Flying over the Caribbean Island of Hispaniola in the 1980s, the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic was obvious. While the Dominican side was still mostly forested, the tree line stopped abruptly along the Haitian border. As we circled Port-au-Prince to land in the pouring rain, the muddy waters of the country’s rivers were visibly bleeding from well within the country far out into the coastal waters surrounding Haiti, showing topsoil moving from productive lands to settle and snuff out thriving seafood habitats.
David Powell
This was my first introduction to the stark impact that environmental degradation can have. Haiti was once called the Pearl of the Antilles due to its immense agricultural output and richness in minerals. Known in the 1700s as the wealthiest colony in the New World, the deforestation and use of the land without other protective measures has devastated the economy. Haiti has now been referred to for decades as the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. My experience living there is what led me to my occupation as an environmental scientist, not just for the sake of the land and the other ecosystems it supports but also for our human race and the economies that sustain us.
While on a flight some 15 years ago, I sat beside a young woman from the country of Kiribati, an island nation of which few Americans have heard. She had come to the U.S. with others from her country to meet with congressional members and relay stories of their homeland. This land of over 135,000 people is expected to likely be the first nation to completely disappear from climate change-induced rising seas. It is predicted to become uninhabitable within just a few decades. The livelihoods of the entire population are being affected, and they know that their future means eventually immigrating to other countries. This is just one island of many looking toward the same fate. What will be the cost of their migration and resettlement?
In the 1980s, it was Ronald Reagan who ensured that the Montreal Protocol treaty was approved. It has been successful in tackling ozone depletion, the global environmental issue of that time. His administration was also the first to state verbal concern over climate change (more commonly called global warming at that time). George H.W. Bush went on to elevate that, noting that the cost of waiting for action would be too high. Also in the late 1980s, US military studies detailed the destabilizing security and economic effects that could arise: dangers to human health related to the spread of tropical diseases northward; land and property losses from increased floodings; droughts leading to more destructive forest fires; threats to out-of-date water control structures; and mass population migrations.
Does any of this sound familiar? The economic cost of climate change is becoming increasingly evident every year. Property and home insurance companies understand the costs and are adjusting rates and policies. I have worked with private companies on five continents that continue to evaluate the risks to their business continuity, citing property damage, supply chain dangers, and the welfare of their customers as the highest risks. More of them are choosing to do their part and invest in technologies and practices that reduce their contribution to climate change.
However, the current U.S. administration is operating from a flawed understating of the connections between environmental sustainability and economic well-being, or it has chosen to place ideology before reality and short-term gain above long-term welfare. There seems to be a total disconnect between what previous leaders in their own party saw as relationships between the impacts of climate change and economic stability.
In many ways, we are making the same mistake that was made years ago in Haiti. There are decades of supporting statistics and cost-benefit analyses that could be referenced here to support
the connection between environmental degradation and economic floundering, but to borrow a favorite phrase from the current POTUS, I think, “This is just common sense.”
David Powell lives in Harrisonburg.