Costco members rush to buy gold bars online
ASSOCIATED PRESS

​
Looking for something to add to your Costco cart along with the 30 rolls of toilet paper? How about a bar of gold? While not a typical outlet for the sale of precious metals, the members-only warehouse chain has seen its 1-ounce gold bars sell out faster than discounted 170-ounce jugs of laundry detergent.

In a company earnings call the last week of September, Chief Financial Officer Richard Galanti said the gold bars, sold exclusively online, are "typically gone within a few hours" of appearing on Costco's website — adding that there's a two-bar limit per member. As of Wednesday, they remained sold out.

Unlike some other discount finds at the retail giant, gold bars come with a hefty price tag. No prices were listed Wednesday because of the bars' unavailability, but multiple media outlets reported last week that the 1-ounce gold pieces — offered in two designs — were selling for just below $2,000 each.

That's slightly higher than the current market price of gold, which stood at about $1,835 per ounce Wednesday afternoon. Costco did not specify how many gold bars have been sold recently, or how often it restocks them.

Chances are, interest around Costco's gold bars isn't going away anytime soon. Although 1 or 2 ounces of gold won't have a huge impact on diversifying one's investment portfolio, experts note that there has been increasing investor demand for precious metals in recent years, and that's likely to continue.

Still, it's important to pause and evaluate investment prospects. Here's what some experts say.

What's behind the demand for gold? Interest in buying gold often stems from feelings of uncertainty, experts say.

Jonathan Rose, CEO of precious metal broker Genesis Gold Group, says that recent bank failures, inflation and individuals' concerns about the U.S. dollar, for example, can cause some to start looking for alternative places to park their money.

"If someone's going out to buy gold, that means they think that there's some type of instability at the structural level of the market and/or the government itself," added David Wagner III, head of markets and equities at Aptus Capital Advisors.

Investment risk of gold. Rose and others say gold can diversify and balance your investment portfolio, as well as mitigate potential risks down the road.

"People are looking for a safe haven ... to protect their wealth. And gold kind of ticks all those boxes," Rose said. He added that people may see value in having something tangible — and put precious metals "in a safety-deposit box or into a retirement plan, even like an IRA or 401(k) ... to safeguard what they have whilst they see what's happening in the market."

But not everyone agrees. Wagner says gold is "one of the worst things that you can ever own." Among the downsides, he argues, is that gold isn't the inflationary hedge many say it is, with inflation at times outpacing gold in recent decades, and that "there are more efficient ways to protect against the loss of capital," such as through derivative-based investments.

The Commodity Futures Trade Commission has also warned people to be wary of investing in gold. Precious metals can be highly volatile, the commission said, and prices rise as demand goes up — meaning "when economic anxiety or instability is high, the people who typically profit from precious metals are the sellers."

If you do choose to invest in gold, the commission and others add, it's important to educate yourself on safe trading practices and be cautious of potential scams and counterfeits on the market.


​

Hi Folks! ​Following is an excuse for a lack of consistency and what you can do about it!

As most of you know, I will have hip replacement surgery on Monday, October 9th, at Mayo Clinic.  Since I will be incarcerated on that Monday, it will be impossible for me to send our regular Monday release to you.

I know some of you might become upset because you have paid dues for the year and now will not receive full value for that payment.  I have, therefore, developed a plan to reimburse you for the missing week.  

Following is the calculation. 

Annual dues: $50.00.  Number of releases: 52.  Average weekly charge - .9615348 cents. 

According to good accounting practices, I must "round down" that amount to .96 cents.  (the third decimal must be at least "5" to warrant adjusting the amount up).  The net result is that you each are entitled to a 96-cent refund for the missing week.  

Following are instructions on how to apply and receive your refund.  

1 - Within 5 days of the missing release, I must receive (in writing) your request for a refund.  You may state "hardship conditions" or whatever to warrant the refund.  Please hand print your note . . . all caps.

2 - Along with your request, please enclose a self-addressed "stamped" envelope I can use to send the refund to you.  Your refund will contain a lot of nickels from my old change drawer.  (you might want to place 2 stamps on the envelope . . . as the change could be a bit heavy.) 

Please allow 6 to 8 weeks to receive your refund.  If you have not received your refund within that timeframe, proceed as follows; 

Contact:
Sharon Magnusson (Club Treasurer) 262-370-1510
(You may call anytime, day or night.)

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Harv

Hi Everyone!   We just completed a release on Truth and Lies.  During times as these, Lies proliferate.  Behind each lie is an objective.  That objective is to erase reality and replace it with an "untruth".

