dr. kirshen, and secretary o'mara. based, dr. kirshen on your research, how beneficial is extreme weather mitigation especially long-term plan when it comes to saving money? >> well, i think as i said earlier, we're getting extraordinary cost benefit ratios. if you look at the benefits of adaptation versus doing nothing, benefit cost ratios of 4 up to 30 in some cases. so it's extremely beneficial to do this. and i think communities realize this. when i'm working with quite a few local communities in massachusetts and new hampshire on adaptation. they do get it because they're in charge of infrastructure and they are looking for nech how to do this. we're giving them the data and they need people to help them interpret the data and also think about how to use the data in planning for climate change. the problem with climate change is the uncertainty. we're not exactly sure what the future climate is. we know how to deal with uncertainties with scenario analysis and other analytical technique. i think we have to provide support fro

dr. kirshen, and secretary o'mara. based, dr. kirshen, on your research, how beneficial is extreme weather mitigation, especially long-term plan when it comes to saving money? >> well, i think as i said earlier, we're getting extraordinary cost benefit ratios. if you look at the benefits of adaptation versus doing nothing, benefit cost ratios of 4 up to 30 in some cases. so it's extremely beneficial to do this. and i think communities realize this. when i'm working with quite a few local communities in massachusetts and new hampshire on adaptation. they do get it because they're in charge of infrastructure and they are looking for nech how to do this. we're giving them the data and they need people to help them interpret the data and also think about how to use the data in planning for climate change. the problem with climate change is the uncertainty. we're not exactly sure what the future climate is. we know how to deal with uncertainties with scenario analysis and other analytical technique. i think we have to provide support f

dr. kirshen is nodding his head up and down. we'll find out now. dr. kirshen, thanks so much. >> thank you very much. thank you, mr. chairman, senator johnson, for giving me the opportunity to talk before this committee. i do agree very enthusiastically with everything that senator o'mara is proposing. we have long-term economic consequences on a northern city being impacted by first of all extreme amounts of precipitation and secretary of all coastal flooding from large coastal storm surges. here i'm going to talk about the long-term costs of not being prepared for these present and future events and compare them to the benefits being prepared. because of the changing climate, the climate change impacts have always been part of my analyses. also want to point out that the case studies to new england are relevant to the rest of the united states and the world. the first study i wanted to talk about is the impact on the eastern coast of massachusetts, stretching from north of boston through almost cape cod. it's an area of large cities like boston but al