Texas must adapt to increasing temperatures, writes the Dallas Federal Reserve. Who could have predicted that? Texas Republicans have been incapable of connecting the climate crisis dots. Neither has the media, particularly television. IMO, most of these characters are getting away with being complicit with the fossil fuel industry and the oligarchs.
They emphasize no such trends in Spring or Fall when temperatures are cooler. People will dine in outside cafes, for example. In the summer, Texans spend their money in states such as Colorado, where temperatures are conducive to human heat tolerance. Summer heat does not affect employment, the Reserve found.
:
As Fed monetary policy tightening extended through the past summer and some economic activity slowed, policymakers confronted a question perhaps worthy of a climatologist: How did record heat across Texas combine with economic policy to affect the overall economy?
The Federal Open Market Committee’s tightening cycle began in March 2022 with the benchmark federal funds rate rising more than 5 percentage points since then in a bid to slow economic growth and contain inflation. More recently, the impact of the sometimes-relentless summer 2023 heat appears to have depressed the ability of some industries to supply goods and damped consumer demand, especially for certain services.
Analyses drawing on data from 2000–22 indicate Texas is especially vulnerable to hotter summers. For every 1-degree increase in average summer temperature, Texas annual nominal GDP growth slows 0.4 percentage points.
With this year's summer temperatures 2.5 degrees above the post-2000 average, estimates for Texas suggest, all else equal, the summer heat could have reduced annual nominal GDP growth by 1 percentage point for 2023, or about $24 billion. Other calculations suggest a somewhat lesser impact of nearly $10 billion in real (inflation-adjusted) GDP, about 0.5 percent of annual output.
The impact of an increase in summer temperatures on Texas GDP growth is twice as pronounced as the change in the rest of the U.S. because summers are generally hotter relative to the rest of the country. At the same time, the effect of rising summer temperatures on job growth is more subtle, though the effects vary widely across sectors. As climate change’s effects intensify over the next decade, heat waves will become more commonplace and severe, and Texans will need to adapt.
The Lone Star State's punishing and record-breaking heat wave, coupled with an unyielding drought, significantly affected local businesses and, by extension, the state's economy. The ripple effects of the climate crisis were felt far and wide, echoing the urgent need for adaptive measures to mitigate future repercussions.
Analyses used 20 years of data to demonstrate Texas' vulnerability to rising temperatures. For every 1-degree increase in average summer temperature, Texas sees a 0.4% slowdown in its annual nominal GDP growth.
That is about twice as much as other states.
While rising temperatures have impacted much of the country, Texas' already hot baseline summers are the reason for the difference, according to the Dallas Fed.
"The impact of an increase in summer temperatures on Texas GDP growth is twice as pronounced as the change in the rest of the US because summers are generally hotter relative to the rest of the country," the analysts wrote.
Texas Republicans are just remarkable in their efforts to ensure that the war against climate change is lost; from the lede in Inside Climate News:
Texas leads the nation for generating the most electricity from solar and wind and plays an outsized role in manufacturing electric vehicles. A slew of new bills could change that.For several years in a row, the Lone Star State has generated the most electricity, by far, from wind and solar, producing nearly three times as much power from renewable sources last year as California. Texas is also playing an outsized role in manufacturing the nation’s electric vehicles. Tesla moved its headquarters to Texas in 2021 and announced plans to spend $770 million to expand its factories in the state earlier this year. The global manufacturing giant Siemens also announced late last year that it plans to significantly expand its production of EV charging stations in the state.
But last month, Republicans introduced a package of bills to the state legislature intended to punish renewable energy and boost fossil fuels, including a measure that would increase the amount of gas-fired electricity generated by the state by upwards of 10 gigawatts and one that would limit the development of renewable energy in the state based on how much natural gas generation is also being built. Another bill, introduced last week, would prevent state agencies from cooperating with federal agencies to enforce federal policy related to oil and gas production if they contradict state laws, which critics warned could violate the state’s constitution and cause confusion between local, state and federal government agencies.
In fact, those measures are just a handful of the dozens of Republican bills introduced to the state legislature in recent years that environmentalists and energy analysts say would harm local clean energy companies and jeopardize the nation’s larger climate goals.