False claims on war proliferate

Misinformation on Israel-Hamas conflict has flooded social media.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
In the days since Hamas militants stormed into Israel early Oct. 7, a flood of videos and photos purporting to show the conflict have filled social media, making it difficult for onlookers from around the world to sort fact from fiction.

Here is a closer look at the misinformation spreading online — and the facts.

CLAIM:
A video shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un saying in a speech that he blames President Joe Biden for the latest Israel- Hamas war.

FACTS:
The video is from 2020 and the version currently circulating online features incorrect English captions.

The footage actually shows Kim celebrating the 75th anniversary of the founding of the Korean Workers' Party; he doesn't reference the conflict in the Middle East or Biden at any point.

The video was shared on Instagram and TikTok, where one post garnered more than 223,000 likes. However, the video is old and the captions are completely inaccurate.

A transcript of the full speech translated to English by the National Committee on North Korea, a U.S.- based organization, does not mention anything about the Israel-Hamas war.

CLAIM:
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened to intervene in the latest Israel-Hamas war.

FACTS:
The conservative Muslim president has said no such thing. A social media post he wrote recently about the ongoing conflict has been misquoted.

Social media users are sharing a quote they say is from Erdogan, in which the long serving leader warns his country will take decisive steps to end the conflict if the destruction of Hamascontrolled Gaza continues.

But the posts are misquoting a comment Erdogan posted Oct. 17 on his personal account on X about the deadly conflict.

In the message, which was written in Turkish, the president did "invite all humanity" to help stop the "unprecedented brutality in Gaza," as the posts claim.

But he doesn't write "If not, we will do it" or other threatening phrases suggesting a direct military intervention by Turkey, according to native Turkish speakers and other experts who reviewed Erdogan's social media posts for the Associated Press.

CLAIM:
The Israeli military confirmed it bombed a hospital in Gaza in a social media post written in Arabic.

FACTS:
A screenshot circulating online shows a Facebook post from an account posing as the Israeli military.

No such post exists on the military's actual social media pages and its top Arabic speaking spokesperson confirmed his office has issued no such statement.

In the wake of the Oct. 17 deadly blast at Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza, social media users shared the screenshot, claiming it is from a member of the Israeli military's Arabic-speaking media relations team.

The user's profile image bears the blue-and-white emblem of the spokesperson's office, which features radio waves atop the Israeli military's traditional symbol of an olive branch-wrapped sword.

But the purported statement wasn't penned by the Israeli military's press office, its top Arabic-speaking spokesperson confirmed this week.

"Just to clarify: I did not issue any statement or comment regarding the Baptist Hospital in Gaza," wrote Avichay Adraee, head of the Arab media branch of the Israeli military's Spokesperson's Unit, in a post on X from Oct. 17, when the blast occurred. "All the news circulating in my name comes from the Hamas media outlets and is completely false."
Israel denied it was involved and released a flurry of video, audio and other information that it said showed the blast was instead due to a missile misfire by Islamic Jihad, another militant group operating in Gaza that has dismissed that claim.

CLAIM:
A video shows Qatar's emir threatening to cut off the world's natural gas supply if Israel doesn't stop bombing Gaza.

FACTS:
Qatar's ruling emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, says no such thing in the widely circulating clip, which is more than six years old. A spokesperson for the Qatari government also confirmed that neither the emir nor any other government official has threatened to cut off exports in response to the conflict.

Many online are sharing the video of the Persian Gulf nation's ruler, falsely claiming it shows him saying in Arabic that he's willing to halt the distribution of its gas reserves to achieve his desired end to the latest Israel-Hamas war.

"BREAKING: Qatar is threatening to create a global gas shortage in support of Palestine," wrote one user who posted the video on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. "If the bombing of Gaza doesn't stop, we will stop gas supply of the world."

But Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani says nothing of the sort in the video.

The 7-second clip is actually a tiny snippet from his opening speech at the Doha Forum in 2017.

Marc Owen Jones, a professor of Middle East studies at Hamad bin Khalifa University in Doha, the capital of Qatar, confirmed that the emir touches briefly on Palestine in the widely shared clip, but doesn't make any threats related to the current conflict.

Instead the emir, in his remarks, urged the international community to take more steps to address the region's refugee crisis, news outlets reported at the time.

"The exact translation is: 'The issue of Palestine, I'll begin by saying it's a case of a people uprooted from their lands, and displaced from their nation,' " Jones said.

