About a month ago, hours after Hurricane Florence hit the Carolinas, Super Typhoon Mangkhut made landfall in the Philippines, and, subsequently, Hong Kong and southern China. The two storms differed greatly, but one fact remains: They were able to build such strength because of the changing climate.
That’s not to say hurricanes, typhoons, and other natural disasters are a direct result of global warming, but scientists say they are made worse thanks to the changing atmosphere. And it’s not just scientists and meteorologists taking note of the increasingly intense weather phenomena worldwide.
Yahoo Finance’s Seana Smith asked economist Jeffrey Sachs to name the biggest geopolitical threat to the U.S. economy. Without hesitation, he responded, “global warming and climate change.”
“Global warming and climate change are out of control — a disaster — stoked by Trump and the oil industry, and causing more and more havoc around the world,” Sachs said.
“It’s just a slow motion change, but we see it now every year, all over the world,” he said.
‘We will face major disasters for decades’
The Trump administration stated in an environmental impact statement that the planet will see a 7-degree rise in temperature by the year 2100.
Seven degrees might not seem like much, but it can actually have disastrous effects on the environment. According to scientists cited by the Washington Post, it can cause coral reefs to dissolve, cities like Manhattan to get underwater, and heat waves to create overwhelming temperatures.
These impacts don’t seem to be resonating with the Trump administration, though. The president withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement, making the U.S. the only country not to sign. He also has pushed to relax many Obama-era regulations enacted to cut greenhouse gas emissions and reduce fossil fuel usage.
Sachs told Smith that the effects of these kinds of legislation, if passed, will have decades-long impacts. “We’ve got to get it under control or we will face major disasters for decades and decades to come, especially our children,” he said.
Katie is an editor at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter.
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