Counting the Cost

The U.S. last year suffered 16 extreme weather events each costing more than 1 billion dollars.  The most destructive of these were Hurricane Irma - 50 billion dollars,  Hurricane Maria - 90 billion dollars and Hurricane Harvey - 125 billion dollars.  

Santa Clarita, California.

Hurricane Harvey - 25th-31st August 2017.

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​The NOAA from the U.S.Department of commerce, gives a map showing the approximate location of 'billion-dollar weather and climate disasters'.  Apart from hurricanes, there were the California wildfires (see above) - and as of the 26th December, fires were still raging in Southern California.

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​Individual extreme weather events bring home society’s vulnerabilities in coping with climate change.  We cannot stop these events, but we need to be better prepared to deal with them.  This is obvious to the NOAA as well as scientists around the world.  The Paris Agreement  and COP 23 attest to that.
Reducing the future risk of extreme weather means reducing greenhouse gas emissions - and working to minimise changes that are already under way. 

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