Qatar on Oct. 16 confirmed the clip dates to 2017 and is being misrepresented.

CLAIM:
A video shows a BBC News report confirming Ukraine provided weapons to Hamas.

FACTS:
The widely shared clip is fabricated, officials with the BBC and Bellingcat, an investigative news website that is cited in the video as the source, confirm.

The clip, which includes the BBC's distinctive blocktext logo, purports to show a story from the outlet about a recent report from Bellingcat on Ukraine providing arms to Hamas.

"Bellingcat: Ukrainian military offensive failure and HAMAS attack linked," reads the text over the video, which has more than 2,500 comments and 110,000 views on the messaging service Telegram.
"The Palestinians purchased firearms, ammunition, drones and other weapons."

But neither the BBC nor Bellingcat has reported any evidence to support the notion that Ukraine funneled arms to Hamas. "We've reached no such conclusions or made any such claims,"

Bellingcat wrote Oct. 10 in a post on X that included screengrabs of the fake report. "We'd like to stress that this is a fabrication and should be treated accordingly."
________________________________________

Remember to "fact check" information you receive on line.  Don't pass on what seems to be "shocking" news to others until it is thoroughly fact checked.  This exercise will serve you well as the Presidential election gets started.  You will be amazed at what you learn.  
Harv

MARIJUANA MAY EASE CHRONIC PAIN Effectiveness varies, but pot may reduce pain and curb opioid use By ERICA PEARSON • [email protected]

​
The idea of using cannabis as medicine is becoming ever more popular. And as states like Minnesota widen access by legalizing recreational — not just medicinal — use of the drug, many people are wondering if weed can ease their arthritic hip or painful sciatica.

Research has shown that pot has the potential to make a real difference for people with pain that is chronic (lasting for three months or more), and that it may be able to reduce patients' reliance on opioid medications.

Even so, it's not a sure cure.

"It just depends on the individual. It depends on their body, how much they might weigh or how their metabolism works," said David Rak , research manager for the Minnesota Department of Health's Office of Medical Cannabis . "You have to go into it knowing that the person next to you might have an amazing result and you might not," he said.

Seeking relief from chronic pain is the most common reason Minnesotans are currently taking part in the state's medical cannabis program. Out of 41,183 patients enrolled, 24,270 of them — 59% — are participating to get treatment for chronic pain, said Rak.

"By far, chronic pain is what drives our program," he said.

Part of the draw for patients, Rak said, is the opportunity to try something other than an opioid medication — or to reduce the amount of this kind of drug they are taking — to deal with pain in the long term.

"People who have chronic pain, they're picking something that helps them over the course of months and years," he said. "There's a big chunk of people who are in our program who say, 'It helps me and I don't mind the side effects.' And this can be game changing for people."

The state added chronic pain to the list of qualifying conditions for medical marijuana in 2019. Before that, it included patients suffering a narrower category of pain called "intractable," where it is impossible to fix the cause and treatments aren't working.

The Department of Health collected data from patients with intractable pain who had been using marijuana for five months in 2016 and found that 38% had been able to reduce the amount of opioid medications they were taking. They also asked patients to rank the intensity of their pain and whether it interfered with their life before and after treating it with pot, and 42% reported a significant reduction.

Other state-run medical marijuana programs, including New York's, have reported similar findings.

Still, the International Association for the Study of Pain has so far declined to endorse cannabis as a treatment for pain, saying in 2021 that more robust research is needed. And a study by Swedish neuroscientists, published in 2022, found that patients taking a placebo reported a similar amount of pain relief.

How does pot work?

University of Minnesota researchers Monica Luciana, a professor in the Department of Psychology, and Angela Birnbaum, a professor in the Department of Experimental and Clinical Pharmacology , are currently studying how cannabis interacts with the brain and nervous system when it's taken as a treatment for chronic pain.

The human body naturally produces chemicals called endocannabinoids, similar to the compounds found in marijuana. And the brain and the nerve endings in our body have receptor molecules that interact with those endocannabinoids.

"One hypothesis is that the cannabinoid compounds within the brain interact with other brain chemicals, such that when those chemicals are released, there will be pain relief," Luciana said. "There is also some evidence to suggest that cannabinoid compounds might reduce inflammation."

Using cannabis may also impact other processes in the body, making it easier to fall asleep, and helping people feel less anxious and more relaxed, all of which could, in turn, make people feel better and give them the feeling that their pain is lessened.

