GAO: Climate change poses big financial risk to US government
Source: NBC News
GAO: Climate change poses big financial risk to US government
The warning from Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., came at a press conference about the release of a new report by the Government Accountability Office, which identified “climate change” on its 2013 list of items presenting high risk to the federal government.
The report said the federal government faces financial challenges from climate change, including the costs of weather-related damage to property it owns, losses through flood insurance and crop support programs, and costs of emergency aid in disasters.
“These events are primarily the responsibilities of the cities and states,” Issa said at the news conference. “And I will point out that we can no longer assume that the federal government will come in with an emergency supplemental [funding] every time there is an [extreme weather] occurrence. We have a responsibility to be proactive: Proactive in asking the states and the cities to be prepared to meet more of these requirements. Proactive in making sure that we withhold the funds, either through insurance funds or through actual appropriations, that are appropriate for the real anticipated events.”
The GAO noted that the Federal Emergency Management Agency is on the hook for more than $80 billion in aid for disasters declared during the 2004-2011 fiscal years -- and the White House asked for more than $60 billion in aid to help the East Coast recover from Hurricane Sandy.
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Read more: http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/14/16954211-gao-climate-change-poses-big-financial-risk-to-us-government?lite
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Flaxbee
(13,661 posts)someone.
No duh climate change is going to wreak economic havoc.
But that is not the only, or even one of the primary, reasons we should be concerned.
So long as this world only cares about profit, we will never have peace, and we will continue to destroy the only home we have, ruining it all for ourselves and for all of this planet's other inhabitants who have just as much right to be here as we do.
ErikJ
(6,335 posts)They only think how much its going to cost them in real dollars and cents. Theyre incapable of empathy or compassion for others or the planet.
alp227
(32,034 posts)When I read the name Darrell Issa in the story I chuckled a bit, then read your message and re thought.
99th_Monkey
(19,326 posts)or if the Fed Guvmint DOES come in, it won't be pretty.
Is that what all those FEMA "resettlement" camps are for?
and isn't climate change at the very heart of environmental concerns people
are having about the Tarsands pipeline project. <-- which btw, is what Rob't Kennedy Jr.
was just arrested for, while protesting it's impacts on climate change.
bloomington-lib
(946 posts)enough, or in the hole enough, to sell their soul to big business for help.
There's probably a plan out there that shows just how much money that particular company can make off disasters if only the govt wasn't in there doing it.
ErikJ
(6,335 posts)Theres a famous book by Naomi Klein named
"The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism," Naomi Klein, best known for her 2000 book No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies, explores how capitalism came to dominate the world, from Chile to Russia, China to Iraq, South Africa to Canada, with the help of violent shock tactics in times of natural disaster or tragedy. Released in the U.S. September 18 and throughout Europe and Canada the week before that, the book counters the theory that unfettered capitalism and a successful democracy go hand-in-hand. TIME sat down with Klein to discuss her conclusions, the research process and what kind of impact she's hoping her new book will have.
TIME: How did you come up with such a theory and what turned it into a book?
Naomi Klein: I went to Iraq a year into the occupation and was researching the intersection between the shock and awe invasion and how it was supposed to have laid the psychological groundwork for [Bush's Iraq envoy]Paul Bremer's extreme country makeover that first summer. And what I was looking at, the tail end of Bremer's stay, was how shock therapy had backfired in Iraq — and by shock therapy I'm referring to the economic policies that were really seen by many Iraqis as a continuation of the war, like the huge layoffs in the public sector, the dismantling of the army, the opening up of the country to unrestricted free trade. It was an extraordinarily unfair way for Iraqis to enter the free market. And it was really seen as a kind of a pillage.
So I became interested in this idea of what happens to our minds when we go into a state of shock and why was this is such a powerful metaphor for both the military and the economic architects of the war. But I still wasn't sure that this was something that went beyond Iraq. When I first used the phrase "disaster capitalism" it was because I had found out that something very similar was happening in Sri Lanka after the Asian tsunami where just days after the tsunami hit the government started pushing a very unpopular privatization agenda of water privatization and electricity privatization, which had actually been rejected by voters in an election eight months before the tsunami.
In your research did you find that you are the first person to come up with such a theory?
People spontaneously started using "disaster capitalism" to describe what was happening with what they were seeing around them because it was so clear that this disaster was being harnessed to push through a radical vision of totally unrestricted markets. And Bush didn't make too much of a secret of it when he announced that his idea of reconstructing the Gulf Coast was to turn it into a tax-free, free-enterprise zone.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1666221,00.html#ixzz2KvlAFNi1
on point
(2,506 posts)That's what the RW response to that is. I would just outlaw any carbon fuels, restricting its use as fast as possible while replacing it with renwable targets.
