The disasters in California and Florida are omens of the accelerating consequences of global climate damage, which will drive inflation to the point where increasing costs make it almost impossible to reign in the effects on food, housing, and income.

Both events are caused by human error: climate change by the swamping of the planet’s ability to regulate the climate, due to the uncontrolled production of fossil fuel gases that heat the planet, and inflation from the inability of consumers to keep up with the rising costs that are driven by climate disruption to crops, habitats and supplies.

 

 

In a word, climate change is about to drive inflation so high it could shatter the global economy. In consequence, the economy is increasingly unable to bring climate change under control. It is a feed-back loop that could set humankind back a hundred years.

These are the conclusions of the Tenth Annual Climate Change Consequences Forecast from the non-profit think tank Job One For Humanity. It is the most comprehensive list of climate-related consequences for 2025 found anywhere on the Internet.

This forecast points out one ironic climate change benefit: with increasing insurance cancellations and soaring rates in high- to medium-risk climate change areas, the insurance and reinsurance industries have become the greatest single power for reversing global climate change denial. Climate change-related insurance and reinsurance cancellations and soaring rates on constituent citizens have also become a growing, effective motivational force on governments and politicians to get them to finally begin making the required and honest fossil fuel use reductions worldwide.

For decades, no government, nonprofit organization, or mass climate change protest has been as effective as these industries in removing the fossil fuel's toxic pollution profit incentives relating directly to their climate change consequences. As advocates for humanity's survival and climate rationality, the world and future generations will increasingly applaud and honor the business wisdom and the heroism of the executives and members of the world's insurance and reinsurance industries.

By steadfastly protecting the profitability of their businesses, they are also protecting the future of humanity. In this area, it finally appears that traditional market forces are and will have a robust and continually growing profitability effect to eliminate the toxic pollution of the global fossil fuel cartel fueling the accelerating climate change emergency.

 

The destruction progresses from climate change to inflation, so we shall start with the impacts of climate change.

The climate-related consequences come from two developments: the increasing severity of climate consequences, over larger and larger areas, and the breaking of more and more weather records with increasing frequency.

This is hitting us in hard.

The world is baking: a rise in heat with longer heatwaves means considerably more 100-degree+ days each year. This means more crop failures and fewer predictable regional staples. The direct heat consequences mean more deaths from extreme temperatures, including 2,000 – 3,000 people in the US alone in 2025 and several hundred thousand globally.

Intervals between weather events will grow shorter, as the drum of change beats faster: droughts switch to rain storms and calm days swiftly fall to intense gusts.

Records will continue to be broken: 2024 was the hottest year on record, with 41 more days of dangerous heat added to the calendar; 138 countries have recorded their hottest temperatures ever.

2025 will surpass even that. We are putting more and more greenhouse gases into the air at faster and faster rates.

This reaches down into the depths of the sea itself. A new study by 54 scientists from 7 countries reveals that ocean warming in 2024 has resulted in new record high temperatures: “The hottest ever recorded by humans, not only at the surface temperature but for the upper 2000 metres. This is critical, because “The ocean serves as our planet's sentinel for global warming, functioning as the primary reservoir for excess heat accumulating in Earth's climate system due to human-induced emissions.”

The heat is driving an increase in water vapor due to evaporation, leading to a large decrease in the number of days of open outdoor activity. This is because the higher “wet bulb temperature” prevents the evaporation of moisture from human skin, making it hard for a body to cool down. Humidity drives up the Heat Index, which is a combination of temperature and humidity; last year parts of the Iranian desert reached 163F, beyond the limit for human life. Eventually, the constant rise will push millions of people in the tropics to migrate as living and working conditions become unbearable.

The heat will also drive faster wind speeds as the atmosphere churns. The Western US will see more 100 mph wind events; world-wide, tornados and hurricanes will become more frequent and will occur in previously untouched areas. They will down trees, level houses and destroy power lines.

Rain bombs approaching thirty inches of rain in one day will be more frequent, flooding roads and infrastructure. Sewers will back up and water treatment facilities will be inundated. Earlier Spring rains will mean smaller mountain snow-packs, depleting the “reservoir effect” of melting snow later.

