Since the 1980s, climate catastrophes and the associated costs in the United States have been steadily increasing. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), weather events costing more than a billion dollars have soared from only 28 in the 1980s to 111 in the 2010s. These extreme weather events include hurricanes, floods, droughts, freezes, severe storms, and wildfires. You can see all the events and the 5-year mean steadily rising on the NOAA website.

Over the last decade, the total costs of these mega climate catastrophes is more the $751 billion dollars, a little over three-quarters of a trillion dollars. With our constant failures to address climate change, we can expect to break the trillion dollar mark in the 2020s. Luckily with the recent economic boom the federal government has been running a surplus and building up an emergency fund to deal with these increasing costs.