America Is Lying to Itself About the Cost of Disasters



America Is Lying to Itself About the Cost of Disasters

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2024/10/hurricane-helene-cost-disasters/680168/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_content=edit-promo

by theatlantic

2 comments
  1. Zoë Schlanger: “The United States is trapped in a cycle of disasters bigger than the ones our systems were built for. Before Hurricane Helene made landfall late last month, FEMA was already running short on funds; now, Alejandro Mayorkas, the Homeland Security secretary, told reporters on Wednesday, if another hurricane hits, it will run out altogether. At the same time, the Biden administration has announced that local expenses to fix hurricane damage in several of the worst-affected states will be completely reimbursed by the federal government. [https://theatln.tc/xk8npXAp](https://theatln.tc/xk8npXAp

    “This mismatch, between catastrophes the government has budgeted for and the actual toll of overlapping or supersize disasters, keeps happening—after Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Maria, Hurricane Florence. Almost every year now, FEMA is hitting the same limits, Carlos Martín, who studies disaster mitigation and recovery for the Brookings Institution, told me. Disaster budgets are calculated to past events, but ‘that’s just not going to be adequate’ as events grow more frequent and intense. Over time, the U.S. has been spending more and more money on disasters in an ad hoc way, outside its main disaster budget, according to Jeffrey Schlegelmilch, the director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia Climate School.

    “Each time, the country manages to scrape by, finding more money to help people who need it. (And FEMA does have money for immediate Helene response.) But each time, when funds get too low, the agency winds up putting its other relief work on hold in favor of lifesaving measures, which can slow down recovery and leave places more vulnerable when the next storm hits. In theory, the U.S. could keep doing that, even as costs keep growing, until at some point, these fixes become either unsustainable or so normalized as to be de facto policy. But it’s a punishing cycle that leaves communities scrambling to react to ever more dramatic events, instead of getting ahead of them.”

    Read more: [https://theatln.tc/xk8npXAp](https://theatln.tc/xk8npXAp)

  2. To a major degree, events of this nature are actually far more consequential than just assigning a dollar amount to the damage. Money is a fiction. A fiction that can be created, quite literally, out of thin air. Granted, there are political and real-world ramifications to its creation, to be sure; In terms of how it’s used as a claim on resources.

    Although, what the world still has failed to realize—in the aggregate—is that the damage itself is a feedback loop. Because the material destruction brought about by the effects of climate change will destroy ***embodied emissions***. Meaning, **the material destruction represents emissions that have already been released**. And if you want to replace what has been destroyed you have to reemit even more carbon—just to get back to the level of goods and services that were in existence prior.

    As an example: for every car that has been destroyed, you are now effectively doubling the emissions it took to provide that service to the owner of the vehicle—if they decide to get a new car. And the same is true up and down the line for everything that has been destroyed that gets replaced. Yes, there may be some emissions savings due to more efficient manufacturing and energy use in newer goods, but you are still emitting much more carbon just to run in place, and (if you’re lucky) get back to the same living standard.

    The money isn’t the issue. The problem is the extra carbon emissions it’s going to take to build back. Everywhere this happens. Every year this happens. **Globally**.

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