Climate Change Is Already Hurting U.S. Communities, Federal Report Says

Climate change is already causing more frequent and severe weather across the U.S., and the country is poised to suffer massive damage to infrastructure, ecosystems, health and the economy if global warming is allowed to continue, according to the most comprehensive federal climate report to date.

The fourth National Climate Assessment is the culmination of years of research and analysis by hundreds of top climate scientists in the country. The massive report details the many ways in which global climate change is already affecting American communities, from hurricanes to wildfires to floods to drought.

"Climate change is already affecting every part of the United States, almost every sector of the United States, be it agriculture or forestry or energy, tourism," says George Mason University professor Andrew Light, who is one of the report's editors. "It's going to hurt cities, it's going to hurt people in the countryside, and, as the world continues to warm, things are going to get worse."

President Trump, numerous Cabinet members and some members of Congress have questioned whether climate change is caused by humans or whether it is happening at all.

"I don't think there's a hoax. I do think there's probably a difference. But I don't know that it's man-made," the president said on CBS' 60 Minutes in October.

In an August interview about deadly wildfires in California, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke told television station KCRA Sacramento: "This has nothing to do with climate change. This has to do with active forest management."

The new report, mandated by Congress and published by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, is the latest and most detailed confirmation that humans are driving climate change and that Americans are already adapting to and suffering from its effects. Climate change is "an immediate threat, not a far-off possibility," it says.

For example, large wildfires are getting more frequent because of climate change. The report notes that the area burned in wildfires nationwide each year has increased over the past 20 years, and "although projections vary by state and ecoregion, on average, the annual area burned by lightning-ignited wildfire is expected to increase by at least 30 percent by 2060."

To continue reading: https://www.npr.org/2018/11/23/668555773/climate-change-is-already-hurting-u-s-communities-federal-report-says