Just 55% of Americans believe global warming will"hurt them a moderate amount," according to a new study by Stanford University and Resources for the Future.Higher insurance rates for homeowners, inflation for groceries, and lost earnings due to heat are a few examples of broad economic impacts.for homeowners in many states across the country, pointing to mounting losses from natural disasters as a factor.
It's likely that survey respondents were thinking more about physical than financial impact when answering the survey question, said Jon Krosnick, a report co-author and director of Stanford's Political Psychology Research Group. For example, in addition to negative effects on human health, wildfire smoke also reduces earnings for workers in sectors like manufacturing, crop production, utilities, health care, real estate, administration and transportation, according to aby economists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Oregon. Some of that impact may be due to missed days of work, for example.