Doing nothing in the face of climate change would cost the U.S. $1.9 trillion a year (in today’s dollars) by the turn of the next century, says a new report from green group NRDC. That includes big spending on severe-weather damage, real-estate losses, and energy and water costs. The NRDC report is aimed to counter claims that the Lieberman-Warner bill, set to hit the Senate floor in June, will severely hurt the economy. “If you think it’s expensive to do something about climate change, this tells you how expensive it will be to do nothing about climate change,” says lead author Frank Ackerman. The report also predicts that unchecked global warming would lead to an average temperature increase of 13 degrees Fahrenheit in most of the U.S. by 2100, so that New York City would have the clime of Las Vegas, San Francisco that of New Orleans, and Boston the average temperatures of Memphis.
