written 24 March 2024
published 31 March 2024
The State of Florida, dominated by MAGA "thinking", has prohibited the terms "climate change" and "sea level rise" in official usage. Don't look up! But reality doesn't care.
Consequently, Florida is trying to deal with "persistent sunny day flooding", disappearing beaches, increasingly lethal outdoor summer labor, salt water intrusion into drinking water, home owner's insurance three times California levels (when available), and growing difficulties in home financing. These are all forms of adverse climate impact. Needless to say, none of the official efforts, some costing hundreds of millions of dollars, have been effective.
Decades ago, the global re-insurance industry, which insures the smaller national companies, noticed their costs going up. When the climate repeatedly destroys insured property, insurance rates have to increase in order for the system to remain solvent. Florida has experienced four destructive hurricanes in the last seven years, and the sea level there is rising faster there than the rest of the US, making storms more destructive.
With "business as usual", this impact will increase for decades. As insurance becomes more expensive and limited, affordable insurance coverage becomes scarce. Available bank loans will diminish, unwilling to loan for 30 years without insurance. Even those with cash will be reluctant to invest with the increasing risk of total loss. At some point, property values could crash in a panic, stranding the poorest, and bankrupting cities and the state government. All this has already begun.
Even if Florida wasn't in compete climate denial, imagining an effective response is difficult. Armoring the coast against flooding is extremely expensive, sacrifices the sandy beaches, and doesn't actually work for long. Moving all critical infrastructure and buildings away from the coast would be politically problematic, very expensive if done equitably, time consuming, and would force abandonment of much of the low-lying state. Building storm resistant buildings throughout the state would have similar constraints.
As easy as it is to critique Florida, California has the same kinds of problems with wildfires, despite having more climate awareness. California had embraced a Florida like denial by prohibiting risk forecasting when setting insurance rates, demanding only historic records be considered, ignoring a rapidly changing future. This had short term appeal for the insured population, but it put the insurance industry in a bind. They couldn't afford it, caught between what they could charge and what they had to pay to re-insure their exposure. The result was a highly publicized exodus of insurance companies from the state, pinching consumers with increasing costs, or reduced availability of adequate coverage.
If allowed to continue, lack of insurance would adversely impact the real estate sales market and bank viability, risking a drop in real estate value and property taxes revenues. The state relented, and recently allowed the industry to include the changing future risks when setting rates. A press release proclaimed this would stem the exodus and provide more options for the consumer. What wasn't stated was that new insurance will be more expensive. Needless to say, consumer advocacy groups noticed, pointing out that consumers can't afford it. This is not a whole system solution.
Mitigation is being considered, such as changing land use practices and shifting building codes to require more inflammable construction materials and methods. Investment in such changes would be reflected in reduced insurance rates. But such a transition is expensive and slow.
While any mitigation is helpful, the scale of the challenge is daunting. When faced with an ember blizzard, the best advice is to be somewhere else. What mitigation could have prevented the destruction of 90 percent of Paradise, CA? How does a town rebuild when all the infrastructure (water, sewer, electrical, telecommunications) must be replaced, with few residents, little commerce, and a diminished tax base?
Mitigation may help address the wildfire issue, but not the fundamental climate crisis, and makes the questionable assumption our society can continue as-is, on a rapidly heating planet. 2023 was the hottest year on record, and 2024 has started off even hotter. We clearly need to stop making the climate worse and actively begin meaningful carbon sequestration. When enough people feel the direct economic impact of the climate crisis on our lives; when the financial powers see their fiscal peril; when people have voted in enough leaders who feel that impact also; then we might have a chance. The next election will clarify things. Like it or not, we are all in this together.
