Occasional Thoughts on Climate Change

[Typhoon Tip]

Humanity needs to begin redirecting energy away from mitigation, toward preparation and adaptation -  the former's not going to make it in time

https://phys.org/news/2025-02-nations-odds-major-climate-science.html

[bluewave]

2 hours ago, Typhoon Tip said:

Humanity needs to begin redirecting energy away from mitigation, toward preparation and adaptation -  the former's not going to make it in time

https://phys.org/news/2025-02-nations-odds-major-climate-science.html

Since the governments of the world can’t get their acts together, it’s going to come down to the insurance and mortgage companies to enforce climate policies on the general public. Instead of taking a coordinated global approach, this will be done in an uncoordinated piecemeal way. So the governments are essentially punting the ball to the private sector and telling them just to do whatever you have to in order to stay solvent in the face of increasing extreme weather events. 

 

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/fed-chair-warns-high-risk-185451042.html

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has warned that mortgages will be difficult—if not impossible—to secure in some high-risk areas in the future.

As storms and wildfires pummel certain areas of the country, causing insurance rates to skyrocket, particularly in Florida and California, the chairman foresees a day when many areas will have turned into mortgage deserts.

“Both banks and insurance companies are pulling out of coastal areas or areas where there are a lot of fires,” he said at Tuesday’s congressional hearing

 

What that is going to mean is that if you fast-forward 10 or 15 years, there are going to be regions of the country where you can’t get a mortgage,” he told the banking committee.

The dystopian vision of large swaths of the country where mortgages are simply not available was one conjured up when Democratic Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota asked about insurers that have pulled out of high-risk areas such as California and Florida, and what that will mean for people trying to get mortgages

 

In the question and answer portion of the hearing, Smith said her constituents are struggling with a 40% increase in insurance rates in the past seven years, which she attributes to climate change and extreme weather events.

According to climate risk analysis firm First Street, between now and 2055, insurance premiums are projected to skyrocket in many areas, including in Miami, jumping 322% from current levels, followed by Jacksonville, FL (226%), Tampa, FL (213%), New Orleans (196%), and Sacramento, CA (137%).

She went on to call attention to a recent analysis by First Street, which warned that $1.4 trillion will be shaved off the value of U.S. real estate within the next years due to this domino effect

“What is going to happen when insurance becomes unaffordable or—in some parts of the country— literally unavailable?” she asked the chairman. “What impact will that have on the mortgage markets?”

Powell admitted that banks would likely make mortgages unavailable in parts of the country, and even pull up stakes entirely, leaving behind mortgage and bank deserts.

“The risk is that [mortgages and banks] just won’t be there. People won’t be able to get them. That is really the issue,” he said.

 

There won’t be ATMs, the banks won’t have branches,” he went on. “That’s a possibility coming up down the road. The banks won’t stay there and keep making loans in the face of disaster. The insurance companies won’t continue writing policies. They can cancel those policies every year.”

Who pays the price?

As for the onus of the costs of a disaster befalling a property, “that will fall on homeowners and residents, but also state and local governments,” Powell told the committee.

“You see that happening now,” he said. “States are stepping in where private insurance is going away. They want those areas to remain prosperous. It certainly will have significant economic consequences.”

[Typhoon Tip]

1 hour ago, bluewave said:

Since the governments of the world can’t get their acts together, it’s going to come down to the insurance and mortgage companies to enforce climate policies on the general public. Instead of taking a coordinated global approach, this will be done in an uncoordinated piecemeal way. So the governments are essentially punting the ball to the private sector and telling them just to do whatever you have to in order to stay solvent in the face of increasing extreme weather events. 

 

 

Two replies - not to you personally,  but circumstantial

Bold above:  I doubt that would work in a macro scale, longer term.  There may be a repulse response but it would not be sustainable.  Insurance, for example, would be raising premiums as area risk spectrum acquires new daunting colors, along with increasing probability for occurrence of previously know etc.. This will approach the economic limitation.  Insurance providers would fold operations - we already see this type of failure with companies no longer offering coverage programs in higher risk areas -  those that are observably getting bombed, while subsequent attribution is more and and more so connecting the increased disaster frequency to CC...etc...   As to mortgage ... Not sure how mortgage has much proxy - those market get corrected based upon metrics related to demand and/or stupidity/speculation of buyers.  Maybe there's a way to connect that to forcing response to climate change but... it eludes me.

