Many low-income elderly and disabled residents of New York City’s public housing complexes were stranded in their dark and cold apartments without heat, backup generators, emergency boilers, or working elevators, the latter preventing many of these residents from descending multiple flights of stairs. Others endured these conditions because they had no other affordable place to stay or no reasonable means of leaving their neighborhoods because mass transit was shut down, among other reasons.⁶⁰

In the five years that have passed since Superstorm Sandy devastated the East Coast, families are still struggling to get back on their feet and return home.⁶¹

After some disasters, many low-income families never fully recover and make it back home. Approximately 400,000 people were displaced from New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and the storm so completely devastated the city’s stock of affordable housing that 16,000 families were still on a waiting list for subsidized housing a decade later.⁶² Many displaced residents never returned: In 2014, 100,000 fewer African Americans and 9,000 fewer whites lived in New Orleans than in 2000; low-income African Americans were among the least likely to return to the city in the years following the storm.⁶³

Repeated disasters appear to make counties poorer over time, according to a recent working paper in the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). Looking at 90 years of data, researchers found that an increase of 2.4 disasters more than the average led to a 1 percent increase in people moving out of an affected county, and very large disasters caused poverty rates to increase more than 1 percent in affected counties.⁶⁴ “The findings indicate that the non-poor are moving out, the poor are migrating in, and/or that the existing population transitions into poverty following a severe weather event,” Eleanor Krause and Richard V. Reeves of the Brookings Institution concluded in summarizing the NBER paper.⁶⁵

According to a 2012 analysis from Columbia University, a single flood event can push a low-income family below the poverty line.⁶⁶ Even if a family’s home escapes serious damage, storms can create other barriers for low-income households. Hurricane Harvey destroyed hundreds of thousands of cars in Houston, a city with few other transportation options, and as many as 90,000 of those cars were uninsured.⁶⁷ One 18-year-old Houstonian depended on his car to get to and from work; the car was totaled in the storm. “A friend who is a mechanic told [him] it will take $2,500 to fix his sedan. That’s more than three months’ worth of rent,” The Texas Tribune wrote.⁶⁸ For a person living paycheck to paycheck, an extreme storm can create perverse cycles: The car they use to get to work is totaled, meaning they are unable get to work, meaning they cannot earn money to fix the car—and that is assuming they still have a job to go to.

For most workers in Florida’s hospitality industry—including hotel workers, barkeepers, servers, and tour guides—the aftermath of Hurricane Irma meant a week or more without a paycheck. “Businesses typically aren’t required to pay non-exempt employees if they’re not working because a business is closed,” Florida Today reported.⁶⁹ Workers living paycheck to paycheck may wind up endangering their livelihoods if they choose to evacuate in advance of a storm, particularly in states such as Florida where there are no protections preventing employers from firing workers who miss work regardless of the circumstance.⁷⁰

And as the polar vortex pushes extreme winter storms into new regions of the country, low- and moderate-income communities in regions unaccustomed to such weather also stand to suffer. As with hurricanes, road and business closures as a result of heavy snowfall and freezes can reduce paychecks for nonsalaried workers.⁷¹ And when schools close due to extreme weather, children who depend on free or reduced-price meals may go hungry. In Kentucky and Tennessee, where counties issued disaster declarations as a result of extreme winter weather in 2015, more than 900,000 children are eligible for free or reduced-price school lunches.⁷²

Low-income communities and communities of color are also disproportionately affected by environmental hazards. This year’s hurricanes have made that risk painfully clear. More than a dozen federal Superfund sites, including some of the most dangerous sites in the country, dot the Houston metropolitan area.⁷³ Hurricane Harvey flooded 14 toxic waste sites and prompted at least 100 spills of dangerous substances.⁷⁴ At least 500 federal Superfund sites are located in flood plains nationwide, 50 of which are on coasts also at risk for impacts from sea level rise.⁷⁵ Nationwide, of people living within three miles of Superfund sites, 46 percent are nonwhite, 15 percent live below the poverty line, and 26 percent have household incomes below twice the federal poverty level of $24,600 for a family of four.⁷⁶

Other climate disasters

While this issue brief is focused on extreme storms, other events that can be made worse by climate change—including drought, wildfire, and heat waves—bear mentioning, as they have already and will continue to have a negative impact on the U.S. economy and on American families.

