In her latest column, Business ReportEditor Stephanie Riegel notes the Trump administration released one of the most significant reports about climate change in recent memory on a day when few people were paying attention to anything important—the day after Thanksgiving.
“Not only is the world’s temperature rising, but evidence overwhelmingly points to the role human action is playing in it,” Riegel writes of the report. “What’s more, unless we change our practices and policies, there will be ‘substantial damages to the U.S. economy, environment and human health and well-being over the coming decades.’”
Perhaps President Donald Trump can ignore that kind of information, Riegel says, but here in south Louisiana—where we live with rising sea levels, visible coastal erosion, catastrophic storms and increasingly frequent floods—we cannot afford to look away.
Climate change will adversely affect every aspect of life and society—not just buildings and the natural environment, but infrastructure, health, mobility, and access to food and water, Riegel says.
But there’s hope, she adds, because there are people in Baton Rouge and Louisiana working to help bring about those changes.
“Louisiana, in fact, is ahead of many states in resiliency and adaptation, not because it’s particularly progressive but because it has no other choice,” Riegel writes.
Read the full column, in which Riegel highlights some of the efforts being made to help Louisiana weather the climate change challenges. Send comments to editor@businessreport.com
