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As I watch the national network news, I notice each evening a devastating weather-related report involving serious floods, fires, tornadoes, hurricanes, drought, heat, or blizzards. I don’t remember seeing so many catastrophes in the past.

The National Centers for Environmental Information, tracks how many billion-dollar weather/climate disasters there have been from 1980 to the present. In 1980 there were three such events. In 1987 there were none. But the number of events has grown steadily since then until 2023 had $28 billion weather related disasters which, in total, cost $94.9 billion.

Weather related billion dollar disasters are increasing dramatically and 2024 is on pace to exceed the numbers for 2023. On May 6 this year there were tornadoes across Oklahoma, Kansas Nebraska, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. The cost of cleanup from the tornadoes that day amounted to $6.1 million. This is just one example of events seen this year. In almost every report those who were interviewed say that they had never witnessed such devastation in their lifetimes.

Carbon pollution released by burning fossil fuels causes these disasters and the polluters causing this problem pay no cost for their pollution. A bill in the U.S. House of Representatives will change that. The Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act (HR 5744), puts a fee on companies who extract fossil fuels and provides a dividend from this fee to all US households. To learn more, check out citizensclimatelobby.org.

Tom Parlin

Winona, MN