Pot for cancer pain

As the director of HealthPartners' Cannabis in Cancer Research and Education clinic, Dr. Dylan Zylla has found that more of his patients, even those coming in suffering constant pain from bone metastasis as part of a late-stage cancer, are seeking out marijuana because they are "leery of opioids."

Most seem to get "some degree of benefit" from marijuana, he said, although cancer-related pain levels depend on the disease's progression.

"What it's doing is it's taking the edge off of those really bad pain levels and patients seem more comfortable and at ease with managing pain," Zylla said. "I would say, roughly, 30% of patients get significant meaningful clinical improvement that lasts for many months with cannabis."

His clinic often recommends patients initially try using cannabis at night because it can help them sleep.

"Sleep is really an important factor, actually. If you're sleeping better and you wake up rested, you're more ready to start the day. You feel stronger," he said. "What cannabis does is it helps our patients feel better in the multitude of symptoms that they have. "

Patients begin by using pills or liquid cannabis extractions through the state's medical program, which makes it possible to identify milligram doses of THC, the psychoactive compound in marijuana, and CBD, another compound.

Edible products keep the cannabinoids in patients' systems at a more regular level for a longer time, said Zylla. A joint or vape may take effect more quickly, but won't last as long.

Are prescriptions better?

For people dealing with chronic pain, Rak recommends enrolling in the state's medical marijuana program instead of diagnosing yourself and buying weed.

Being part of the program will allow you and your doctor to work with a dispensary pharmacist, who will consider the effect of other medications you may be taking and how they might interact with marijuana.

Also, the companies that make cannabis products for the medical marijuana program are required to have them tested by an independent lab and approved by the state to guarantee the amounts of THC and CBD.

And while the state once charged an annual $200 fee to enroll, the program is now free, though it does require that a health care practitioner certify that you have chronic pain or one of the other qualifying conditions.

The state's law made recreational marijuana legal only for those 21 and older. But younger Minnesotans can qualify for the medicinal program.

There are currently about 50 people under 18 who are participating in the medical marijuana program, Rak said.

Another plus:
Medical cannabis products aren't taxed, he added, while recreational ones are.

Erica Pearson • 612-673-4726.

"LIES" EASY TO TELL BUT HARD TO "DISTINGUISH"

HARV

TRUMP

Since Trump entered our world, lies have become more frequent and serious.  It's time we recognize the TRUTH and challenge the gross mistruths being spread.    Harv

Here's something to think about
​
One day, a man named Truth and a man named Lie stood by a river just outside of town. They were twin brothers.

Lie challenged Truth to a race, claiming he could swim across the river faster than Truth. He laid out the rules, stating that they both must remove all their clothes and at the count of three, dive into the freezing water and swim to the other side and back.

But when Truth jumped in, Lie did not, instead putting on Truth's clothes and parading around town pretending to be Truth.

When Truth made it back to shore, he refused to put on Lie's clothes and walked back to town naked.

People stared and glared as naked Truth walked through town. He tried to explain, but because he was naked, people mocked and shunned him, refusing to believe he was really Truth.

The people in town chose to believe Lie because he was dressed appropriately and easier to look at. From that day until this, people have come to believe a lie rather than believe a naked truth.

Many people don't believe what they hear because they've been burned in the past.

Several famous fibs come to mind: We service what we sell.
Money is cheerfully refunded. It's on the truck. The check is in the mail.

What kind of society have we created? Why can't people tell the truth? Don't they realize that a coverup only adds to the loss of credibility?

-----That's a shame.------
​Star Tribune Monday Oct 16, 2023

We all know that lies can hurt.  Many of us have been a victim at one time or another.  We all know how hard it is to prove the lie was an untruth.  We were hurt.  

Now imagine lies being cast nationwide by the president of the United States.  Think of the damage that might do. 

It happened right before our eyes.  Donald Trump, as the President of the United States, has told more lies than any person on earth.  

Now, after being indicted on four counts and facing 91 charges on various issues, Trump is defending these charges by lying and discrediting the Judicial system, our voting system, the military, FBI, Intelligence department, and anyone that gets in his way.  

And yet, close to 100 million people think he can do no wrong.  Trump once said, publicly, he could kill someone in plain sight and get away with it. 

Can he?   Will he?  Will you let him get away with it???

I will be writing more about our Nationally dire situation in the coming weeks.  If you disagree or object, please call me.  

Think!