In general, these models don't enforce changes to mitigate human involvement in perpetuating CC.  More to say that CC would force their collapse, not the other way around. 

The 2nd aspect this brings to my mind is a simple precept:  the problem with global environmental change has reached a criticality where the solution cannot be found through the ambitions of capitalism.  Every source I read that is dealing with the objective reality of CC, and the more than mere probable implications of it ..., are still flawed despite the virtuosity.  Because the minute the proposals are seen through the lens of"capitalistic machinery"  ... doomed.   It, too, is a gross unsustainable response to the problem.   Profit motivations drive solution prices, and the prices are not affordable by a mass that is causing the problem.  That is a closed loop that cannot solve the ultimate problem.  The mass of non-afforders is immediately too large.  Everyone has to be integrated into the change - not just those that can afford it.

I'm already seeing this... these solar companies, launching all over by anyone with access a couple million bucks and snap-to-fit building crew, charging 50K ... It doesn't matter how they justify that cost... that is not realistic for 80+ % of the population's carbon footprint pie slice to the CC crisis.  Taking profit is completely "obsticular" to finding a solution to the real existential threat to everyone alive!   And that is the problem... still, the ambient society does not connect CC to an actual existential threat.  The solution cannot be found through the lens of making money.

 

 

[bluewave]

3 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

Two replies - not to you personally,  but circumstantial

Bold above:  I doubt that would work in a macro scale, longer term.  There may be a repulse response but it would not be sustainable.  Insurance, for example, would be raising premiums as area risk spectrum acquires new daunting colors, along with increasing probability for occurrence of previously know etc.. This will approach the economic limitation.  Insurance providers would fold operations - we already see this type of failure with companies no longer offering coverage programs in higher risk areas -  those that are observably getting bombed, while subsequent attribution is more and and more so connecting the increased disaster frequency to CC...etc...   As to mortgage ... Not sure how mortgage has much proxy - there market gets corrected based upon demand and stupidity/speculation of buyers.  If society en masse did not require relo, mortgages would unilaterally reduce - that's what drives that.   That and greed... 

it’s not supposed to work or be sustainable on a larger scale over the long term since our system is only focused on the next quarter. But the climate system doesn’t care about our fragile human systems. It’s going to enforce the laws of physics and everyone is just going to have to do the best they can. It’s possible for people to find niches where they can do well. But there probably are going to be mass migrations in the coming decades to more hospitable areas. So if you play your cards right, then you can be positioned to do very well for yourself if you take the challenges into account. But there will inevitably  be regions that probably won’t be really viable to sustain what we consider a modern society. So ultimately it could turn into a story of hope of people finding happy lives more in balance with nature. So I don’t think it’s going to be all doom and gloom. Since there will always be communities of like minded people who will find a way to turn lemons into lemonade. 

[ChescoWx]

2 hours ago, Typhoon Tip said:

Humanity needs to begin redirecting energy away from mitigation, toward preparation and adaptation -  the former's not going to make it in time

https://phys.org/news/2025-02-nations-odds-major-climate-science.html

sounds alarming "not going to make it in time" - when will we go extinct on this timeline?

[paulm]

1 hour ago, ChescoWx said:

sounds alarming "not going to make it in time" - when will we go extinct on this timeline?

There are plenty of poor outcomes between now & extinction.

Such as a massive immigration crisis due to hundreds of millions of people whom will need to leave countries that will soon become too hot to sustain human life.

At 3C above preindustrial, nearly 2 billion people will see conditions too hot to sustain human life for a week, in an average year.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2305427120

[HailMan06]

2 hours ago, Typhoon Tip said:

Two replies - not to you personally,  but circumstantial

Bold above:  I doubt that would work in a macro scale, longer term.  There may be a repulse response but it would not be sustainable.  Insurance, for example, would be raising premiums as area risk spectrum acquires new daunting colors, along with increasing probability for occurrence of previously know etc.. This will approach the economic limitation.  Insurance providers would fold operations - we already see this type of failure with companies no longer offering coverage programs in higher risk areas -  those that are observably getting bombed, while subsequent attribution is more and and more so connecting the increased disaster frequency to CC...etc...   As to mortgage ... Not sure how mortgage has much proxy - those market get corrected based upon metrics related to demand and/or stupidity/speculation of buyers.  Maybe there's a way to connect that to forcing response to climate change but... it eludes me.

In general, these models don't enforce changes to mitigate human involvement in perpetuating CC.  More to say that CC would force their collapse, not the other way around. 

