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How Climate Change Impacts Congressional Districts Over Next 80 Years

A Roll Call analysis also reveals how concerned people are, by district

(Photo courtesy iStock)
(Photo courtesy iStock)

Two recent studies explored the climate debate at the local level. The authors of a report by Climate Impact Lab, published in Science magazine, ran 29,000 simulations to project the economic damage that could result from climate change between 2080 and 2099 in the U.S.

Researchers at Yale and George Mason universities created a model that estimates opinions on climate change in specific communities. Roll Call combined the two in this analysis, by congressional district.

Here’s how Roll Call’s analysis projected the economic damage to congressional districts:

  • Congressional districts were extrapolated from county-level data using populations of county segments.
  • Total direct damage estimates were based on median projections of climate change from 2000 to 2099, if no policies are adopted to reduce emissions.
  • Total damage calculations include estimates of climate-influenced changes in mortality rates, coastal damage, agricultural yields, energy expenditures, labor conditions and crime rates.

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