Harv
 

​Our coffee may be weak, but ... OK, there is no but J AMES LILEKS

​
According to the latest data, 491 million cups of coffee are consumed daily in the United States. To help you understand this figure, the population of Minneapolis is roughly half a million, meaning that if we wanted to reach the daily quota for the entire country, we'd each need to drink 982 cups of coffee a day.

Of course, if we did that, visitors to our city would just hear a high-pitched buzzing sound and wonder where all the people were.
But would that make for a good coffee scene? Possibly.

If you are wondering what a coffee scene is, well, it's a complex metric involving the number of little coffee shops, price of coffee, availability of pretentious roasts (this was picked by parrots, tempered in the digestive tract of a civet, roasted over a fire kindled with old-growth redwoods and hand-selected by a fourth-generation Bean Whisperer), number of people who own a coffeemaker, and so on.

So, how do we rank? Website wallethub.com surveyed the country, and put Minneapolis at (drum roll) No. 23.

We're behind Jersey City, N.J.

Do you care? Well, maybe you do, but I don't. The only thing that matters to me is whether our coffee is good.

And I think I speak for everyone when I say our coffee is, without a doubt, absolutely acceptable.

Of course, it depends on your coffee standards. If you grew up on church-basement coffee, you accepted translucent java into your life from an early age. I have no idea why they made transparent coffee. Possibly because you could drink it in a glass cup, and see outlaws galloping toward the farm from a distance.

"Sven, how about I should put in some more grounds this time? Make a pot with some real flavor?"

"No! It's a foolhardy thing to be slain in your own kitchen on a fine morning because they snuck in under cover of dark coffee."

Perhaps you prefer restaurant coffee, which once was notable not for its quality but its unstinting quantity. They left the pot. When the pot was dry, you waved it in the air and they brought another, because you were an American at Perkins, dang it.

This spoiled me for dealing with the outside world.

When first I went to New York, I went to Chock Full o' Nuts in Herald Square and said, "I'd like a tepid cup of coffee with cream I didn't ask for, with a fourth of the total liquid volume sloshed into the saucer." At least that's what the waitress heard.

There were no free refills, of course. You soaked up the saucer spillage with a napkin and stuck it twixt cheek-andjowl like chewing tobacco.

Minnesota has the usual coffee variants: break-room brown bile that's been cooking on a hot plate since daybreak and has boiled down to a sludge you can apply with a knife. Gas-station coffee that will do the trick, except you have to drink it through a narrow aperture in a plastic lid that turns it into Satan's Plasma. Upscale overpriced chain coffee with 23,492 possible combinations of adulterating substances that turn it into liquid cake.

Let me put it like this: Think of coffee as a dog.

Old times: "I would like a dog." Clerk: "Here is a dog.

Four dollars." And you had a dog!

Nowadays: "Extra large poochacino, with two pumps of malamute, nonfat greyhound genes, goldendoodlewhipped fur, extra shot of beagle bark, with chihuahua yippy-sprinkles."

Barista: "Here is your abomination. Please use the terminal to buy it on credit at 23% interest."

Anyway. We can bring up our Coffee Scene score if you start drinking more coffee.

If you drink even 500 cups a day, you stay up so long you're technically immortal.

[email protected]
612-673-7858 • Twitter: @Lileks

Success requires more than just goals OUTSWIMMING THE SHARKS HARVEY MACKAY Harvey MacKay

​
After his first night in the barracks, a drill sergeant rudely awakened a new Army recruit by shouting, "Rise and shine! It's 4:30!" "4:30," the rookie moaned.

"Sarge, you'd better go back to bed. We have a big day ahead of us tomorrow."

Like that recruit, it's time to wake up and realize that if you want to excel at anything in life, you need to be committed. If you are committed to a cause, you don't need to tell anyone.

They can tell from your actions. I often wonder how people can be happy or at peace with themselves if they don't make a commitment to something, whether it's succeeding at work or improving at a skill.

How do you reconcile expecting desired results without making an honest effort to be the best you can be? Ken Blanchard, author of "The One Minute Manager," said: "There's a difference between interest and commitment.

When you're interested in doing something, you do it only when it's convenient.

When you're committed to something, you accept no excuses; only results."

Commitment is the state of being bound — emotionally, intellectually or both — to a course of action. It starts with a choice and is sustained by dedication and perseverance.

Wanting something and actually making a commitment to getting it are two different things. You must be prepared to see the action plan through to the finish line.

It's hard to keep truly committed people from success.

You can put stumbling blocks in their way, but they will only use them as steppingstones.

