The Heat Is On

And the cost of climate change is getting serious

Bloomberg

Last Friday extreme heat forced early closure of Donald Trump’s Great American State Fair. Fortunately, the fair was sparsely attended. As some wags put it, tens of people had to be evacuated from the National Mall. Even so, 44 people received health assistance and 11 were taken to hospitals due to the heat.

OK, shutting down Trump’s shabby, dreary exercise in self-aggrandizement was no great loss. Yet the disruption of Trump’s festivities is a harbinger of many disruptions to come. The brutal heat wave in the northeastern US — an event that would have been “virtually impossible” without climate change — followed an even more brutal heat wave in Europe.

These disasters represent the leading edge of serious damage — social, human, and economic — from a warming planet.

Projections of future climate change are often expressed in terms of averages: By 2050 average global temperatures are expected to be above pre-industrial levels by around 2.5° C — 4 ½ degrees Fahrenheit, while sea levels will be 10 incheshigher.

We should all treat these predictions as highly credible. Although fossil-fuel-financed climate denialism pervades right-wing politics and media, climate scientists who warned decades ago about future warming have been overwhelmingly vindicated. Indeed, in many cases their predictions have closely matched the actual numbers. So when climate scientists predict much more warming ahead, we should believe them.

Focusing on the average temperature increase can, however, lead people to underestimate the damage that lies ahead. If the typical day is a few degrees warmer, if the waves on a typical day are a few inches higher, what’s the big deal?

The rejoinder is that what may look like a modest change in these averages implies a large change in the risk of extreme weather events. A few degrees of average warming correspond to a huge increase in the frequency of heat emergencies like the ones we just saw on both sides of the Atlantic. A few inches added to sea levels corresponds to a huge rise in the probability of catastrophic storm surges.

And these extreme events are exacting an ever-growing human and economic toll. Europe suffered thousands of excess deaths as a result of the recent heat wave. The U.S. toll was smaller, although not zero, because our heat wave was less severe and because of the pervasiveness of air conditioning. Yet we are facing a future in which death and destruction from extreme weather events are certain to rise everywhere as the planet continues to warm.

Inevitably, the economic costs of climate change are also certain to rise. As that left-wing rag the Wall Street Journal recently explained,

Individual events are just beginning to be large enough to have a noticeable macroeconomic impact. One study estimates that European heat waves in the summer of 2025 reduced European Union GDP by 0.26 percent. That may not seem like a huge number, but it’s a very big deal if it happens every year — which it almost certainly will. The costs of this year’s heat will probably be even bigger. For example, France has lost millions of chickens. And the damage from climate change is just getting started.

In the U.S., the most notable economic impact of the heat wave that closed down Trump’s fair was a spike in power prices:

In fact, I’m very worried about the future of US electricity. Air conditioning saves lives during heat waves. But it also consumes a lot of electricity, piling additional demand on an energy grid that is already stressed by the rise of AI and its energy-hungry datacenters. And this surge in electricity demand is colliding with policies that are strangling growth inU.S. generating capacity.

Donald Trump and his officials have a fanatical hatred for renewable energy and indeed of anything that even sounds like an acknowledgement that climate change is real. So they are doing all they can to block solar and wind projects, while trying to force America to burn more coal. (They won’t succeed.)

They’re pushing their drill, baby, drill agenda even though renewables are clearly the energy sources of the future. Indeed, solar and wind power now account for almost all growth in electricity generation in the rest of the world:

The economic consequences of the MAGA attempt to keep us stuck in the energy past will be dire, for three reasons.

First, the U.S. is still an important emitter of greenhouse gases. True, we now account for less than 13 percent of global carbon emissions. But every little bit of climate dereliction hurts.

Second, we’re ceding the energy future to other countries, especially China. Electrotech — electricity powered cars and more, with solar and wind supplying the electrons — will rule the world, even if we refuse to be part of it.

Third, while the economic costs of climate change, which are now coming into focus, will be large whatever we do, they will be much bigger if America turns its back on renewable energy. True, gas turbines can supply part of the energy America needs in the near future. But they’re polluting, and at least some analysts are warning that supply shortages may lead to rising gas prices.

In addition to doing all it can to accelerate climate change, the Trump administration is actively placing Americans at risk by shuttering programs that help the nation prepare and recover from climate change catastrophes. Deep cuts to FEMA and the National Weather Service, along with cuts for programs that help build resilience, will inevitably leave Americans poorer and undermine communities. It’s like burning down the hospital because you don’t like the diagnosis.

And did you hear about last week’s Thermostat War? It wasn’t a huge incident in itself, but it was, I believe, deeply revealing about how political dysfunction will undermine our response to climate change.

Here’s what happened: During the heat emergency, New York mayor Zohran Mamdani urged the city’s residents to limit the burden on the grid by keeping their air conditioners at 78 degrees. Right-wing commentators went wild, denouncing his request as left-wing extremism — apparently only Communists believe in conserving energy during a crisis. But MS-NOW, among other media outlets, quickly noted that Mamdani’s suggestion echoed longstanding federal guidance.

And the Department of Energy immediately closed down its web pages offering that guidance.

Whether we want to acknowledge it or not, climate change is going to impose large economic costs, some of which are already baked — and I mean baked — in. But the Trump administration’s rejection of both science and basic energy economics, along with vandalism of programs meant to help Americans prepare and survive climate catastrophes, will make the damage to America much worse than it should have been.

MUSICAL CODA