In the same extreme way, we are currently experiencing global warming-aggravated mega-droughts that have lasted one or more decades in the US Southwest and West, Africa, and Australia. As longer droughts drive people from currently-populated areas there will be challenges to water rights. Ironically, coastal fisheries will be ravaged as the rivers dry up for salmon migrations.

Extreme cold will follow the same pattern, with harsher winters and rash of storms in areas normally unused to freezing temperatures. Homeowners in Florida, for example, will be dealing with frozen and burst water pipes, with snowfall that collapsed roofs. Hospitals dealt with a crush of patients suffering from broken hips and ankles. Crop damage can occur if the cold weather lasts more than a few days. Snow bombs will occur with much more frequency, piling highly disruptive snow falls of 4-8 feet in rarely-hit areas. The cold strikes are happening in an era called “global warming” because of issues in the upper atmosphere and the jet steam has started to wobble and become unstable, bringing polar air into otherwise-unvisited southern areas.

All of this brings high-speed winds that drive wildfires in forests world-wide, whipping through North America, Europe and Russia. Wildfire smoke contains dangerous 2.5 parts-per-million particles of toxic materials which we inhale; in California alone, from 2018 to 2022, approximately 50,000 people died from the toxic effects.

California represents the whip-lash effect of alternating seasons of deluge and drought: flood and fire. This will continue and become more intense. The sudden changes will bring higher food costs, as farmers struggle to cope with crop failures, reduced yields and higher animal feed costs. This will not only cause a rise in food costs above inflation of as much as 5%, but also food shortages or – in some parts of the world – starvation.

These effects cannot be changed by the decree of national governments; they require the attention of all nations working together, like they did to solve the challenges of the ozone hole. In 1985 scientists discovered a gap in the atmospheric shield over Antarctica which otherwise protects us from harmful levels of ultraviolet radiation. Swiftly, the nations came together and within two years signed the Montreal Protocol, the only United Nations treaty ratified by every country in the world.

If this is not done at a broader lever, we will have world-wide health disasters that go beyond extreme climate swings. In “normal” carbon-charged times millions more people die than is necessary; in the coming year, it is estimated that climate change consequences will drive 120 million people into extreme poverty.

Here is where we consider the impact on inflation, and where we must adjust to a new reality.

Economic ‘reality’ shifts fast. American AI stocks just lost one trillion in value overnight because China released an open source AI that is better & cheaper; what looks like a sure bet one minute is replaced by a new – but foreseeable – reality the next.

The same is true about climate change: it will impact our economy through inflation to the same degree as Covid once did, and its presence is foreseeable. It will differ from Covid in that it will not be a one-time supply chain disruption, but will arise from the steady pressure of the erosion of the ability to grow food without new investment…i.e. there will be constantly rising costs for water, heating and cooling that will drive up the price of food production.

In 2025, we estimate that the total cost of climate change consequences in the US alone will range from $500 billion to $700 billion or more. The US government, US businesses, and individual families will not be planning for or budgeting for most of these costs. Climate change will become a bigger, mostly undiscussed, and financially unmanaged cause of growing national, business, and personal financial losses and deficits. The consequences of accelerating climate change will often be hidden and unmanageable sources of inflation.

According to the Brookings Institute, the vast majority of the COVID-19 inflation surge is accounted for by supply-linked factors, especially the severe delivery delays at the height of the pandemic. The shock of empty shelves at the height of the Covid pandemic triggered inventory managers to boost profit margins (capitalism 101: if something is in short supply, raise prices). This supply-chain fall-out is still with us, meaning that this one-time Covid shock to the system - v.s. a steady pressure like climate change – was severe and long-lasting.

Average inflation in Covid-hot 2022 reached 8% - the highest since the oil shock in the 1980’s.

In 2025, inflation stands at some 3%. This does not include the costs of food and energy, because they are deemed too volatile to measure. In other words, the economists will measure everything that is easy and leave out the hard stuff. Over the past four years grocery prices have risen faster than overall inflation by some 6%, or 2-3% a year over the base inflation cost. Over the next 6-10 years, Climate change is expected to add another 8% to that food inflation number, giving a food inflation an eventual rate of more than 12% a year.