The Western United States suffered a historic drought from 2011 through 2016 that caused billions of dollars in damage, largely due to losses in the California agricultural sector. Scientists estimated that human-induced climate change had likely intensified the California drought by 15 to 20 percent.⁷⁷ The California drought was particularly harmful to low-income farmworkers, tens of thousands of whom lost their jobs as fields sat fallow. In parched regions such as Tulare County, low-income families—in 2011 the average California farmworker earned $14,000—were forced to use bottled water rations from the county government, as they could not afford to drill a private well at a cost of between $7,000 and $15,000.⁷⁸

Climate change also exacerbates wildfire risks in the Western United States. LeRoy Westerling, a climate scientist at the University of California, Merced, told SFGATE, “Higher temperatures mean more evaporation, which means drier fuels, and that means more fire.”⁷⁹ Higher average temperatures due to climate change also increase the number of days with conditions conducive to wildfires. Already, wildfire seasons are lasting 75 days longer than they did in the 1970s.⁸⁰ A 2016 study estimated that climate change is to blame for 55 percent of the increased dryness observed in Western forests since 1979.⁸¹

In early October of this year, at least one dozen wildfires began in a 24-hour period in Northern California, quickly torching thousands of acres and requiring tens of thousands of people to evacuate.⁸² Even before the California fires, the 2017 wildfire season was already one for the record books, with the cost of fire suppression totaling more than $2 billion across several Western states.⁸³ The 2017 wildfire season has so far burned more than 8 million acres—if the areas were contiguous, they would be bigger than the state of Maryland.⁸⁴

These explosive fire seasons have had a serious effect on the federal budget. In 1995, firefighting costs accounted for 16 percent of the U.S. Forest Service budget. Twenty years later, that number was more than 50 percent.⁸⁵ With firefighting costs taking an increasingly bigger bite from both state and federal budgets, less money is available for forestry management programs that could mitigate wildfire risks.⁸⁶ While most wildfires occur in rural areas with small populations, the smoke plumes generated by wildfire travel far and wide, affecting air quality in urban and suburban areas. “Smoke exposure increases respiratory and cardiovascular hospitalizations, emergency room visits and medication for asthma, bronchitis, chest pain, and other ailments,” according to the National Climate Assessment.⁸⁷

Higher average summer temperatures and more frequent and severe heat waves also pose a dangerous trend. While floods are the deadliest extreme weather event, extreme heat is the most common weather-related killer, resulting in between 600 and 1,500 deaths in the United States each year.⁸⁸ Average annual temperatures in the United States have increased between 1.3 degrees and 1.9 degrees Fahrenheit since 1895, with the greatest increases occurring since 1950, according to the National Climate Assessment.⁸⁹ That overall figure masks the dangerous extremes in certain regions of the United States. The 25 cities that have seen the biggest increases in the number of days above 95 degrees Fahrenheit since 1970 are experiencing between 11 and 31 more such days each year.⁹⁰

Heat waves and overall hotter temperatures are a major driver of climate change-related health impacts. Heat contributes to the formation of ground-level ozone, or smog, which can in turn cause asthma attacks, diminished lung function, and even premature death, according to the National Climate Assessment.⁹¹ Longer, warmer summers and fewer days with frost in the winter are also causing longer pollen seasons, which are an irritant for people with allergies and a danger for those living with asthma.⁹² And heat waves have caused increases in death rates in cities such as Philadelphia, St. Louis, Chicago, and Cincinnati, as low-income, elderly, and medically vulnerable populations in particular suffer heat stroke, cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, and cerebrovascular disease.⁹³

Low-income Americans and those suffering from chronic conditions can reasonably be expected to suffer the most severe impacts as a result of both wildfire smoke and heat waves. “Poor adults are almost five times as likely to report being in fair or poor health as adults with family incomes at or above 400 percent of the federal poverty level … and they are more than three times as likely to have activity limitations due to chronic illness,” according to a comprehensive 2015 Urban Institute report on income and health.⁹⁴ Low-income adults have higher rates of coronary heart disease, stroke, emphysema, and chronic bronchitis than higher-income adults, and low-income children have a higher prevalence of asthma.⁹⁵ The U.S. Global Change Research Program additionally identified low-income Americans, as well as other vulnerable groups, as a “population of concern” for suffering negative health consequence as a result of climate change in a 2016 assessment.⁹⁶

Conclusion

Climate change is already affecting every region of the United States and every part of the American economy. The extreme weather events amplified by climate change have caused billions of dollars in damage, claimed hundreds of American lives, and traumatized communities in ways that will reverberate for years to come. Denying these facts or attempting to sow doubt about the accepted conclusions of climate science does nothing to change the reality that American communities are living.

“The most dangerous myth that we have bought into as a society is not the myth that climate isn’t changing or that humans aren’t responsible,” Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist and professor at Texas Tech University told CNN in the wake of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. “It’s the myth that ‘it doesn’t matter to me.’”⁹⁷

Climate change matters to every American—and to low- and middle-income families most of all. Extreme weather events such as those outlined in this issue brief threaten the health, safety, and prosperity of communities across the country. It is past time for policymakers at every level to take these threats seriously, take immediate action to curb the greenhouse gas pollution that causes climate change, and build just and resilient communities that are prepared to withstand the effects that cannot be avoided.