The 2nd aspect this brings to my mind is a simple precept:  the problem with global environmental change has reached a criticality where the solution cannot be found through the ambitions of capitalism.  Every source I read that is dealing with the objective reality of CC, and the more than mere probable implications of it ..., are still flawed despite the virtuosity.  Because the minute the proposals are seen through the lens of"capitalistic machinery"  ... doomed.   It, too, is a gross unsustainable response to the problem.   Profit motivations drive solution prices, and the prices are not affordable by a mass that is causing the problem.  That is a closed loop that cannot solve the ultimate problem.  The mass of non-afforders is immediately too large.  Everyone has to be integrated into the change - not just those that can afford it.

I'm already seeing this... these solar companies, launching all over by anyone with access a couple million bucks and snap-to-fit building crew, charging 50K ... It doesn't matter how they justify that cost... that is not realistic for 80+ % of the population's carbon footprint pie slice to the CC crisis.  Taking profit is completely "obsticular" to finding a solution to the real existential threat to everyone alive!   And that is the problem... still, the ambient society does not connect CC to an actual existential threat.  The solution cannot be found through the lens of making money.

 

 

To the bolder one can’t even get a mortgage without insurance…at least not a standard one. Unless you get pay all cash you wouldn’t be able to buy a house.

[Typhoon Tip]

2 hours ago, ChescoWx said:

sounds alarming "not going to make it in time" - when will we go extinct on this timeline?

Who said "extinct"   ?

But ... in fairness to the discussion, plausibly being forced into a population correction? It should certainly be considered as an outcome on the table of possibilities.  We may be able to go from present day, into a "forced correction" but unlikely.  "Forced" usually that requires an outcome people do not want to experience.  

In order to mitigate losses,  either way ... prepare.   That's the idea there

[GaWx]

5 hours ago, bluewave said:

Since the governments of the world can’t get their acts together, it’s going to come down to the insurance and mortgage companies to enforce climate policies on the general public. Instead of taking a coordinated global approach, this will be done in an uncoordinated piecemeal way. So the governments are essentially punting the ball to the private sector and telling them just to do whatever you have to in order to stay solvent in the face of increasing extreme weather events. 

 

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/fed-chair-warns-high-risk-185451042.html

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has warned that mortgages will be difficult—if not impossible—to secure in some high-risk areas in the future.

As storms and wildfires pummel certain areas of the country, causing insurance rates to skyrocket, particularly in Florida and California, the chairman foresees a day when many areas will have turned into mortgage deserts.

“Both banks and insurance companies are pulling out of coastal areas or areas where there are a lot of fires,” he said at Tuesday’s congressional hearing

 

What that is going to mean is that if you fast-forward 10 or 15 years, there are going to be regions of the country where you can’t get a mortgage,” he told the banking committee.

The dystopian vision of large swaths of the country where mortgages are simply not available was one conjured up when Democratic Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota asked about insurers that have pulled out of high-risk areas such as California and Florida, and what that will mean for people trying to get mortgages

 

In the question and answer portion of the hearing, Smith said her constituents are struggling with a 40% increase in insurance rates in the past seven years, which she attributes to climate change and extreme weather events.

According to climate risk analysis firm First Street, between now and 2055, insurance premiums are projected to skyrocket in many areas, including in Miami, jumping 322% from current levels, followed by Jacksonville, FL (226%), Tampa, FL (213%), New Orleans (196%), and Sacramento, CA (137%).

She went on to call attention to a recent analysis by First Street, which warned that $1.4 trillion will be shaved off the value of U.S. real estate within the next years due to this domino effect

“What is going to happen when insurance becomes unaffordable or—in some parts of the country— literally unavailable?” she asked the chairman. “What impact will that have on the mortgage markets?”

Powell admitted that banks would likely make mortgages unavailable in parts of the country, and even pull up stakes entirely, leaving behind mortgage and bank deserts.

“The risk is that [mortgages and banks] just won’t be there. People won’t be able to get them. That is really the issue,” he said.

 

There won’t be ATMs, the banks won’t have branches,” he went on. “That’s a possibility coming up down the road. The banks won’t stay there and keep making loans in the face of disaster. The insurance companies won’t continue writing policies. They can cancel those policies every year.”

Who pays the price?

As for the onus of the costs of a disaster befalling a property, “that will fall on homeowners and residents, but also state and local governments,” Powell told the committee.

