Economic losses from Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria and 76 wildfires in nine Western states could total nearly $300 billion in damage and if you believe those fires would not have happened without human-induced climate change, or at least aggravated by it, then there is an economic case to make for climate action.
https://www.sciencecodex.com/economic-case-climate-action-united-states-...
It's also reasonable to be skeptical. If you go to Starbucks and spend $4 on a coffee, you have a $4 trade deficit with Starbucks while they can claim to provide $120 in virtual money. Neither is legitimate but people with an agenda can show both; those complaining about a trade deficit with China ignore that we get goods in return that we could never produce so cheaply, while advocates of tax and spend policies claim implied benefits for that money because the real money is lacking. Other virtual claims, like that it takes a gallon of gas to create a pound of beef or that it takes 40 gallons of water to make a cup of coffee, have all gotten journalist attention, but they are just as ridiculous as my Starbucks trade deficit.
However, at some point anecdotes become data. We hadn't had a serious hurricane since Katrina, and that was not the fault of climate change, it was the fault of the Clinton administration, which had capitulated to environmental groups over his own Army Corps of Engineers and refused to shore up infrastructure engineers knew was unsound and therefore more risky to a city under sea level. Given that, we were statistically due for hurricanes to arrive in a bunch. Wildfires have been happening in the west for so long it's hard to know if these are more severe. Native Americans never invented writing so there are no records before the arrival of European settlers. California is primarily a desert, without water from the Sierra mountains and the Colorado River it would have only a fraction of its population. Scientific evidence shows natives managed forests by burning them down to prevent wildfires in a tinderbox like California.
But that is the past, we have to deal in the world of the now. The problem is few people are willing to speak using real data, and that has made the public jaded. A new virtual money estimate claims all these future health care costs and links them to climate change via hurricanes and wildfires. No one has a problem with projections, I have made an impact analysis for every major decision I have made and the bulk of my career has been in numerical modeling, so I have no problem with models. Unless they are models that would get you fired from my company, because they are wishful thinking that gets bolstered with information.