From 2026-2031, the climate change consequences described on the 2025 forecast mentioned above will become dramatically worse in severity, frequency, and scale. In the US alone, the estimated total 6-year cost of climate change consequences will range from 4- 6 trillion dollars or more. Most of these costs will not be planned for or budgeted for by the US government, US businesses, or individual families. Worldwide, other than the US, the estimated total 6 year total for all climate change consequences will cost the world between 60 and 100 trillion dollars. Climate change will become one of the largest financially unmanaged causes of growing national, business, and personal financial losses and deficits. The costs of dramatically accelerating climate change consequences will continue to be a widely hidden and unmanageable source of inflation.

From 2032-2070, climate change consequences will worsen exponentially in severity, frequency, and scale. In the US alone. It is estimated that the total 38-year cost of climate change consequences will range from 200-300 trillion dollars or more. Worldwide, other than the US, the estimated 38-year total for all exponentially exploding climate change consequences will cost the world between 1,200 and 2,000 trillion dollars. All nations will be thrown into social, political, and economic chaos by these costs and the destruction and suffering of the many climate change consequences. The previously mentioned 2025 forecast predicts that long before 2070, the ever-increasing litany of catastrophic climate change consequences will force most world nations into insolvency, financial depression, and a governmental and law and order breakdown. The costs of exponentially accelerating climate change consequences will make inflation the major source of economic collapse and fuel further starvation in the remaining poor and middle classes.

Agriculture is one of the most climate-sensitive sectors. Extreme weather events like droughts, floods, and heatwaves can severely disrupt crop production, leading to shortages and, subsequently, price hikes. In 2022, a devastating drought in the U.S. and Europe drastically reduced yields of grains, such as wheat and corn. The global food crisis that followed was further exacerbated by the war in Ukraine, another example of how geopolitical and climate-related issues can amplify food inflation.

In regions like Sub-Saharan Africa, climate-induced droughts are reducing crop yields, especially for staple crops like maize and sorghum. Coupled with rising global food prices, this combination is deepening food insecurity and pushing millions into poverty. For instance, in Kenya, a prolonged drought in 2022 not only destroyed crops but also dried up livestock feed, contributing to both rising food prices and increasing inflation.

Climate change has increasingly disrupted global supply chains, as extreme weather events and natural disasters damage infrastructure. For example, flooding in the Southern U.S. and wildfires in California routinely affect the production of key goods, from electronics to food, which leads to price increases. The 2020 wildfires in California, for instance, destroyed entire communities and disrupted key agricultural production, particularly in the wine and dairy industries. The knock-on effect was higher prices for goods that rely on these supplies.

In September 2024, Hurricane Helene's unprecedented path into the inland eastern United States, including Asheville, North Carolina, caused significant flooding and wind damage. This event disrupted both local and regional supply chains, particularly in agriculture and logistics. The economic impact was felt nationwide, with transportation delays and increased costs for goods originating from or passing through the affected areas.

 

Here is where we consider the impact on inflation.

Very few cities, counties, states, or nations are budgeting anywhere close to the actual cost of accelerating climate change consequences in their annual budgets. This denial of the actual accelerating costs of climate change consequences will force ever-larger city, county, state, and national deficits as the climate emergency accelerates. No city, county, state, or national government is discussing the projected 3 to 5% or more of the total GDP that accelerating climate change consequences will soon cost.

With the weather becoming increasingly erratic, insurance companies are responding with higher rates and even with coverage cancellation for some regions. Banks will turn down construction loans for people who are not building in limited climate-safer areas. State and national governments are already desperately trying to force insurance companies to maintain their coverage in medium—to high-risk climate change consequence areas.