“You see that happening now,” he said. “States are stepping in where private insurance is going away. They want those areas to remain prosperous. It certainly will have significant economic consequences.”

-FL had 7 MH and 3 other H over just the last 9 seasons. Over just the last 3 years they’ve had 4MH and 2 other H. Terrible!

-But over just the 2 years 2004-5, FL had 5 MH and 2 other H! That was arguably much worse since there were more over a shorter period. But then there were no H 2006-15!

-Over the 7 years 1944-50: FL had 7 MH and 4 other H! Over just the 4 years 1947-50, they had 5 MH and 2 other H! So, this period was pretty comparable to the most recent. But then there were no MH 1951-9.

-1921-50 overall was a bad 30 year period for FL with 14 MH, an average of nearly one every two years. We’ve had 13 over the last 30 years…comparable but not worse and thus not the worst on record.

-So, as terrible as the last 3 years have been in FL, it was as bad or worse 2004-5 and 1947-50. FL getting hit very hard is nothing new. And then each of those 2 periods had no MH for the subsequent 10 and 9 years, respectively. So, these devastating seasons tend to run in cycles. So, what feels like a dire situation (“sky is falling”) may very well be followed by a long period of quiet. Fingers crossed! There have been dire periods before. The SE US in general is due a quiet period.

 

[ChescoWx]

29 minutes ago, GaWx said:

-FL had 7 MH and 3 other H over just the last 9 seasons. Over just the last 3 years they’ve had 4MH and 2 other H. Terrible!

-But over just the 2 years 2004-5, FL had 5 MH and 2 other H! That was arguably much worse since there were more over a shorter period. But then there were no H 2006-15!

-Over the 7 years 1944-50: FL had 7 MH and 4 other H! Over just the 4 years 1947-50, they had 5 MH and 2 other H! So, this period was pretty comparable to the most recent. But then there were no MH 1951-9.

-1921-50 overall was a bad period for FL with 14 MH, an average of nearly one every two years.

-So, as terrible as the last 3 years have been in FL, it was as bad or worse 2004-5 and 1947-50. FL getting hit very hard is nothing new. And then each of those 2 periods had no MH for the subsequent 10 and 9 years, respectively. So, these devastating seasons tend to run in cycles.. So, what feels like a dire situation (“sky is falling”) may very well be followed by a long period of quiet. Fingers crossed! There have been dire periods before. The SE US in general is due a quiet period.

 

Cyclical Climate Change as always rears it's ugly head!

[GaWx]

19 minutes ago, ChescoWx said:

Cyclical Climate Change as always rears it's ugly head!

But I fully believe in CC. It’s just that certain aspects of wx are made worse in certain locations due to the bad portion of cycles that have been around a long time/nothing new. Not everything is due to CC. Some of it is natural cycles of wx. And these cycles are often not acknowledged by the media due to ignorance. Plus the media wants ratings. So, they want their stories to sound dire. Politicians, who are largely ignorant, are vulnerable to this, also. They often follow the money, whatever “side” they’re on.

[ChescoWx]

6 minutes ago, GaWx said:

But I fully believe in CC. It’s just that certain aspects of wx are made worse in certain locations due to the bad portion of cycles that have been around a long time/nothing new. Not everything is due to CC. Some of it is natural cycles of wx. And these cycles are often not acknowledged by the media due to ignorance. Plus the media wants ratings. So, they want their stories to sound dire. Politicians, who are largely ignorant, are vulnerable to this, also.

I also fully believe in CC......just the cyclical type that never ends!

[TheClimateChanger]

I remain cautiously optimistic that the current administration may deploy a system of solar radiation management within the next 4 years or at least have a plan to implement such a system in the near future within the next 4 years, given its focus on technical solutions to the problems facing society. When prompted with a question about Elon's openness to implementing solar radiation management, Grok gave this response:

[bluewave]

1 hour ago, GaWx said:

-FL had 7 MH and 3 other H over just the last 9 seasons. Over just the last 3 years they’ve had 4MH and 2 other H. Terrible!

-But over just the 2 years 2004-5, FL had 5 MH and 2 other H! That was arguably much worse since there were more over a shorter period. But then there were no H 2006-15!

-Over the 7 years 1944-50: FL had 7 MH and 4 other H! Over just the 4 years 1947-50, they had 5 MH and 2 other H! So, this period was pretty comparable to the most recent. But then there were no MH 1951-9.

