One Clear Sign of Climate Change, Not That Retards Won't Still Be Retards

martin said:
Tradeoffs certainly are inevitable. What the tradeoffs should be, however, ought to be determined in light of the science rather than in a dishonest minimization of it.
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What science? Most predictions related to the effects of climate change are based on computer models, in other words guesses.
 
Nordberg said:
Corporations and the military knew that global warming, as scientists said, was real and a serious problem to deal with. Corporations are ignoring the anti-science types and proceeding as well as they can with preparing for it. The military was well advanced in taking on global warming until Republicans forced them not to. Global warming,just as scientists said, is real, and we have to deal with it.
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On a more granular level what does 'deal with it' look like to you?
 
martin said:
A last-resort insurance policy with fewer homeowner protections and less government oversight is booming, a Washington Post analysis finds, as traditional insurers continue to back away from areas of the country most vulnerable to extreme weather.

The policies are growing fastest in California, Florida, Texas and South Carolina because increasingly intensifying weather and massive disasters are putting more insurers on the hook for substantial claim payouts. Last year in California, insurance companies paid out $23 billion in homeowners claims, according to industry data.

The amount of premiums written under what is known as “surplus” or “excess” insurance lines has nearly tripled nationwide in the past five years, from about $1.5 billion in 2021 to $4.1 billion in 2025, according to data from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) — which insurers submit to the organization — and analyzed by the independent firm Weiss Ratings and provided to The Post. The Post reviewed the data and the Weiss analysis.

While this represents only a small share of the total $187 billion in premiums written in the United States each year, according to the Weiss data, industry experts say they reflect a problem where Americans living in the most weather-exposed places are becoming harder to insure.

In 2025, the Treasury Department’s Federal Insurance Office released a report showing how, due to climate-related events, millions of Americans were finding it harder to obtain insurance and had to pay more for it.

And as more insurers pull back or limit coverage, more Americans have struggled to find it and have sought out surplus line plans. Independent brokers often steer homeowners to surplus policies when they cannot obtain a traditional plan, though carriers also advertise directly to consumers.

These once-niche policies, which date to the late 1800s, historically covered commercial, high-risk or unusual properties.
They can sometimes be more expensive and often have more limitations and restrictive clauses, including arbitration clauses stating that homeowners cannot select their own contractors or price adjusters.

Experts said they have fewer consumer protections, prompting some advocates and state regulators to warn that homeowners may get lower payouts in the event of a disaster.

California’s surplus line industry is expanding more than almost any other state, according to The Post and Weiss analysis of NAIC data, which only includes insurers based in the U.S. Since 2021, the amount of surplus premiums written in California increased tenfold from $135 million to nearly $1.3 billion, now accounting for 7 percent of all homeowners premiums in the state compared with just 1 percent five years ago.

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Earth has been warming (with a few pauses) fort 20,000+ years.

Try to keep up.
 
cawacko said:
I understand that in the abstract but what does 'determined in the light of science' look like in the real world?

Not to belabor it, but I keep going back to the housing density example. How should the government decide on that 'determined in the light of science' compared to the pushback from people who put them in office who don't want it in their neighborhood?
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Let's try it and find out. Until then there are no examples to go back to.
 
martin said:
A last-resort insurance policy with fewer homeowner protections and less government oversight is booming, a Washington Post analysis finds, as traditional insurers continue to back away from areas of the country most vulnerable to extreme weather.

The policies are growing fastest in California, Florida, Texas and South Carolina because increasingly intensifying weather and massive disasters are putting more insurers on the hook for substantial claim payouts. Last year in California, insurance companies paid out $23 billion in homeowners claims, according to industry data.

The amount of premiums written under what is known as “surplus” or “excess” insurance lines has nearly tripled nationwide in the past five years, from about $1.5 billion in 2021 to $4.1 billion in 2025, according to data from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) — which insurers submit to the organization — and analyzed by the independent firm Weiss Ratings and provided to The Post. The Post reviewed the data and the Weiss analysis.

While this represents only a small share of the total $187 billion in premiums written in the United States each year, according to the Weiss data, industry experts say they reflect a problem where Americans living in the most weather-exposed places are becoming harder to insure.

In 2025, the Treasury Department’s Federal Insurance Office released a report showing how, due to climate-related events, millions of Americans were finding it harder to obtain insurance and had to pay more for it.

And as more insurers pull back or limit coverage, more Americans have struggled to find it and have sought out surplus line plans. Independent brokers often steer homeowners to surplus policies when they cannot obtain a traditional plan, though carriers also advertise directly to consumers.