For additional reading on solutions to the climate crisis, please see:

• “Safe, Strong, and Just Rebuilding after Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria: A Policy Road Map for Congress,” October 2017⁹⁸
• “A Framework for Local Action on Climate Change: 9 Ways Mayors Can Build Resilient and Just Cities,” September 2017⁹⁹
• “A Clean Energy Action Plan for the United States,” September 2016^100[2]
• “Electric Utilities and the Future of Clean Transportation,” April 2016^101[3]

Kristina Costa is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. Miranda Peterson is a research associate with the Energy and Environment team at the Center. Howard Marano is a research assistant with the Energy and Environment team at the Center.  

The authors would like to acknowledge Rob Griffin, Emma Weinert, Chester Hawkins, Carl Chancellor, Lauren Vicary, Emily Haynes, Shanée Simhoni, Alison Cassady, Cathleen Kelly, Ryan Richards, Kate Kelly, Danielle Baussan, and Daniel J. Weiss for their contributions to this issue brief.

Methodology

This Center for American Progress analysis matches billion-dollar weather disasters from 2011 through October 6, 2017 to county-level disaster and median income data during that period.

Data on the billion-dollar weather disasters used for this analysis were primarily compiled from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI).^102[4] As of October 6, 2017, several 2017 events that are likely to reach $1 billion in cost were still unpublished, so preliminary estimates of the costs and deaths associated with these disasters were gathered from other sources, including news reports. Citation 10 has more details.

To compare the median income of counties affected by each of these disasters, the authors matched billion-dollar weather disasters with county-level disaster and emergency declarations from the FEMA’s Disaster Declaration Database.^103[5] To be considered part of a billion-dollar disaster, each FEMA disaster or emergency declaration had to be consistent with the state where the disaster occurred, the disaster date, and the disaster type. If an event occurred within two days of a disaster and was consistent with these other criteria, it was included for the purposes of this analysis.

In some cases, NCEI data did not provide a comprehensive list of states affected by each billion-dollar disaster. In these cases, the authors used regions or watersheds—in the case of flooding events—to determine if a county disaster declaration should be included as part of a billion-dollar disaster. In some years, certain types of disasters—such as severe winter weather—did not reach a billion dollars in cost, so there are no affected counties in those years for this analysis.

In order to compare the median income of affected counties with that of the United States as a whole, the authors use five-year estimates—2011 through 2015—from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2015 American Community Survey.^104[6] The weighted average median household income for affected counties is compared with the 2011–2015 five-year estimates for U.S. average median income, which is $53,889.^105[7] The five-year estimates, which are characterized as the “most reliable” by the U.S. Census Bureau, are used because they take into account data for all areas of the United States, including rural areas, whereas more recent one-year estimates only account for areas with populations of 65,000 and more.^106[8]

Appendix

Endnotes

Read Article to Me (Mobile Version)

Source URL: Read More
The public content above was dynamically discovered – by graded relevancy to this site’s keyword domain name. Such discovery was by systematic attempts to filter for “Creative Commons“ re-use licensing and/or by Press Release distributions. “Source URL” states the content’s owner and/or publisher. When possible, this site references the content above to generate its value-add, the dynamic sentimental analysis below, which allows us to research global sentiments across a multitude of topics related to this site’s specific keyword domain name. Additionally, when possible, this site references the content above to provide on-demand (multilingual) translations and/or to power its “Read Article to Me” feature, which reads the content aloud to visitors. Where applicable, this site also auto-generates a “References” section, which appends the content above by listing all mentioned links. Views expressed in the content above are solely those of the author(s). We do not endorse, offer to sell, promote, recommend, or, otherwise, make any statement about the content above. We reference the content above for your “reading” entertainment purposes only. Review “DMCA & Terms”, at the bottom of this site, for terms of your access and use as well as for applicable DMCA take-down request.

Acquire this Domain
You can acquire this site’s domain name! We have nurtured its online marketing value by systematically curating this site by the domain’s relevant keywords. Explore our content network – you can advertise on each or rent vs. buy the domain. Buy@TLDtraders.com | Skype: TLDtraders | +1 (475) BUY-NAME (289 – 6263). Thousands search by this site’s exact keyword domain name! Most are sent here because search engines often love the keyword. This domain can be your 24/7 lead generator! If you own it, you could capture a large amount of online traffic for your niche. Stop wasting money on ads. Instead, buy this domain to gain a long-term marketing asset. If you can’t afford to buy then you can rent the domain.

About Us
We are Internet Investors, Developers, and Franchisers – operating a content network of several thousand sites while federating 100+ eCommerce and SaaS startups. With our proprietary “inverted incubation” model, we leverage a portfolio of $100M in valued domains to impact online trends, traffic, and transactions. We use robotic process automation, machine learning, and other proprietary approaches to power our content network. Contact us to learn how we can help you with your online marketing and/or site maintenance.