Government report warns of worsening U.S. disasters

As California’s catastrophic wildfires recede and people rebuild after two hurricanes, a massive new federal report warns that these types of extreme weather disasters are worsening in the United States. The White House report quietly issued Friday also frequently contradicts President Donald Trump.

The National Climate Assessment was written long before the deadly fires in California this month and before Hurricanes Florence and Michael raked the East Coast and Florida. It says warming-charged extremes “have already become more frequent, intense, widespread or of long duration.” The report notes the last few years have smashed U.S. records for damaging weather, costing nearly $400 billion since 2015.

The recent Northern California wildfires can be attributed to climate change, but there was less of a connection to those in Southern California, said co-author William Hohenstein of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“A warm, dry climate has increased the areas burned over the last 20 years,” he said at a press conference Friday.

The report is mandated by law every few years and is based on more than 1,000 previous research studies. It details how global warming from the burning of coal, oil and gas is hurting each region of the United States and how it impacts different sectors of the economy, including energy and agriculture.

Rodrigo Abd / Associated Press Honduran migrant Leticia Nunes holds her daughter Mailyn as she stands with a small group of other migrants in front of a line of Mexican police in riot gear, when they tried to cross the Chaparral border crossing in Tijuana, Mexico on Thursday. The group of Central American migrants marched peacefully to the border crossing to demand better conditions and push to enter the U.S.

Robyn Beck / AFP / Getty Images A building uprooted by a massive mudslide is lodged in a tree in Montecito, Calif., in January. Climate change is already hurting the U.S. and global economies and its effects will get worse unless more drastic action is taken to cut carbon emissions, a major government report warned on Friday.