NBC’s Tur: Many of Our Financial Issues Have to Do with Climate Change

On Wednesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Katy Tur Reports,” host Katy Tur stated that a large portion “of what we are dealing with financially right now has to do with the effects of climate change.”

While speaking to Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Tur said, “So much of what we are dealing with financially right now has to do with the effects of climate change. And whenever we have a major disaster and the trillions of dollars that get allocated for that disaster, obviously, it affects the budget. It happens in all seasons now.”

She then asked Whitehouse, “Is that a way to get Republican colleagues on board with trying to fight climate change, to say, hey, listen, this will cost us a whole lot less money if we get out ahead of it, instead of react to it?”

Whitehouse responded, “That’s what we’re trying to do. That’s the case we’re trying to make. If you look at why we have this deficit, one of the major components to it [are] these unpredicted and unaddressed shocks to the system, like the 2008 mortgage meltdown and like COVID. The next ones are likely to be climate-related. We have the chance to predict them.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett