Uncontrolled wildfires have burned nearly 40,000 acres in Los Angeles over the past week. Western North Carolina saw thousands of homes devastated by flooding in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in September 2024. More than 2,200 homes in Maui burned to the ground in August 2023. A four-state grouping of tornadoes destroyed thousands of Midwest homes just before Christmas in 2021.
These are just a few of the most painful climate change-driven natural disasters that have ravaged the U.S. in recent years. There was an estimated $182.7 billion in damages in 2024 alone from weather and climate disasters, while the tab in 2022 was $183.6 billion.
