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People feel the impacts of climate change in two ways: directly and indirectly (we'll spend all of Lesson 5 looking more closely at direct and indirect impacts on human health):
- direct impacts occur when the impact of climate change itself causes them harm (or benefit, but unfortunately most impacts on humans are negative)
- increased heat stress (and demand for air conditioning, which creates a positive feedback loop for increased emissions)
- loss of life or property during hurricanes and other extreme weather events
- indirect impacts occur when the impact of climate change has an effect on some system that humans rely on or engage with; so the impact isn't happening immediately to people, but instead affects an intermediary system that in turn affects people
- decreased crop yields from increased drought-like conditions ---> less food for people
- increased instances of mold from wetter summers (State College experienced this in summer 2018)
There are many other ways that climate change affects people and the things they value. We know, for instance, that climate change is increasing the frequencies and intensities of heavy downpours. We also know that climate change is increasing variation in rainfall from year to year. For agriculture, the result of more frequent, more intense downpours is localized crop loss from damage to plants and agricultural infrastructure. Increasing variation in wet and dry years means that, without irrigation, there are greater year-to-year variations in agricultural yields. These findings suggest that the impacts of climate change will create winners and losers in agriculture. All other things being equal, farmers lose when yields decrease because heavy downpours flatten their crops or droughts ravage the countryside; in contrast, farmers win when the localized downpours miss their fields and strike the fields of their competitors. They also win when yields go up because of a moist year. However, the increase in volatility of the weather leads to fewer winners than losers.