A new government report has stark warnings about the effects of climate change: Warming of the earth could kill thousands of people and capsize the economy, potentially reducing the GDP by more than 10 percent.
The study was supposed to come out in December, but the Trump administration released it on Black Friday.
The Fourth National Climate Assessment was drafted by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, a team of 13 federal agencies comprising 1,000 people, including 300 leading scientists, half from outside the government.
It warned that natural disasters are worsening, and severe weather has incurred more than $400 billion in damage since 2015.
The experts found that climate change could cost hundreds of billions of dollars annually, CNN reports. Crops will be compromised by higher temperatures, drought and flooding. Some Midwest farms will be able to produce less than 75% of their current corn yield. Heat could cause dairy production to fall between 0.60% and 1.35% by 2030, and the shellfish industry will probably lose $230 million by the end of the century because of ocean acidification.
Higher temperatures will also kill more people, the report concludes. The Midwest is predicted to have the largest increase in temperature, resulting in 2,000 more premature deaths per year by 2090. Chicago is expected to feel more like Phoenix or Las Vegas, with days over 100 degrees common. Diseases spread by mosquitoes and ticks will increase; cases of the West Nile virus are expected to more than double in the next 30 years.
Additionally, wildfires could burn up to six times the forest area annually by 2050, and rising temperatures will imperil $1 trillion in coastal real estate and public infrastructure because of sea level rise.
President Trump has frequently stated his belief that climate change is “a hoax.” That hasn’t changed. “I don’t believe it,” Trump said when asked about the report on Monday afternoon.
