paper’s authors said.
Supran co-authored a separate 2017 study of 190 of Exxon’s private and public communications. The study found that while the most of Exxon’s internal documents acknowledged the reality of human-caused global warming, most of its public statements sought to cast doubt.
An Exxon spokesman has rejected these findings as “inaccurate and preposterous”. But Supran says these studies present a “tight and unimpeachable” case against Exxon. That case will soon feature in court cases as local and state governments across the US sue Exxon and other fossil fuel companies for deceiving the public about their role in accelerating climate change.
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INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Cubans, Haitians continue dangerous sea journey to Florida despite recent policy changes
Since Christmas, thousands of Haitians and Cubans have attempted to reach the Florida Keys by boat. The US Coast Guard has managed to turn many back at sea, while others have managed to reach shore. The trip across the Florida Straits is dangerous under the best of conditions, and even more so as many attempt the voyage in unseaworthy vessels.
Last week, Biden announced an expansion of Title 42, applying it specifically to Haitians and Cubans. This means that Haitians and Cubans who arrive at the US-Mexico border can be immediately returned to Mexico.
As a carrot to this stick, Biden also announced a humanitarian parole program that would admit up to 30,000 people a month from Venezuela, Cuba and Haiti, provided they applied for it and were accepted outside the US. However, the requirements for these visas raise the bar too high for those most in need of asylum- the poor and politically-persecuted.
Nevertheless, the administration hopes the new program will deter people from attempting to arrive by sea. That doesn’t appear to be the case. Just yesterday, the US Coast Guard caught and returned 177 Cubans it encountered at sea, and about two dozen Haitians swam ashore near Miami.
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