Earlier this week a new report by the non-partisan Risky Business Project revealed that climate change poses "multiple and significant risks" to the U.S. economy, estimated to cost the U.S. hundreds of billions of dollars by 2100.
From Reuters:
Annual property losses from hurricanes and other coastal storms of $35 billion; a decline in crop yields of 14 percent, costing corn and wheat farmers tens of billions of dollars; heat wave-driven demand for electricity costing utility customers up to $12 billion per year.
Locally, it could be devastating for farmers. According to the report, states in the Southeast, lower Great Plains, and Midwest risk up to a 50 to 70 percent loss in average annual crop yields (corn, soy, cotton, and wheat), without agricultural adaptation.
While stories about money easily grab headlines, stories about mental health tend to get buried. Yet according to a report last week from the American Psychological Association, the psychological impacts of climate change could be equally as devastating as the physical and financial ones. The report warns that climate change will seriously impact mental and community health, from stress, anxiety, and depression, to loss of community identity, to increases in violence and aggression.
"[The] impacts of climate change won't stop at structures and systems," note the report's authors. "Climate change will also have a profound impact on human psychology and well-being, a topic that has received scant attention from researchers, policymakers, and communicators."
Along with indvidual mental health impacts such as trauma, grief, stress, and depression, the report notes that some of the key impacts of climate change on community health will include:
• Decreased community cohesion
