The economy could take a major hit if climate change continues at its current pace, according to the latest National Climate Assessment. NPR’s Michel Martin speaks with climate scientist Michael Mann.

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

We hope you had a wonderful holiday connecting with family and friends and perhaps doing a bit of traveling or shopping. Remarkably, a new government report suggests that all of those activities could be affected by climate change. The Fourth National Climate Assessment represents the work of 13 federal agencies. According to the report, if climate change continues at its current pace, the United States will suffer major economic losses from crop failures to severe disruptions to trade to major stress on critical infrastructure – even the possibility of large-scale migration within the U.S. The report also confirms that a wide range of disasters from wildfires and hurricanes to famine and disease are the product of human-made changes to the environment.

We asked Michael Mann, a professor of atmospheric science at Pennsylvania State University, to speak with us about the report. And he’s with us now from State College, Pa.

Professor Mann, thank you so much for speaking with us.

MICHAEL MANN: Thanks. Good to be with you.

MARTIN: How significant is this report?

MANN: I consider it quite significant. We’ve just lived through a summer – an unprecedented summer of weather extremes – droughts, wildfires, floods, superstorms. We are now seeing the impacts of climate change play out in real time. They’re no longer subtle. And this report does a very good job in sort of putting meat on the bone – in providing the science behind what we can already see with our own two eyes – that dangerous climate change is already beginning to happen.

MARTIN: The report says that the country’s economic activity, the GDP, is actually going to shrink if the current policies aren’t addressed, right? How does that actually happen? Like, what does that look like?

MANN: Climate change is impacting every sector of our lives and every sector of our economy. There’s a huge national security cost. We have to defend the new coastline and Arctic coastline as the Arctic sea ice disappears. There’s increased conflict around the world as a growing global population competes for less food and water and space. There is a real cost when it comes to agriculture. We’ve seen devastating impacts on the breadbasket of the United States – California, one of our most important agricultural states, that’s been hit very hard by extreme heat and drought. The health care cost – people who are suffering the health consequences, whether it’s infectious diseases or the impact of exposure to extreme heat. And you can go on down the list.

The cost of inaction is reaching into the tens of billions of dollars. And, as this report makes clear, we will be talking about hundreds of billions of dollars in the future. So what is now maybe a 1 percent tax on our economy from climate change impacts will become a 10 percent tax on our economy.

MARTIN: Now, you may consider this to be outside of your wheelhouse, but the timing of the release is curious. The White House released it on Friday afternoon, the day after Thanksgiving. The former Vice President Al Gore views this as the administration trying to bury this news. On the other hand, the White House doesn’t seem to have intervened in the report itself. What do you make of it?

MANN: Yeah. No, this isn’t outside of my wheelhouse. In fact, I’ve written a whole book, “The Hockey Stick And The Climate Wars,” about my experiences as a climate scientist under attack by politicians and fossil fuel industry groups. And Donald Trump has been a godsend to them. He has used the bully pulpit to attack the science of climate change almost on a daily basis. And he has appointed to his Cabinet fossil fuel lobbyists and climate change deniers who have done everything they can to literally dismantle the progress that we actually made in tackling climate change under previous administrations.

And this is the latest example trying to bury a climate report that they couldn’t eliminate. It’s congressionally mandated, so they had to put out the report. And they chose to try to bury it over a Thanksgiving weekend when, ironically, the fact that they were trying to bury this report has probably garnered a lot more attention for this report than we would’ve otherwise seen.

MARTIN: Well, as you noted, the president has consistently pushed for environmental deregulation. And he tweeted just this week, whatever happened to global warming? Evidently, that was in response to the cold snap in the Northeast. On the other hand, the fact is that these 13 federal agencies did produce this extremely blunt report. And so the question that I then have is, is there a track on which progress can be made without executive leadership? Or is that just a fantasy?

MANN: No, absolutely there is. And, in fact, one of the sort of good pieces of news when you look at what’s happening in the United States is that just based on what states are doing – individual states and cities and municipalities – and our largest companies who are all acting on climate change. It turns out that even without Trump’s support we will still meet our obligations under the Paris accord. Most likely, you know, two years from now, we can obviously decide to elect a president who will build on the progress we are already making.

MARTIN: That’s Michael Mann, director of the Earth Systems Science Center at Pennsylvania State University. He was kind enough to talk to us.

