The Verge: “Climate disasters are costing the US billions of dollars a year, and the damage isn’t spread out evenly, according to a new national climate assessment. The assessment, produced about every four years, lays out the toll climate change is taking across every region in the United States. This is the fifth one — but for the first time, this year’s report includes chapters dedicated to economic impact and social inequities. As floods, fires, heatwaves, and other calamities tied to climate change intensify, households pay the price with higher costs and worsening environmental injustices. As floods, fires, heatwaves, and other calamities tied to climate change intensify, households pay the price with higher costs and worsening environmental injustices Climate change has created circumstances that the planet hasn’t seen for thousands of years, the report says. Global temperatures have risen faster over the past half-century than they have in at least 2,000 years. That’s led to all sorts of new threats, like the 2021 heatwave that killed more than 1,400 people in the typically temperate Pacific Northwest. And old problems get much bigger, like droughts sucking the Southwest dry. Drought in the Western US is currently more severe than it’s ever been in at least 1,200 years. Since 1980, drought and heatwaves alone have caused more than $320 billion in damages…”