If Unchecked, Climate Change Could Increase Economic Inequality: Study

BERKELEY, CA — A new study on climate change led by two University of California at Berkeley researchers says that economic inequality in the U.S. will increase if climate change goes unchecked.

The study was published Thursday in the journal "Science."

Regions such as the Pacific Northwest and New England stand to gain economically compared with Gulf and Southern states.

The poorest third of the nation's counties will probably lose as much as 20 percent of their incomes.

Nationwide, U.S. Gross Domestic Product is estimated to decline by 0.7 percent for every degree Fahrenheit world temperatures increase.

Gross Domestic Product will fall more rapidly with each successive increase in global temperature. The researchers, Solomon Hsiang and James Rising, said that if climate change goes unchecked the effect will be on par with The Great Recession or in the Midwest like the Dust Bowl in the 1930s.

The result may be the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in the country's history.

"This is kind of analogous to a tech boom in one region of the country and industry collapsing in another region," Hsiang said in a statement.

— Bay City News; Image via Pixabay

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