A United Nations report this week outlined the water scarcity, flooding and extreme heat risks possible within decades due to global warming. Though the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change focused on "rapid, far-reaching" actions needed to avert calamity the world over, it spelled out specific dangers for North America. "The economic damages of climate change in the USA are projected to be large," the report's authors concluded. They cited two studies that predict a higher economic toll if warming reaches 2 degrees by the year 2100 instead of halting at 1.5 degrees, including a 2017 study by the Lab that found America's economic damage equates to about 1.2 percent of the nation's gross domestic product for every 1 degree increase in warming.