“Climate Change Will Have Dire Consequences for US, Federal Report Concludes.”

Caitlin Mooney

Mr. Ippolito

Current Event 9

11/25/18

Christensen, Jen, and Michael Nedelman. “Climate Change Will Have Dire Consequences for

US, Federal Report Concludes.” CNN, Cable News Network, 23 Nov. 2018, www.cnn.com/2018/11/23/health/climate-change-report-bn/index.html.

For this scientific article review, I read the article, “Climate change will shrink US economy and kill thousands, government report warns” by Jen Christensen and Michael Nedelman. This article describes a recent US government report that delivers a warning about the severity of climate change. This article emphasizes the fact that climate change will hurt our global economy by causing it to lose billions of dollars. Christensen and Nedelman prove this point when they cited the report when they wrote, “In parts of the Midwest, farms will be able to produce less than 75% of the corn they produce today, and the southern part of the region could lose more than 25% of its soybean yield.”. With production rates in decline due to temperature variability, it is very obvious that there will be a heavy hit to the economy. Christensen and Nedelman also reference that climate change increases natural disasters such as wildfires and flooding, and how extreme temperatures can affect health.

This article can be easily related to the world today, as California is experiencing deadly wildfires right now. Although the death toll for the California wildfire is currently 63, and 600 others are missing, it is predicted in 2050 wildfires will burn up to six times the area, possibly causing much more death. Another way this article relates to current times is that the economic decline caused by climate change will correlate to a heavy hit to the economy, that has the potential to destroy many lives and create troubles for the lives of others. Another way that climate change can impact society is that it increases disease. The report that was done by the US predicts that premature deaths will increase by 2,000 between now and 2090. The report also predicts an increase in mosquito and tick-borne diseases (like Zika), in allergies, and in asthma.

I feel that Christensen and Nedelman did a good job with there article, one reason I think this is because they were able to incorporate many quotes into their article, I found this very helpful as a reader because it made it easier to understand the problem at hand. Another thing I thought that the authors did well was that they gave the reader a good background on climate change and were able to shock the reader with many facts. One thing I think the authors could have done to make this article better is that they could have listed the studies that found certain information that they talked about instead of only using the recent report done by the US. Also, I think that the authors could have told the reader more specifics about possible solutions to the problem. Besides those issues, I think that this article was easy to follow and I learned a lot about this nationwide problem. Hopefully, articles like these will be able to raise awareness about the dangers of global warming so we can work together to protect the world and its people from there decline.