BANGOR DAILY NEWS • May 11, 2023
The U.S. is a hot bed for extreme weather. There are many reasons for America’s extreme weather disasters. Geography is one: Oceans on either side and the Gulf of Mexico in the south; mountains slicing through the west; and peninsulas like Florida jutting into the sea. Where we live and build – close to seashores, near flood-prone rivers, in tornado and hurricane prone corridors – makes many regions particularly vulnerable. Add in climate change, which contributes to rising sea levels, extreme temperatures and increasingly severe storms, and Spinrad encourages Americans to “buckle up.” The total cost of weather and climate disasters between 1980 and 2022 has been more than $2.5 trillion. While we take steps to minimize climate change, we must also be prepared for its increasingly damaging impacts.