Climate change caused $14 billion in health costs?

Did merely six “climate change related events” cause $14 billion in health costs in the past decade?

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That’s what the Natural Resources Defense Council says in its new study, “Six Climate Change–Related Events In The United States Accounted For About $14 Billion In Lost Lives And Health Costs. The events were:

• US Ozone Air Pollution, 2000–02
• California Heat Wave, 2006
• Florida Hurricane Season, 2004
• West Nile Virus Outbreak In Louisiana, 2002
• Red River Flooding In North Dakota, 2009
• Southern California Wildfires, 2003

So if you assume that all losses are due to climate change and then multiply deaths by the EPA-per-life-valuation of $7.9 million, like the NRDC does, you get to $14 billion pretty quickly. There is, however, no evidence that these or any other discrete weather events were caused by climate change, manmade or otherwise. But that would get in the way of the creation of another green factoid to be mindlessly parroted.

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