This is a blood-from-stone approach: if the insurance companies cannot cover the costs of their business model, they will either close or move. In any event, they are certain to demand that government do its part, by promising to make restitution for their decades of failure to protect their citizens from escalating climate change. governments have failed for over 60 years to regulate the escalating toxic carbon and methane pollution of the global fossil fuel cartel and manage the very well-known rising climate change risks and global warming threat. They are refusing to become the financial "fall guys" for the known and intentional destructive acts of others.

In some regions, insurance companies are withdrawing entirely, leaving property owners without coverage and forcing governments to step in as insurers of last resort. This creates additional fiscal burdens that often translate into higher taxes or reduced public spending in other critical areas, further compounding inflationary pressures.

This implies, for property insurance, a spreading blotch on the map of areas that are not friendly to property insurance. Over the next 10 years, one in ten homes and businesses in high and even medium-risk climate change areas will become uninsurable.

Inflation disproportionately impacts low-income households, who typically spend a larger share of their income on necessities like food, energy, and transportation. This is particularly problematic in regions already vulnerable to the effects of climate change. In Southern U.S. states, where flooding from hurricanes and heavy rainfall is increasingly common, inflationary pressures push people further into poverty, making it harder for them to recover from climate-related disasters. This cycle disproportionately affects vulnerable communities, worsening inequality and undermining resilience to both climate impacts and economic disruptions.

As these radical changes occur, human populations could try to avert their fears by reaching for radical solutions like dictatorial governments and a rise in religious fundamentalism. But these will not stop the climate or inflation. Stresses will affect almost everyone. Barrier walls between nations could increase. In 2021, 75% of the world experienced weather extremes due to climate change. In 2025, that percentage goes to 90% of humanity.

Only drastic and widespread painful personal and business climate change disruption will sufficiently increase our collective emergency awareness to compel effective governmental climate change action.

In addition to cutting fossil fuel use and more carbon going into our atmosphere, action also needs to be focused on methane production, which comes from fossil fuels and cattle; it could kill off most of humanity within a few decades. Next would come a solution to the loss of Arctic sea ice, which would drive even more methane production. As these push the heat up, the major rivers world-wide will drop to dangerously low levels.

This can be mitigated or avoided if governments enforced the now-required fossil fuel reductions and came close to the legitimate and radical 2025 global fossil fuel reduction targets.

The problem for generating united action is that many of the above consequences have thus far unfolded sporadically; difficult to track in a coherent pattern. In 2025 and beyond, that will change: the intensity of weather catastrophes will increase dramatically. After 2031, in fact, they will increase exponentially.

Sadly, at this point in the US political saga we have a federal government that is averse to acting on climate change. In fact, the changes they are promoting – the increased use of fossil fuels and the slashing of green energy solutions – will cause not only an environmental disaster but an economic ruin. The energy industry is the world’s largest market segment, approaching 40% of total world GDP. Clean energy is leading the way, and China is in the lead: only ten years ago coal accounted for two-thirds of China’s energy production; today half of its energy is produced with green technologies. It is the world leader in solar panel production. The new US administration's green energy short-sightedness policies will accelerate China's current massive lead in the world's green energy generation equipment production segment and the green products segment.

Addressing this challenge requires bold, integrated solutions that prioritize both climate resilience and economic equity, ensuring a sustainable future for all.

Instead of dallying with “crypto-coins”, our leaders should be heading up a planet-wide crusade for a greener world.

Survival depends on beating climate change and its twin, inflation.

By Barry Gander and Gary Stairs

Barry Gander is a specialist on the impact of technology on human activities; he publishes a daily column in Substack.

Gary Stairs addresses the most pressing challenges of our time: climate change and community responses – and the application of new tools to meet the challenges.

 

Definitely click here for another detailed article on this accelerating wave of insurance rates and cancellation problems.

It covers the intense financial fallout these insurance rates and cancellation problems will cause in other critical industries and the growing difficulty in obtaining home, business, or farm mortgage insurance in quickly growing climate change medium to high-risk areas. It also covers in its documentation the uncensored climate change research, forecasts, and analysis that the smartest insurance and reinsurance companies use in their climate change risk evaluation departments. The uncensored information they are using is not anything like you are hearing in the media, from your government, or from the UN IPCC.

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