Environmental Economics

Hi John,
I stumbled upon your June 2011 blog post entitled “The ‘put your money where your mouth is’ fallacy”. In it, you present a wager by Donald Boudreaux:
“I’ll bet $10,000 that the average annual number of Americans killed by tornadoes, floods and hurricanes will fall over the next 20 years. Specifically, I’ll bet that the average annual number of Americans killed by these violent weather events from 2011 through 2030 will be lower than it was from 1991 through 2010.”
Now, we’re still a few years away from the close of this time period, but after digging into NOAA data, it appears that between 1991 and 2010, roughly 211 Americans were killed per year by tornadoes, floods, and hurricanes (median of 103), and between 2011-2024 the average is 409 (median of 145).
Another observation that has emerged during the time since this post is a trend of an increasing number of billion-dollar severe weather events over time, adding an economic consideration to the question of “adapt or mitigate?”
I wonder what your thoughts are on this 13 years later? Perhaps there’s still time to take Don up on his wager?