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Monday, March 5th, 2018

Society saves $6 for every dollar spent on climate change resilience

Author:     Benjamin Schneider
Source:     Grist
Publication Date:     Jan 19, 2018
 Link: Society saves $6 for every dollar spent on climate change resilience
Stephan:   I promulgated the Theorem of Wellbeing after years of looking at social outcome research, and tried to explain it, how it worked, and why it worked, in the 8 Laws of Change. I just wish I could get it out to more people. The theorem states: social policies that are compassionate, life-affirming, and fostering of wellbeing are more efficient, more productive, easier to implement, more pleasant to live under, and much much cheaper. Here is another proof of the theorem: "A new report from the National Institute of Building Sciences finds that for every dollar spent on federal grants aimed at improving disaster resilience, society saves six dollars."  

Net benefits to various stakeholders for exceeding local safety requirements in new buildings
Credit: NIBS

In financial terms, 2017 was the worst year for natural disasters in American history, costing the country $306 billion. Scientists agree that hurricanes, floods, and fires are now turbo-charged by climate change, which the president and many top Republican leaders still refuse to acknowledge. But even while the federal government fails to address the root of the problem, there are ways to limit the damage from these increasingly frequent events — in property, and, more importantly, in human life.

A new report from the National Institute of Building Sciences finds that for every dollar spent on federal grants aimed at improving disaster resilience, society saves six dollars. This return is higher than previously thought: A 2005 study by NIBS found that each dollar from these grants yielded four dollars in savings.

“A lot of things have happened since 2005,” said NIBS’s Ryan Colker, who contributed to the report. “Katrina, Sandy, and the increasing … frequency of disasters prompted us to look at what […]

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