Political Quotes

“Mr. President, last year, the United States weathered 14 different disasters costing $1 billion or more, including 2 hurricanes that cost more than $25 billion in damages. Just in the past 3 years, the annual average of billion-dollar disasters has doubled compared to what it has been over the long term. These numbers give us a sense of what extreme weather and climate inaction will cost us, but the hundreds of billions of dollars of damages we have seen from extreme weather over the past few years do not capture the full costs. An economist named Gary Yohe recently pointed out in a Washington Post article that extreme weather doesn't simply damage or destroy property. These events require people, businesses, and government to take money they would have spent elsewhere and put it toward rebuilding. So instead of promoting growth or investing in business or communities, we are treading water by putting billions of dollars into just rebuilding the status quo. Yohe calculates that if we have similar extreme weather events over the next 10 years, the U.S. GDP will be 3.6 percent lower. So, in 2029, our economy will be $1 trillion poorer because of extreme weather and climate change. This is why actuaries have named climate change the No. 1 risk to North American insurers. This isn't the Conservation Council for Hawai'i. This isn't the Sierra Club. This is not the League of Conservation Voters. These are actuaries. They named climate change the No.…”