-1921-50 overall was a bad 30 year period for FL with 14 MH, an average of nearly one every two years. We’ve had 13 over the last 30 years…comparable but not worse and thus not the worst on record.

-So, as terrible as the last 3 years have been in FL, it was as bad or worse 2004-5 and 1947-50. FL getting hit very hard is nothing new. And then each of those 2 periods had no MH for the subsequent 10 and 9 years, respectively. So, these devastating seasons tend to run in cycles.. So, what feels like a dire situation (“sky is falling”) may very well be followed by a long period of quiet. Fingers crossed! There have been dire periods before. The SE US in general is due a quiet period.

 

You are ahead of the game in Florida if you are in new hurricane code construction away from the immediate shoreline. Those folks with all the hurricane code roofs and windows can still get insurance but it has been going up even for them. Especially if you are in one of the zones which have missed the brunt of this recent active hurricane period. 

Part of the problem with the increasing weather extremes as the climate warms is that the population has moved into the highest risk areas. In the past like from the 20s to 50s, there really wasn’t as much  population in harms way during that very active hurricane period. But the population has grown rapidly during recent decades.

One of the biggest issues related to development is that the shoreline communities have been sinking due to subsidence and ground water pumping. This is on top of the fast sea level rise in places like South Florida since the 1990s. So these factors lead to that terrible collapse in Surfside several years ago. This had lead to condo assessment crisis on all condos over 30 years old. So many people have been forced to sell since the fees to bring the buildings up to code for the rising seas and sinking land near the shore are too high. 

So new construction away from the water is the best bet if you want to move to Florida now. Since the insurance companies will insure you due to new construction being up to code. 

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/florida-condo-owners-face-unretiring-112000881.html

Yet another torrid tale has emerged of Florida homeowners being hit with eye-watering special assessment fees as building managers race to be in compliance with a new state law.

This time, it’s the residents of SurfSide Club South in Ormond Beach crying foul after they were billed over $100,000 per condo owner.

 

Per the new Florida law, all three-story-plus condo buildings and at least 30 years old must undergo a mandatory engineering assessment before Dec. 31, 2024. Condo associations must also shore up repair funding reserves. This law was introduced after the Surfside tragedy in 2021, in which 98 lives were lost when a 12-story condo collapsed.

While few condo owners would argue against the need to make their buildings structurally sound, many at Surfside Club South are at a loss as to where they’ll find the money to fulfill these new obligations.

“I’m a retired teacher, so we don’t have hundreds of thousands set aside somewhere that we can contribute,” resident Janet Stone told WKMG News 6 on June 26. “It put me in a position where I needed to return to work.”

Many other condo owners are suffering a similar fate and feeling blindsided by the mega bills landing on their doorsteps. Here’s what’s going on.

Addressing critical building issues

After the Surfside incident, Senate Bill 4-D was rushed into law to require older condo buildings to perform inspections, address critical issues and build up their reserve funds for future repairs.

The law, which applies to about two-thirds of condos in the Sunshine State, caught some condo associations off-guard. Many did not have adequate funds in their reserves to pay for the required engineering assessments and potential repairs — and as a result, that cost was passed on to the individual unit owners.

 

But it doesn’t stop there. The condo associations are also required to beef up their reserves to meet their future maintenance needs, which is adding to condo owners’ fees — money they must pay on top of their mortgages, property taxes and home insurance — three other living costs that have climbed in recent years.

Parks Huffstetler, a snowbird who bought a condo unit at SurfSide Club South in late 2021, told News 6 he had no idea about the upcoming assessment fees — and he certainly hadn’t budgeted for a six-figure bill.

“It’s over $100,000 per owner,” Huffstetler said. “The hope is, once we get the restoration part done, then the units will be worth more and I can sell.”

No option but to sell

Some condo owners facing whopping special assessment fees may have no option but to sell their unit — especially retireeson fixed incomes, or younger Americans who used all their savings to buy their first home.

If you can’t pay a special assessment fee, there may be consequences, depending on your contract with the condo association. This may include a fine or late fee — only adding to your financial burden. And in the most severe cases, they may elect to place a lien on your home or even foreclose on your property.

Before letting things spiral out of control, you may want to negotiate with your association or set up a regular payment plan to reduce the immediate burden.

It’s also worth speaking out if you have questions about your responsibility to pay or how the community is managing its funds because, as the situation in Florida has revealed, there are many struggling condo owners in the same boat. You may want to seek out legal advice or approach advocacy groups if you need help resolving issues with a condo association.