A study published recently in the journal Science presented troubling news for the Southeast. As a review of its findings describes, “climate change will actually affect the Southeast disproportionately to the rest of the United States, particularly with regard to economic productivity.” In layperson terms, what the report said is that — should current greenhouse gas emission trends continue — climate change will overall hit the Southeast harder than any other part of the country.
Up to now, the events have been intense: Record-breaking heat across hundreds of Southeastern counties this past May, July, and September, increasingly long and intense droughts, which in turn are causing more devastating and uncontrollable wildfires, unprecedented crop loss, like that farmers are experiencing in South Carolina and Georgia this very October, extreme storms like Hurricanes Irma, Michael, and Harvey and an increasing threat of mosquito-spread diseases like dengue, chikungunya, Zika, and West Nile virus.
While federal and local governments are not alarmed, the population is in action with protests, habit change and environmental classes.