These once-niche policies, which date to the late 1800s, historically covered commercial, high-risk or unusual properties.
They can sometimes be more expensive and often have more limitations and restrictive clauses, including arbitration clauses stating that homeowners cannot select their own contractors or price adjusters.

Experts said they have fewer consumer protections, prompting some advocates and state regulators to warn that homeowners may get lower payouts in the event of a disaster.

California’s surplus line industry is expanding more than almost any other state, according to The Post and Weiss analysis of NAIC data, which only includes insurers based in the U.S. Since 2021, the amount of surplus premiums written in California increased tenfold from $135 million to nearly $1.3 billion, now accounting for 7 percent of all homeowners premiums in the state compared with just 1 percent five years ago.

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You call it climate change, I call it the Anti Christ Trump curse. Get rid of that bastard and all the planet and the world will forgive us. The guys the Kiss of fuckin death, he needs to be removed from office and jailed.
 
martin said:
Let's try it and find out. Until then there are no examples to go back to.
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My apologies if I'm missing the obvious but that seems very cryptic. What does that mean?

And I know this is JPP, not some think tank. But all this "follow the science" we're discussing seems very abstract. It's void of real world examples, such as how to deal with housing density while following the science.
 
T. A. Gardner said:
No doubt they'll be replacing those signs with ones that read, All the glaciers will be gone by 2040...
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Once again, you didn't bother to read something.


The glacier warning isn't being removed entirely, she told CNN. Instead, the new signs will say: "When they will completely disappear depends on how and when we act. One thing is consistent: the glaciers in the park are shrinking.
 
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zymurgy said:
You’re skipping right past the actual argument. Nobody is disputing that climate changes, that extreme weather happens, or that insurers react to increased losses. The disputed question is how much of the change is actually attributable to human activity, and whether the policies being proposed would materially change it. Pointing to rising insurance premiums does not answer that question; it simply assumes the conclusion.
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You might try doing just a little bit of research. Science is pretty clear in how they calculate what is the result of human activity. Like with all science they do not claim 100% accuracy.
zymurgy said:
And there’s an irony here that never seems to get addressed. The same political camp constantly tells us that human consumption is driving the climate problem, while also arguing that wealth should be transferred from people who save and invest more of their income to people who are more likely to spend it.


So apparently consumption is destroying the planet, but increasing consumption is also part of the solution. That contradiction deserves a little more scrutiny than another Washington Post article simply declaring “extreme weather = climate change.”
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Teflon Don said:
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If I asked you tomorrow to go out and melt an iceberg, how would you do it?.
...
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What an incredibly daft thing to say.

Amongst the dumbest on a forum where Teflon Don posts regularly so that is quite the feat.

What if I tell you how other man contributed pollutants caused ozone holes or devastating acid rain or choking pollution in cities?

Is CO2 the only man contributed pollutants that in your view has zero impact?
 
cawacko said:
My apologies if I'm missing the obvious but that seems very cryptic. What does that mean?
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It refers to the "housing density example" you mentioned. Public openness to combating climate change - what sacrifices will and won't be tolerated - depends on how much acceptance there is of the need for sacrifices.
 
martin said:
It refers to the "housing density example" you mentioned. Public openness to combating climate change - what sacrifices will and won't be tolerated - depends on how much acceptance there is of the need for sacrifices.
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The housing example I offered is of course not unique to San Francisco, but I spoke to it specifically because I live here and have had to deal with it professionally.

But I also spoke to it because a very very high percentage of the people fighting this housing density will tell you climate change is an existential crisis. That's what I'm trying to understand from your perspective. These aren't people who need convincing of the importance of dealing with climate change.

But when it comes to their neighborhood and quality of life, that trumps the science. And of course our local politicians will all say climate change is an existential crisis but these people fighting density are the ones who elect them to office, so they have their own incentives they respond to.
 
cawacko said:
Most threads on climate issues on here turn into the same partisan bickering and don't actually go anywhere.

With the obvious caveat that nothing we say here changes anything in the real world, what would you like seen done here?

Because I'm passionate about the need for new housing I'll speak about that and the Bay Area, but it's by no means exclusive to us. We have a housing shortage and a lot of people care about the environment. One way to deal with both is building higher density housing in areas near public transit.

Yet you will find a lot of people who fight that tooth and nail. And the result is less housing built and often when it is built it's built further and further out meaning more people in cars and much longer commutes.

That's just one example but it speaks to real world realities trumping ideological beliefs. Getting people to change their lifestyle is a lot easier said than done.
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As long as we can afford to live autonomously without crowding into boxes with close neighbors we will do it because it's worth it to us. When it becomes impossible with our incomes we will change. Never willingly however.

Easy times have created soft men.
 
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