Investment guru Warren Buffett said: "Are you a fanatic? A manager must care intensely about running a first-class operation.

If his golf game is what he thinks about while shaving, the business will show it."

Stew Leonard Sr., who founded the colorful grocery store that bears his name, carved his commitment policy on a 3-ton granite rock at the entrance of his first store in Norwalk, Conn.

It read: "
Rule 1 — The customer is always right.

Rule 2 — If the customer is ever wrong, reread rule 1."

Leonard, who died recently, said this policy was chiseled in stone because it was never going to change. He credited this commitment for the store's growth from a 1,000-squarefoot mom-and-pop store into one of the most renowned grocery stores, with annual sales of nearly $300 million and almost 2,000 team members.

Commitment matters in any venture, from business to volunteerism and family life.

Commitment will not take away all your fears, but it does turn them into challenges that you are willing to take on.

Michelangelo, the famed sculptor and painter, was committed to the point of physical exhaustion when he spent four years lying flat on his back as he painted the frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. His glorious project has been admired for more than five centuries.

Here's a final story to illustrate my point. A newspaper reporter secured an exclusive interview with the devil and was especially interested in the evil one's deceptive techniques.

The reporter asked, "What is the most useful tool you use on people? Is it dishonesty, lust or jealousy?"

"No, no, no," said the devil. "The most useful weapon I possess is apathy."
​
Mackay's moral: There is no room for apathy for committed people.

Harvey Mackay is a Minneapolis businessman. Contact him at 612-378- 6202 or email [email protected].

CLIMATE CHANGE PREDICTIONS
Office of Coastal Management

​Climate change refers to long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns. Such shifts can be natural, due to changes in the sun’s activity or large volcanic eruptions.

But since the 1800s, human activities have been the main driver of climate change, primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas. Burning fossil fuels generates greenhouse gas emissions that act like a blanket wrapped around the Earth, trapping the sun’s heat and raising temperatures. The main greenhouse gases that are causing climate change include carbon dioxide and methane. These come from using gasoline for driving a car or coal for heating a building, for example.

Clearing land and cutting down forests can also release carbon dioxide. Agriculture, oil and gas operations are major sources of methane emissions. Energy, industry, transport, buildings, agriculture and land use are among the main sectors causing greenhouse gases.
​

Climate Change Predictions
$106 Billion By 2050, up to $106 billion worth of coastal property will likely be below sea level (if we continue on the current path). 

$12 billion Per Year Over the next five to 25 years, greenhouse gas-driven temperature rises will likely necessitate the construction of new power generation that would cost ratepayers up to $12 billion per year. 

12 Inches Higher The U.S. coastline is projected to rise 10 to 12 inches in the next 30 years.*

Hotter and Hotter … The year 2023, as of August, has broken multiple weather and climate records. Earth had its warmest July on record. The year-to-date (January to July) global surface temperature ranked as the third warmest such period on record. July also set a record for the highest monthly sea surface temperature anomaly (+1.78°F or +0.99°C) of any month in NOAA’s 174-year record. 

According to the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information’s Global Annual Temperature Outlook, it is almost certain (over 99 percent) that the year 2023 will rank among the five warmest years on record, with a nearly 50-percent probability that 2023 will rank warmest on record. It stands to reason that these increases will continue each year going forward.

Unprecedented Sea Level Rise The projected 10 to 12 inches (on average) of sea level rise over the next 30 years (2020 to 2050) will be as much as the rise measured over the last 100 years (1920 to 2020).*

Emissions Matter Current and future emissions matter. About two feet of sea level rise along the U.S. coastline is increasingly likely between 2020 and 2100 because of emissions to date. Failure to curb future emissions could cause an additional 1.5 to five feet of rise, for a total of 3.5 to seven feet by the end of this century.*

10% Crop Loss Without adapting to the changing climate, some Midwestern and southern counties could see a decline in yields of more than 10% over the next five to 25 years, with a 1-in-20 chance of losses of crops by more than 20%.

$7.3 Billion More Per Year Factoring in potential changes in hurricane activity, the likely increase in average annual losses is expected to grow by $7.3 billion, bringing the annual price tag for hurricanes and other coastal storms to $35 billion. 

Trillions Below the Sea There is a 1-in-20 chance—twice as likely as an American developing melanoma—that by the end of this century, more than $1 trillion worth of coastal property will be below mean sea level or at risk of it during high tide. 

Higher Temperatures If we continue on our current path, by the middle of this century, the average American will likely see 27 to 50 days over 90 degrees each year.
​