Research released in June by the Environmental Working Group shows that since 2001, heat linked to climate change has driven $1.33 billion in insurance payouts to farmers across the Southwest for crops that failed amid high temperatures. As Stephen Robert Miller writes in FERN’s latest story, published with The New Republic, “payments resulting from the impacts of climate change across the nation are likely to increase by as much as $3.7 billion.
“Studies have repeatedly shown that federally subsidized crop insurance discourages farmers from updating their practices, tools, or strategies in ways that would help them adapt to climate change — but the federal government still subsidizes a whopping 62 percent of farmers’ insurance premiums. Until someone in Washington figures out a better way to spend our money, farmers in the Southwest are going to keep planting thirsty crops in the desert. They have little incentive not to.”
Read Miller’s story here, or TNR’s version here.