– Professor Mann, you so much for talking to us.

MANN: Thank you. It was a pleasure.

Copyright © 2018 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Sports fans have gotten used to exorbitant prices for food and drinks at stadiums. They know they’re a captive market. But could the stadiums be missing out by charging too much?

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

It’s so inevitable that it almost feels like a law of physics; the price of hotdogs and beer at stadiums goes in one direction, up – except, maybe, in one place – Atlanta. Last season, the Atlanta Falcons brought the prices of food and drinks way down. Nick Fountain from our Planet Money podcast went to a game to find how that’s working out for them.

NICK FOUNTAIN, BYLINE: The first question I have is, have people even noticed? So I ask the first person I meet, Zena Smarr (ph), tailgater.

Can I talk to the grill master real quick?

ZENA SMARR: (Laughter).

FOUNTAIN: I asked Smarr, have you noticed that the food is cheaper? And she’s, like, oh, yeah.

SMARR: Much cheaper.

FOUNTAIN: But she’s not buying more inside.

SMARR: Old-time tailgaters, you know, we’ve got to tailgate. So by the time we go in the game, really, we’re full.

FOUNTAIN: Stadiums, like airports and movie theaters, are captive markets, places where one seller has a monopoly and no one can undercut them, which leads to high prices and also some workarounds.

Did people use to sneak in more food?

SMARR: I don’t know about the food.

FOUNTAIN: Like – oh.

SMARR: Now, the alcohol (laughter).

FOUNTAIN: If you’re like me, you probably thought the reason stadium food prices are so high is because the teams just want to wring every penny out of fans. But that’s only half true. I head up to the front office to meet Rich McKay, the president of the Falcons. And he tells me the way stadium food usually works is teams hire a food company to do everything and then have almost no say after that.

Could you complain about – I don’t know – warm beer?

RICH MCKAY: Yes, you can complain. That’s all you do is complain. You don’t – it’s – nothing happens as a result of it.

SHAPIRO: The reason is big multinational companies compete for these contracts. And the bidding gets intense. The company that wins usually ponies up millions, sometimes tens of millions of dollars upfront and then splits the revenues from the sales with the team. And so, according to Greg Beadles, the COO of the Falcons, before a single Bud Light is even poured, those companies have dug themselves into a big hole.

GREG BEADLES: So for them to get their money back, there’s only two sides of the balloon left to squeeze. And it’s food quality; let’s buy the cheapest food that we can. And let’s charge as much as we can. And maybe, like, you know, a third is labor; let’s have as few people as possible to make all of this happen.

FOUNTAIN: That’s why it takes so long to get a hot dog. That’s why the hot dog costs so much, and that’s why it might be cold.

BEADLES: That’s right, exactly right.

FOUNTAIN: Not too long ago, the Falcons were building a new stadium. And they were rethinking everything, including ticket prices, which they raised. And they thought, why don’t we rethink food a little bit? And so they got rid of the whole revenue-share model. Now they get to control food and beverage – the quality, the number of cooks and the prices. And they’ve dropped prices a lot. Like, they sell $2 hotdogs, $5 beers and $2 sodas with unlimited free refills.

UNIDENTIFIED FANS: (Cheering) ATL.

FOUNTAIN: How’s it working out? I head up to the nosebleeds past this guy…

UNIDENTIFIED VENDOR: I got the cold beer. You tell everybody, I’ve got the cold…

FOUNTAIN: …And meet David Collins, plate full of snacks.

DAVID COLLINS: Hopefully, we can pull it out. But the defense, man – we got to get better on defense. Oh. And as I say that, we got a pick – yes. Woo. (Clapping). Woo. That’s why I love these guys, man. That’s why I came here, to watch this.

FOUNTAIN: Collins came all the way from New Jersey for the game. He’s a big Falcons fan, sees them when they play in Philly.

COLLINS: My brother’s an Eagles fan. They suck. I go to the games with him. And last time they played in Philly, it was ridiculous. Like, I paid, like, almost $40.

FOUNTAIN: On what?

COLLINS: On just beer, a burger and, like, popcorn. It was ridiculous.

FOUNTAIN: And today you have – what? – a burger, fries and a soda – a big soda?

COLLINS: This is the second time I actually bought food. Like, I’ve never bought more than food one time at a stadium. I love it. I love it.

