Climate 2030: A National Blueprint for a Clean Energy Economy (Executive Summary)

Courage of conviction, unyielding stamina to underscore the dangerous realities of unchanging lifestyle habits and doing business as usual in today’s world, and unfettered tenacity necessary to build an ever-growing network of dedicated individuals and scientists struggling to express the need for public awareness and governmental action, describes this nationwide group. The Union of Concerned Scientists, primarily headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, presents its forecast for 2030 – complete with the recipe needed to be undertaken for individuals and businesses to both survive and thrive

Underwater: Rising Seas, Chronic Floods, and the Implications for US Coastal Real Estate

As sea levels rise, more and more American homes and businesses will experience frequent, disruptive flooding that makes everyday life impossible. More than 300,000 of today's coastal homes are at risk of this untenable flooding within the term of a 30-year mortgage.Yet property values in most coastal real estate markets do not currently reflect this risk. And with short-sighted investments and policies at all levels of government concealing this growing problem, homeowners, businesses, communities, and investors are not aware of the financial losses they may soon face.In the coming decades, many coastal real estate markets will be strained by flooding, some to the point of collapse, with potential reverberations throughout the national economy. Individual homeowners and businessowners, banks, lenders, investors, developers, insurers, and taxpayers are poised to sustain large collective losses. Shrinking property tax bases could spell decline for many coastal cities and towns.We have scant time remaining to brace our communities, and our local and national economies, for this challenge. While there are no easy solutions, knowing our risk—and using that knowledge to create bold new policies and market incentives—will help protect coastal communities. Whether we react to this threat by implementing science-based, coordinated, and equitable solutions—or walk, eyes open, toward a crisis—is up to us right now

Killer Heat in the United States: Climate Choices and the Future of Dangerously Hot Days

This UCS analysis provides a detailed view of how extreme heat events caused by dangerous combinations of temperature and humidity are likely to become more frequent and widespread in the United States over this century. It also describes the implications for everyday life in different regions of the country.We have analyzed where and how often in the contiguous United States the heat index—also known as the National Weather Service (NWS) "feels like" temperature—is expected to top 90°F, 100°F, or 105°F during future warm seasons (April through October). While there is no one standard definition of "extreme heat," in this report we refer to any individual days with conditions that exceed these thresholds as extreme heat days. We also analyzed the spread and frequency of heat conditions so extreme that the NWS formula cannot accurately calculate a corresponding heat index. The "feels like" temperatures in these cases are literally off the charts.We have conducted this analysis for three global climate scenarios associated with different levels of global heattrapping emissions and future warming. These scenarios reflect different levels of action to reduce global emissions, from effectively no action to rapid action. Even the scenario of rapid action to reduce emissions does not spare our communities a future of substantially increased extreme heat. For the greatest odds of securing a safe climate future for ourselves and the ecosystems we all depend on, we would need to take even more aggressive action, in the US and globally, than outlined in any of the scenarios used here. Our challenge is great, but the threat of not meeting it is far greater

Climate 2030: A national blueprint for a clean energy economy

Reducing oil dependence. Strengthening energy security. Creating jobs. Tackling global warming. Addressing air pollution. Improving our health. The United States has many reasons to make the transition to a clean energy economy. What we need is a comprehensive set of smart policies to jump-start this transition without delay and maximize the benefits to our environment and economy. Climate 2030: A National Blueprint for a Clean Energy Economy (“the Blueprint”) answers that need

Comments on the U.S. Social Cost of Carbon

Our organizations respectfully submit these comments regarding EPA’s use of the Interagency Working Group’s valuation of the Social Cost of Carbon to assess the costs and benefits of its greenhouse gas emissions guidelines for existing fossil fuel-fired power plants (the Clean Power Plan). Our organizations have separately and independently submitted other comments regarding the proposed emissions guidelines themselves. We strongly affirm that the current Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) values are sufficiently robust and accurate to continue to be the basis for regulatory analysis going forward. As demonstrated below, if anything, current values are significant underestimates of the SCC. As economic and scientific research continues to develop in the future, the value should be revised, and we also offer recommendations for that future revision