Global warming to cost Washington State
Millions will be spent on higher prices, fixes, study says
Global warming is known to be destructive, but a study released Wednesday shows it also will be expensive, costing Washington state and its residents millions of dollars in higher prices and remedial measures.
Climbing temperatures over the next 40 years will boost the cost of timber, water and crops, cause twice the wildfire damage that occurs now, exacerbate health issues and require expensive shoring-up to avoid damage to Tacoma, Willapa Bay and other low-lying areas.
Those are the top-level conclusions reached in "Impacts of Climate Change on Washington's Economy," a 118-page, $100,000 study prepared by researchers from Washington and Oregon.
"It's safe to say that virtually every aspect of the state's economy will be affected by climate change," said co-author Bob Doppelt, director of the Climate Leadership Initiative at the University of Oregon, in a teleconference after the study's release.
"But the impacts are manageable with an appropriate response, and climate change does open the door for new economic opportunities."
The highly detailed study is this state's first attempt to assess how rising temperatures -- an average of 2 degrees higher than the 1970-99 average by the 2020s and 3 degrees higher by the 2040s -- will affect its $269 billion economy.
The study provided no dollar total for the changes' costs and gave no suggestions for policy changes to minimize the effect of climate change, because the group wasn't asked to do so, Doppelt said.
But Janice Adair, special assistant to Ecology Director Jay Manning, said the state had been waiting for the study to augment efforts to cope with the effects of climate change.
"I can't say that we have any initiatives currently under way" directly addressing climate change, she said. But she said a number of other projects, such as retrofitting school buses to reduce diesel emissions and electrifying truck stops to reduce idling, are already curbing greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, which are the major cause of global warming.
Continue reading this story from the Seattle P-I:
Global warming to cost us
