The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco has just released their quarterly report, which is far from optimistic about the future of financial America in the coming years if climate change is allowed to continue unchecked.
The report, which is supposed to steer clear of all controversy and opinionating, states clearly that unless something is done to slow down global warming and climate change, most American town on the East and West Coasts, as well as the Gulf Coast, will no longer be able to come up with enough tax-based funds to either shore up existing sea walls or start building them as the earth’s sea level inevitably rises.
And that’s not all.
Home values across the country are poised to take a Humpty-Dumpty type fall because of the increased frequency of flooding and the spreading geographical areas that used to be bone dry during flood season but now are turning into seasonal quagmires. These homes were not built to seasonal flooding standards and if and when they flood they will become completely uninhabitable and need to be torn down rather than repaired. This is already impacting home insurance rates everywhere from North Dakota to New Mexico.
The Fed rarely goes into details on climate risks, and so their specific remarks about flooding and the cost of rising oceans is expected to reverberate on Wall Street — and not in a good way.