FOUNTAIN: The Falcons have blown through their sales expectations. They’re selling 53 percent more product than at the old stadium. And other teams have noticed – big teams, like the Ravens and the Lions. They’re dropping prices, too. The one regret the Falcons might have is the free refills on soda thing, as evidenced by Collins.

How many refills did you do today?

COLLINS: This is the second one.

FOUNTAIN: The second one and there’s still a lot of game to go. Falcons fans are refilling their sodas, on average, 3.7 times. The Falcons say that, at that rate, they’d be happy if they’re even breaking even on soda.

Nick Fountain, NPR News, Atlanta.

(SOUNDBITE OF LOUIS LOGIC’S “STREET SMARTS”)

Copyright © 2018 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Facebook says it is cutting ties with the Washington consulting firm Definers Public Affairs, which spread disparaging information about the social network’s critics.

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

Facebook is under pressure again, this time because of a New York Times report suggesting the company didn’t do enough to address Russian interference during the 2016 presidential elections despite alarms raised by its own employees. The company is also accused of hiring a political opposition research firm in Washington to help turn the conversation elsewhere when Facebook was under fire. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg addressed the report on a media call today. And NPR’s Alina Selyukh was listening in. Hi, Alina.

ALINA SELYUKH, BYLINE: Hello.

SHAPIRO: What did Zuckerberg say about all these accusations in the New York Times report?

SELYUKH: Well, you know, he held this press conference on a completely – not completely, somewhat unrelated topic. And in the end, the press call did turn into a very long conversation about the New York Times report. The article lays out the case that Facebook essentially spent a long time around the 2016 elections and after them downplaying the spread of Russian misinformation campaigns on the platform, which of course had huge implications for the election.

Zuckerberg and Facebook have since basically argued that the company did react and that they did not discourage further investigations, as the article suggests. Here’s how Zuckerberg addressed it head-on on the media call.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

MARK ZUCKERBERG: To suggest that we weren’t interested in knowing the truth or that we wanted to hide what we knew or that we tried to prevent investigations is simply untrue.

SELYUKH: The Times article says the internal security team knew as early as 2016 that there were some hackers with ties to Russia doing a little bit of prodding and sending journalists information about leaked emails.

Zuckerberg was not combative on the call today. He took questions for over an hour. He repeated himself a lot. And mostly what he just kept saying is reiterating his support, specifically for Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, who actually comes out looking the worst in the article that sort of paints her as making politically motivated decisions rather than decisions for truth and democracy.

SHAPIRO: The article is such a deep dive, with so many reporter bylines. They apparently spent months working on it. What else in the article did Zuckerberg respond to today?

SELYUKH: There’s another sort of thread of information about this Republican PR firm that Facebook had hired called Definers Public Affairs. It’s a PR firm that in this particular case is criticized for paying for articles and making articles that were going after Facebook’s rivals, Google and Apple, and also encouraging reporters to look into this anti-Facebook activist group and allegations of connections to the liberal billionaire who’s of course hugely controversial, George Soros.

And in this particular case, with this group, Zuckerberg said, you know, they fired this group. And his biggest defense was that he simply had no idea that this firm was being used by the New York Times.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

ZUCKERBERG: You know, I’ve mentioned a couple of times that I was not in the loop on a bunch of these decisions. And I should have been clearer that the team has made a bunch of decisions. And I think Sheryl was also not involved. She learned about this at the same time that I did. And we talked about this and came to the conclusion about what we should do here.

SELYUKH: So what I was intending to say is that this group was disclosed in – by The New York Times article. And Zuckerberg says this was the first time he heard of them and that the purpose of hiring this PR firm was not – to show just that this anti-Facebook group was not a grassroots campaign spontaneously organized, but one funded by billionaire. And again, he kept saying they’ve been now fired.

SHAPIRO: Facebook has had years of criticism. Democrats about to take over the House have said they’re going to look into this. Just in the last 30 seconds or so, are they going to be in a lot of hot water in the months and years ahead?

SELYUKH: I think so. There were a lot of questions today about why people should keep trusting Facebook, why people should keep trusting Zuckerberg to be able to keep running this company. To this point, he says, you know, he doesn’t expect to talk about layoffs or anybody losing their jobs about this. But I am certain that we will keep hearing about Sheryl Sandberg and Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook and what they’ve done.

SHAPIRO: NPR’s Alina Selyukh. Thank you.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

Copyright © 2018 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.