Lobsters Provide Lesson About Economic Damage Being Caused by the Climate Crisis
By ROGER WARBURTON/ecoRI News contributor
Editor’s note: Part 1 of a three-part series about the economic harm suffered by Rhode Island because of the climate crisis.
If present trends
continue, by the end of the century, the cost of global warming could be as
high as $1 billion annually for Providence County alone, according to data from
a 2017 research paper. That’s about $1,600 per person per year. Every year.
But, before we talk
about the future, let’s discuss the economic damage that has already occurred
in Rhode Island because of warming temperatures.
Like rich Bostonians,
Rhode Island’s lobsters have moved to Maine. In 2018, Maine landed 121 million
pounds of lobsters, valued at more than $491 million, and up 11 million pounds
from 2017. It wasn’t always so.
Andrew Pershing, an
oceanographer with the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, has noted that
lobsters have migrated north as climate change warms the ocean. In Rhode
Island, for instance, days when the water temperature of Narragansett Bay is 80
degrees or higher are becoming more common. From 1960 to 2015, the bay’s mean
surface water temperatures rose by about 3 degrees Fahrenheit, according to research data.
A 2018 research paper Pershing co-authored said
ocean temperatures have risen to levels that are favorable for lobsters off
northern New England and Canada but inhospitable for them in southern New
England. The research found that warming waters, ecosystem changes, and differences
in conservation efforts led to the simultaneous collapse of the lobster fishery
in southern New England and record-breaking landings in the Gulf of Maine.
He told Science News last year
that with rocky bottoms, kelp, and other things that lobsters love, climate
change has turned the Gulf of Maine into a “paradise for lobsters.”
However, in the formerly
strong lobster fishing grounds of Rhode Island, the situation is grim. South of
Cape Cod, the lobster catch fell from a peak of about 22 million pounds in 1997
to about 3.3 million pounds in 2013, according to the 2018 paper published in
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Lobsters provide
interesting lessons on the impact of the climate crisis.
A conservation program
called V-notching helped
protect Maine’s lobster population. “Starting a similar conservation program
earlier in southern New England would have helped insulate them from the hot
water they’ve experienced over the last couple decades,” Malin Pinsky, a marine
scientist with Rutgers University, told Boston.com two years
ago.
Rhode Island’s lack of
conservation efforts in the face of the growing climate crisis contributed to
the collapse of its lobster fishery. Doing nothing or too little in the face of
a changing climate can be economically devastating.
The massive expansion of
Lyme disease in the Northeast. (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services)
Another existing, and
growing, threat to the economic health of Rhode Island comes from Lyme disease,
which has increased by more than 300 percent
across the Northeast since 2001. A changing climate is a big reason why. There
is a growing body of evidence showing that climate change may affect the
incidence and prevalence of certain vector-borne diseases such as Lyme disease,
malaria, dengue, and West Nile fever, according to a 2018 study.
Chronic Lyme disease is
more widespread and more serious than generally realized. There are some 20,000
cases annually in the Northeast and each averages about $4,400 in medical
costs. Most Lyme disease patients who are diagnosed and treated early can fully
recover. But, an estimated 10 percent to 20 percent suffer from chronically
persistent and disabling symptoms. The number of such chronic cases may
approach 30,000 to 60,000 annually, according to a 2018 white paper.
As the lobsters and the
ticks vividly demonstrate, prevention is cheaper than cure. The longer we wait,
the more painful, and expensive, the consequences will be.
The average yearly
economic damage by the end of the century from climate change for each county
in southern New England. (Roger Warburton/ecoRI News)
The aforementioned 2017
study Estimating Economic Damage from
Climate Change in the United States by world-renown economists and
climate scientists projects the impact of climate change for every county in
the United States. The results for Rhode Island and its neighbors are
summarized in the map to below, which depicts the estimated economic
damage, in millions of dollars annually for each county in Rhode Island,
Massachusetts, and Connecticut.
The data make clear that
the economic damage will not be uniformly distributed. Some counties, such as
Providence County, will be hit much harder than others. It also may seem that
the southern counties will suffer much less. But that isn’t quite true, as
graph below shows. The damage per person per year is projected to be
substantial.
The total economic
damage to Rhode Island, by 2080, could result in a 2 percent decline in gross
domestic product (GDP). To put that in context, during the Great Recession of
2008-2010, there was only one year of GDP decline: minus 2.5 percent in 2009.
By 2010, GDP had bounced back to positive growth, at 2.6 percent.
Therefore, the impact of
a 2 percent hit to Rhode Island’s GDP from the climate crisis could look like
the recession of 2009, only becoming permanent, continuing year after year.
Also, it won’t all happen in 2080, the damage will continually get worse.
The economic damage is
projected to come from more frequent and intense storms; sea-level rise;
increased rainfall resulting in more flooding; higher temperatures, especially
in the summer; drought that leads to lower crop yields; increased crime.
In addition, essential
infrastructure will be impacted, including water supplies and water treatment
facilities. Ecosystems, such as forests, rivers, lakes, and wetlands, will also
suffer, and that will impact human quality of life.
In the coming two weeks,
we will describe how each Rhode Island county faces different levels of the
above threats. As a result, each county needs to develop appropriate mitigation
strategies.
The damages from the
climate crisis will place major strains on public-sector budgets. However, much
of the economic damage will be felt by individuals and families through poorer
health, rising energy costs, increased health-care premiums, and decreased job security.
As always, prevention is
cheaper, and more effective, than cure. Inaction on climate change will be the
most expensive policy option.
The lobsters should
teach us a valuable lesson: conservation measures based on sound scientific and
economic principles could have helped mitigate losses caused by the climate
crisis.
Roger Warburton, Ph.D.,
is a Newport resident. He can be reached at rdh.warburton@gmail.com.