3 ms·
First, getting flood insurance (because of recurring hurricanes) is something that you rely on the government for in Florida just as getting earthquake insuranc
by rsj_hn 4y ago
First, getting flood insurance (because of recurring hurricanes) is something that you rely on the government for in Florida just as getting earthquake insurance is something only the government can do for you in California.
When you are talking about disasters on the scale of earthquakes or hurricanes, then the private sector isn't able to handle it and hands it off to FEMA. This has nothing to do with climate change, but with scale. Private insurance is designed to deal with lots of small random events, but it can't handle the consequences of a major earthquake in California any more than it can handle the consequences of a major hurricane in Florida. In that case, the state has to step in.
FYI, hurricanes are not more severe or frequent now than the historical norm. They do cause more property damage because of population growth and GDP growth, but once you normalize for GDP, they are not causing more damage, either. There is, unfortunately, a ton of misinformation about this point, which is odd since the raw data is so easily available to review[1]. The deception is usually that people observe wind speeds and frequencies are not increasing but the value of damage does increase over time, and they conclude that something is getting more destructive, ignoring the fact that these areas are being built up across time. You have the exact same situation as with earthquakes in California, which I hope we do not blame on climate change -- they also cause more damage over time because there is a lot more value to destroy in 2020 than in 1920. And you have the same issue with forest fires, mud slides, etc -- housing destroyed is much more abundant and valuable now so insurance claims go up over time.
[1] See https://twitter.com/shellenbergermd/status/1576596964447203330 https://twitter.com/shellenbergermd/status/15765969644472033... for a long thread with lists of multiple sources.