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Disaster Funding Is Up — Way Up

In a typical year, taxpayer spending on the federal disaster relief fund is almost 10 times higher than it was three decades ago.

Disaster spending is up across the board. This Washington Post article doesn't account for all spending, just a few major parts of those funds managed by FEMA, see Taxpayer spending on U.S. disaster fund explodes amid climate change, population trends.

The story relates two major reasons for the costs going up, climate change and state and local jurisdictions allowing development in areas that are vulnerable to hurricanes. There is this quote from the article, "Since 1970, 35 million more people and their homes have moved to coastal shoreline 'in the direct path of potentially devastating storm surges,' the researchers found, a 40 percent increase." 

Remember that most, if not all, the disaster funding by the federal government comes from borrowing. The real day of reckoning will come when we have trouble borrowing money from the Chinese and our U.S. Treasury bonds are not worth what they are today. 

The frequency, severity and monetary impact of disasters caused by worsening weather patterns brought on by warmer air that holds more moisture is a major contributing factor. I have not heard or read many "the earth is cooling" arguments lately. Anti-climate changers have shifted to the natural "climate variability" as the reason for global warming. 

Recently I was catching up on my 60 Minutes viewing and caught the segment on the thawing tundra releasing more carbon than was ever imagined into the air. Just another hazard to add to the pile we already have to deal with. 

 

Eric Holdeman is a contributing writer for Emergency Management magazine and is the former director of the King County, Wash., Office of Emergency Management.