Scientific researchers working independently from around the world have come to the same conclusion:  The most expensive thing we can do is nothing.  The second most expensive thing we can do is delay action.  We need to cap emissions now in order to avert the most severe global warming impacts.

According to the University of Maryland Center for Integrative Environmental Research, the increased levels of uncertainty and risk brought about by climate change impose new costs on the insurance, banking, and investment industries, as well as complicate the planning processes for the agricultural and manufacturing sectors and public works projects. Some of Indiana’s most valuable economic assets and industries are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of global warming.  Rising temperatures and volatile weather patterns will create additional and burdensome costs for these industries.

In the last five years, Indiana residents have endured a number of floods, including two one-hundred year flood events and one five-hundred year flood event, so we are already seeing some early impacts of climate change. Most recently, flooding around Indiana shut down several roads and damaged homes and businesses, and volatile weather patterns have made farming much more difficult.

Indiana’s Tough Terrain to fight Climate Change:

• Indiana’s Governor has written one of the hardest hitting anti-climate change policy OpEd in the nation, published in the Wall Street Journal.
• Congressman Mike Pence, representing East Central Indiana, is an outspoken critic of the science of global warming on the national TV circuit.
• Indiana’s state envrionmental agency (IDEM) has virtually eliminated any mention of global warming/climate change from their communications.
• Indiana’s legislature, while it acknowledges “carbon” is a problem, has tended to support all kinds of carbon-burning technologies, from coal to coal bed methane to waste-to-energy facilities.