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Katherine Brann Fredricks
Sep 243 min read

We All Pay for Climate Change

By Katherine Brann Fredricks


The US is a capitalist country.  Let’s be smart capitalists when it comes to investing our hard earned money. Renewables are cheaper than fossil fuels for most purposes.  In 2022, renewables saved $520 billion in global power costs.[i] 

 

Global direct and indirect subsidies for fossil fuels amounted to seven trillion dollars in 2022, according to the International Monetary Fund.[ii]  US Taxpayers pay fossil fuel subsidies up to $20 billion every year, according to the Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee.  That’s money out of our pockets, going to the richest companies on Earth.[iii]

 

We pay extra for fossil fuels in the form of “pollutants that lead to early death, heart attacks, respiratory disorders, stroke, asthma, and absenteeism at school and work.”  Fossil fuels have “also been linked to autism spectrum disorder and Alzheimer's disease,” [iv] according to Harvard’s T. H. Chan School of Public Health.  Between 2019 and 2022, increased use of renewable energy provided $249 billion in health benefits.[v] 


We pay extra for fossil fuels in lost agricultural productivity and higher grocery bills. In 2023, natural disasters caused a 35% loss in cherry crop harvests, in nine Oregon counties.[vi] 

 

Climate change is melting glaciers, which is terrible for Oregon agriculture.  According to the Deschutes River Conservancy, “Glaciers play an important role in Central Oregon’s ecology, providing late-season snowmelt that keeps streams and rivers flowing year-round, benefiting fish and wildlife. Glaciers also help keep forests cool and moist, helping to reduce the threat of wildfire. Late season melt is also important for farmers who depend on consistent runoff for their crops.” [vii]  

 

We also pay extra for fossil fuels in climate disasters, such as droughts, floods, landslides, megafires, and hurricanes.  In 2023, the US broke its annual record of billion-dollar disasters by August and the total cost of these disasters was more than $92.9 billion in 2023.[viii] Climate change makes these disasters worse.[ix] 


Climate change makes wildfires more frequent and more destructive – sometimes deemed megafires for the extremity of their heat, unpredictability, and destruction. “The wildfires that impacted Oregon in 2020 burned more than 1.2 million acres of land, destroyed upwards of 5,000 homes and businesses, and claimed nine lives.”[x]  


The cost of fighting wildfires keeps increasing.  In 2023, Oregon state and federal agencies spent more than $484 million to fight the many big fires that threatened communities. “The reason for the high cost, fire officials said, was multiple large fires that started early and lasted all summer.”[xi] 

 

Wildfires make home insurance unaffordable or even unavailable.  Perry Rhodes has sold property insurance in Bend for twenty years.  According to Alex Baumhardt’s article for the Oregon Capital Chronicle, Rhodes said it used to be extremely rare to find a customer whose property was at such a high risk that he had to refer them to other companies. Now, he sends about half of potential customers to other insurers because Farmers won’t cover them.  Rhodes said, “The only homes that we know for sure are going to be eligible are the ones that are, so to speak, right in the middle of town, and right next to the fire department.”[xii] 


“Climate change poses the biggest long-term risk to the global economy,” according to Swiss Re, the world’s second largest reinsurance company – a company that insures other insurance companies. Swiss Re estimated that the world could lose 10% of global economic value due to climate change. [xiii]


The US is a capitalist country. Let’s be smart capitalists and invest in forms of energy that don’t exacerbate the extremes we are facing as a result of fossil fuel consumption. Renewable energy could be one solution. According to Divest Oregon, renewable energy pension funds in California outperformed Oregon’s fossil fuel heavy pension funds. For example, since California began removing coal from its CalPers portfolio, it has gained an estimated $598 million in returns. [xiv] It’s time to stop making short sighted, fossil fuel-based investments in our futures.   

 



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1 Comment

Jared Michael Bynum-Lewis
Jared Michael Bynum-Lewis
Oct 23

The economic reasoning seems to imply an analysis which is still a bit divorced from real material and energy foundations of economy; like when seemingly implying renewable energy infrastructure is actually renewable (rather than unsustainably rebuildable), or like when implying financial saving is an indicator of economic wisdom, (let alone anything other than an empty number vastly unrepresentative of wealth nor value, given systemic cultural energy and material blindness). That said, this is probably among the best ways to communicate with those purported experts whom typically are incapable of hearing the message due to their economy literacy being much further divorced from reality; given that, communication in this way plays into their way of seeing in order to at least…

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