Recent months have brought a slew of weather-related catastrophes to the United States: wildfires, droughts, hurricanes, and floods. While scientists continue to caution that it is hard to draw a direct line between any one weather event and global warming, they also say that these kinds of extreme weather episodes are a preview of what is going to become all too common in the years ahead.
The increase in frequency and severity of extreme weather events and long-term environmental shifts threatens to shake our financial system to its core, costing trillions in our real economy and in our financial institutions. Â To make sure we don’t have an even worse financial crisis than 2008, Gregg Gelzinis, Associate Director for Economic Policy at the Center for American Progress, explains how regulators and financial institutions can act right now to get ahead of the problem.
