Bad news for anyone hoping climate change would just politely ruin other people’s countries: A new study, boldly titled Reconsidering the Macroeconomic Damage of Severe Warming has horrifyingly revealed that global warming’s economic devastation will be worse than everyone assumed.
Previous climate models reassuringly predicted only mild to moderate global economic destruction, presumably comforting enough to let politicians continue hitting the snooze button on climate action. Unfortunately, the study by researchers Timothy Neal, Ben R. Newell, and Andy Pitman, suggests these models forgot one small detail—apparently, economies actually trade stuff with each other. When one country floods, it turns out other countries can’t magically conjure up food, raw materials, and functional supply chains from thin air. Shocking!
After accounting for the possibility that economies might be affected by stuff happening beyond their borders, researchers found that if the Earth heats up by just 3°C, the global GDP losses skyrocket from an adorable 11% to an eye-watering 40%.
If you’ve been thinking, “Well, at least I live somewhere cold, like Russia or Norway,” think again! The new study concluded that things will get so bad everywhere, your chilly little economy won’t even have time to thaw into prosperity before the global market drags it straight into a sweaty, dystopian hellscape.
But Wait, There’s More! Big Insurance Shouts: “Capitalism Itself Is On The Menu!”
As if this wasn’t grim enough, a senior executive from insurance giant Allianz casually announced this week that climate change is about to go full Thanos on capitalism itself. Günther Thallinger warned that the world is rapidly approaching temperatures where insurers literally can’t do the math anymore, and “entire regions” are already becoming impossible to insure.
Without insurance, basic financial concepts like mortgages and investments become as useless as your liberal arts degree. “The good news,” according to Thallinger, is that we already have the technologies to prevent this. The bad news? Experts say we must unite Trump, Oil Giants, and climate science deniers to set aside temporary profiteering so we can take the steps necessary to save capitalism. So, uh… got a Plan B?
It turns out the planet really is interconnected, which would be a nice sentiment if it wasn’t also the reason your grandchildren might pay $30 for half a dozen eggs—assuming chickens haven’t become extinct by then.
