Two hurricanes have terrorised the Southeast USA as of late; Hurricane Helene and Milton.

 

Estimations show that Milton had caused approximately £38.3bn of damage, just over a fifth of what Hurricane Katrina cost, and has taken 23 lives, and that Helene had taken over 240 lives, a sixth of Katrina’s death toll, and has damage estimations of over £150bn, which is on par with Katrina.

 

To put that into perspective, the £38.3bn is roughly equivalent to the GDP of Estonia, and the £150bn is greater than the GDPs of Jamaica, Luxembourg and Guatemala combined.

 

This amount of money could also buy over 110bn bars of Dairy Milk Chocolate and over 210m PlayStation 5 Pros.

 

Climate change is being frequently cited as the main reason that these hurricanes are so severe, especially after the 1.5°C cap has been surpassed in 2023.

 

A study by Prof. Ralf Toumi and dozens of others at Imperial College London revealed that Climate Change was the largest cause of these hurricanes, and other sources say that climate change caused a 50% increase in rainfall in multiple inland states such as North Carolina and Georgia.

 

‘We now have new tools that show the costs of inaction on climate change are substantial. With every fraction of a degree of warming, extreme weather events like Hurricanes Milton and Helene will become more powerful and cause more damage.’, Prof. Toumi included, ‘This should be a wake-up call for anyone who thinks climate change is not important or too expensive to deal with.’

 

Biden told the American public on September 19th that ‘to reduce the impact of extreme weather and climate change, we have to continue making these investments.’ 

 

The investments that he brought up are ‘burying transmission lines underground, replacing wood power poles with concrete power poles that don’t snap in the wind.’ 

 

Biden’s speech comes after millions across many states have been left without power, had homes and possessions destroyed.

 

Climate change has only worsened with consumerism and more consumption, with 37.3bn tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions in 2023 and under 40k in 2000.


 

              Investment into clean and renewable energy as well as less use of fossil fuels have been made, but these hurricanes display to us all that it is nearing far too late to fix this apocalyptic issue.