Wildfire Smoke Is Running Up Credit-Card Debt: Mark Gongloff

Americans are increasingly familiar with the many joys of wildfire smoke: stinging eyes, raspy throats, aggravated health conditions, speed-learning the nuances of the Air Quality Index. Now we can add increased credit card debt to the list. It’s the latest evidence that climate change isn’t a deep-future problem but a crisis that’s hurting us physically and economically right now.

A new working paper from researchers at the Dallas and Philadelphia Federal Reserve banks and UCLA Anderson School of Management finds that people exposed to wildfire smoke, even several miles from the source, usually go deeper into credit card debt as a result. They also ...