Why climate change threatens your retirement savings
CBSN
As climate change worsens extreme weather events like the record-breaking heat in the Pacific Northwest last month, another concern looms — that the impact on companies from global warming could incinerate people's retirement savings.
Pensions and 401(k) plans are "vulnerable," along with the rest of the global economy, to climate risks, the Government Accountability Office told Congress in a recent report that looked at the potential threat to federal employees. And costs from disasters such as drought, wildfires, flooding — as well as the long-term expense of shifting from fossil fuel to renewable energy — can boost corporate and broader economic losses, the agency warned. People are starting to "really make the link to saying, 'As I think about this, is my retirement portfolio at risk?'" Emily Kreps, global director of capital markets for CDP, a nonprofit group that tracks climate information for investors, told CBS MoneyWatch.Ashley White received her earliest combat action badge from the United States Army soon after the first lieutenant arrived in Afghanistan. The silver military award, recognizing soldiers who've been personally engaged by an attacker during conflict, was considered an achievement in and of itself as well as an affirming rite of passage for the newly deployed. White had earned it for using her own body to shield a group of civilian women and children from gunfire that broke out in the midst of her third mission in Kandahar province. All of them survived. She never mentioned the badge to anyone in her battalion.