By the time 18-year-olds today hit the age of 35 in 2040, the scientific consensus holds that they’ll be living in a world in which climate extremes are commonplace — sea levels will rise enough to lap salt water onto the streets of Miami, New York, San Francisco, Galveston, New Orleans and many more. There will be increases in the intensity and frequency of deluges and, in the cruel action-reaction cycle of climate change, of droughts. There will be public health emergencies as new bugs and fungi follow the heat to attack humans. The price of food will rise as one crop after another is unable to survive the onslaught of pests, whose larvae used to be killed by the onset of winter but survive when the cold weather comes later. And they’ll be contending with tax increases to account for the monumental expenses of responding to all those impacts. The money will have to come from somewhere, and it probably won’t be from the richest among us.
