Costs Of Climate Change Continue To Rise As Storms Become More Destructive

09/18/20 • 12 min

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There have been so many tropical storms this year that the National Hurricane Center has already made it through the alphabet to name the storms. The last storm name started with "W" (there are no X, Y or Z names). Now, storms will be named using the Greek alphabet.
In the last five years, the United States has lost $500 billion because of climate driven weather disasters, including storms and fires. That estimate by the federal government doesn't even include the storms that have hit the Southern coasts in 2020.
Hurricanes and wildfires are getting more destructive. And with a world that's getting hotter, NPR's Rebecca Hersher and Nathan Rott report that the costs of these disasters will continue to go up.
The change to energy sources with smaller carbon footprints comes with its own risks, too. NPR's Kat Lonsdorf went to Japan to visit the Fukushima region — the site of a nuclear disaster in 2011. Now, people there are working to make the region completely powered by renewables by 2040.
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You can see more of Kat Lonsdorf's reporting from Fukushima here.
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This Election Season Is Shaping Up To Be The Most Litigated Ever

During the 2000 Presidential election season, it took 36 days and a Supreme Court decision before George W. Bush became the 43rd president of the United States.
Before that final Supreme Court decision, there was a five-week battle over the ballots, the rules, the laws and the courts. The amount of litigation and lawyers involved has been called "unprecedented." But what was unprecedented two decades ago looks quaint in 2020.
This year campaigns and political parties have staffed up their legal war rooms, making this election season one of the most litigated ever. A lot of the on-going lawsuits are due to coronavirus-related election issues, with at least 248 nationwide.
Three of the lawyers preparing for this election season take us from where they were on election night in 2000 to the work they're doing now.
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Special thanks to Sam Gringlas and Courtney Dorning for reporting featured in this episode.
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With Nearly 200,000 Dead, Health Care Workers Struggle To Endure

The coronavirus has killed nearly 200,000 people in America — far more than in any other country, according to Johns Hopkins University. And experts are predicting a new spike of cases this fall.
It's not clear exactly how many of the dead are health care workers, who remain especially vulnerable to the virus. Dr. Claire Rezba has been tracking and documenting their deaths on Twitter.
Christopher Friese with the University of Michigan School of Nursing explains how we all feel the effects of a health care system whose workers are stretched to the brink.
NPR science correspondent Richard Harris reports on a crucial advancements health care workers have made that mean ICU patients are more likely to survive now than they were at the outset of the pandemic.
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