Climate change is routinely measured in dollars: the cost of rebuilding after a flood, the value of lost crops, the price of insuring a home in a fire-prone region. But a growing body of research argues that these economic metrics capture only part of what communities actually lose when the climate shifts around them. A commentary published in the journal Nature contends that the erosion of a way of life — the routines, traditions, relationships and sense of place that define a community — is a form of harm that current policy tools are poorly equipped to assess.
The central argument is that climate losses extend well beyond property and income. When a coastal village is abandoned, when a farming family can no longer plant the crops their grandparents planted, or when a seasonal ritual tied to snow or rainfall becomes impossible, the damage is real even if it never appears on a balance sheet. Policymakers, the commentary suggests, need ways to assess what people value, what they experience, and ultimately what they stand to lose as the climate changes.
That gap matters for how governments respond to climate change. Compensation programs, adaptation funding and relocation planning typically rely on economic indicators such as property values, lost wages or reconstruction costs. Communities that suffer cultural and psychological losses — but relatively modest financial damage — can find themselves invisible in those calculations. The result is that decisions about where to invest in protection, when to retreat from vulnerable areas, and how to support displaced people may systematically undervalue the things residents care about most.
The commentary does not propose a single measurement method. Instead, it frames the problem as one that requires policymakers to develop approaches capable of capturing subjective and communal dimensions of loss. That could mean consulting residents about what they value, documenting cultural practices tied to particular landscapes, or building assessment frameworks that treat the loss of a way of life as a distinct category of climate impact rather than a footnote to economic damage.
The stakes are practical as well as ethical. As climate impacts intensify — through rising seas, longer droughts, more severe wildfires and shifting seasons — more communities will face the prospect of irreversible change to how they live. Decisions about adaptation and retreat will have to be made under uncertainty, and the criteria used to make them will determine who receives support and who does not. If those criteria recognize only measurable financial harm, the intangible losses may be treated as acceptable collateral.
The commentary adds to a broader push within climate research to broaden the definition of loss and damage. International climate negotiations have long debated how to compensate countries for climate impacts, with much of the discussion focused on economic costs. Researchers and affected communities have argued that cultural heritage, Indigenous knowledge, mental health and social cohesion also belong in that conversation. Measuring such losses is difficult, but the commentary suggests that difficulty is not a reason to ignore them.
For now, the message is aimed at the people who design climate policy and the researchers who advise them. Better tools for assessing what people value and experience, the commentary argues, would give governments a more honest picture of what is at stake — and a better basis for deciding how to respond when a way of life can no longer be sustained.
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