The 3 catastrophic hurricanes, deadly wildfires and all of the other damage caused by the climate change are costing taxpayers billions. The amount of reparations seems like too much to deal with at this point but it has to be done. If the government had done more in preparations for this, I feel as if we wouldn’t have to pay as much because the overall damage would be substantially less. Obviously we can not stop natural disasters but if we do more before the storm, the outcome would be better.
In an NBC report, they mention that the federal government has spent approximately 350 billion dollars on climate change/extreme weather in the past decade. If we took more preventative measures like stronger infrastructure and extra emergency supplies we could put that money towards something more important. In previous GAO studies (Government Accountability Office), they said, “ The federal government had no comprehensive strategic government approach to disaster resilience, nor did it have strategic government-wide priorities related to climate change.” As this shows the government is not prepared for any extreme weather like it should be. They know these things happen and when certain storms are “in season” so they should be able to take some preventative measures against the storms. That money we would save from better preparation could be life changing and maybe even save lives.
All of this isn’t helped that the government recently cut back funding to the EPA. This funding helped the US prepare for natural disasters but with less funding the rate of preparation goes severely down, further worsening the situation. If we want to help the situations we should not cut back funding. This is why we aren’t prepared because the government isn’t focusing on this. Obviously climate change isn’t as deadly as war but if we aren’t taking precautions, it can be.
A report by Susan Collins and Maria Cantwell, both senators, says, “ Climate change impacts are already costing the federal government money, and these costs will likely increase over time as the climate continues to change.” They are both right in that the climate will continue to change and without precautions it’s going to be costly. If the government was smarter about this situation it wouldn’t be costing taxpayers so much money.
Obviously the government has a lot more pressing issues that they have to deal with like war, terrorists, the economy etc, but that doesn’t mean they should ignore preparations in general. They do provide some preparation tactics however. When they realize a storm is coming they will try to evacuate areas but in my defense that does nothing to prepare. That seems to me like they just evacuate and deal with the damage afterwards. The government should pay more attention to making sure we are properly prepared for disasters so we don’t have to pay as much after, in money and in damage. If this happens, hopefully we can have minimal damage and spend less money on disaster relief and put it towards a better cause.
