24 Comments

Thanks for opening conversation. I would argue that it doesn't have to be a choice between what we have now and fully socializing the costs of prior bad land use decisions. I worked with a team of researchers at the Climate and Community Institute to think this all through, and here's what we came up with: https://climateandcommunity.org/research/shared-fates-home-insurance/.

I'd be curious to know what you think!

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Just read the summary, really interesting. Will check out the full report when I get a chance.

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This seems really cool!! I hope Canada follows suit, we’ll seeing more and more flooding each year

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Shoreline residents of Salisbury Beach (Massachusetts) got together earlier this year and spent around $500K on sand to be trucked in for so-called "beach nourishment" to protect their homes. Not for the first time (since the 1970s) was it tried. Three days later, a "king tide" came and wiped most of it away. They are of course now looking for the state to come and try it again. Not many are for it, especially without it linked to some plan for a "abandon and retreat" inland. Kids making sand castles know what happens when the tide comes in.

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Prior to Hurricane Helene, I had been in the process of creating a short video explainer showing how my former home in Georgia was well inland, but in grave danger of future flooding from sea level rise. I was at least a 45-minute drive from the coast, but my home insurance rates were skyrocketing year after year, and looking at a mapping program that shows the effects of sea-level rise 25 to 75 years from now, and from hurricane-induced storm surge and heavy rain right now, made it make sense to me in a way abstract numerical data about sea level-rise never could (which was my reason for creating the video that is now in need of a total overhaul after Helene).

I point this out because at least a couple of times you mentioned "beach-front property," but this does a disservice to the true scale of the problem, which is very much not limited to homes on the coast, as Ashville, NC, thousands of feet above sea level in the mountains and well inland is now learning the hard way.

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Yes this is true. Disaster prone areas include beachfront property, wildfire-prone property, flood-prone property, etc. Insurance companies have a very good idea of how much risk is associated with various locations. The biggest economic hit in the long run is going to be coastal property, which is why it's the main subject of discussion, but obviously is not the only place at risk.

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Excellent stack, very well-written. "The flaws in our electoral system ensure that politicians who tell voters the hard truths about the changes that will be necessary to deal with this problem are defeated by those willing to tell voters cheap lies about easy fixes that allow everyone to maintain their current lifestyles." Sad, true and eminently quotable!

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Yeah, moskowitz. Ask the rest of the country to chip in to help while you Floridians have 0% income tax and your “leaders” continue to deny the reality of the climate crisis.

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Yes, and Moskowitz, my Congressperson, is one of the most liberal and reasonable in Florida. You can imagine what the rest are like.

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I understand this argument but I think that as climate change progresses, "natural disaster prone areas" are going to include pretty much the entire country at some point. This is a much bigger problem than people with beach houses being stubborn. What happens when there's nowhere for people to retreat *to*? I suppose one could argue that we're not at that point yet, so the government ought to roll out a relocation plan while there's still time. But the areas just now hit hardest by Hurricane Helene weren't beachfront homes in Florida, they were entire towns in the mountains of inland North Carolina and Tennessee. It seems callous to tell these people, who (imo understandably) weren't prepared for a hurricane, that they should have moved away sooner.

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I feel like you guys could just stop funding overseas wars (i.e. funneling tax dollars into private weapons manufacturers’ pockets via distant wars) and there would be plenty of money to subsidize insurance?

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Next you'll be saying we could adequately fund education and healthcare with that money. Can you even imagine???

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Crazy, right??!?! 🤪

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Boggles the mind!

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I don't live in FL but might I humbly suggest returning to Gainesville the weekend of October 25th? That's Fest, where I'm sure you'll find many people who are interested in the kinds of ideas you're presenting.

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Excellent, as usual.

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I have always wanted to add a culturally conservative “The Lord helps those who help themselves” requirement to the socialist aid program. If your state or county or city is working hard to mitigate climate change, the rest of us will help you with aid. If you’re not working on climate change, you’re on your own.

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"As I have written before, there are two paths out of this dilemma. One is the more socialist path: The government enforces limits on carbon emissions to curb climate change, and publicly funds a rational plan for the managed retreat of homeowners from disaster-prone areas. This is an expensive and politically difficult but humane solution. Then there is the free market path: Allow insurance companies to set rates where math dictates they should be set to properly account for risk."

A lot of great points in this article. But framing the solution in this democrat vs republican dichotomy brings more problems than solutions. For straters, because there is government intervention, doesn't mean it's socialist.

More importantly, there are way more that two ways this issues can be addressed, but those will have a hard time surfacing and being discussed if we have to pidgeonhole them in one of the two very limited ideologies American politics can handle.

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Well thought out. I wonder how many people stopped reading when you said you were a socialist. What's middle ground, declare low lieing coastal areas "full risk self insure" zones? Rich can keep their beachfronts and big trucks but risk isn't shared.

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Amen!

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𝐾𝑛𝑜𝑤𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐴𝑚𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑎, 𝐼 𝑠𝑢𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑐𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑤𝑒 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑑𝑖𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑑𝑒𝑒𝑝𝑒𝑟 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑜 𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑠 𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑛 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑚𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑖𝑚𝑎𝑔𝑖𝑛𝑒.

I mean . . . [gestures at everything]

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Asheville, NC is at an altitude of 2000 feet and over 300 miles from the coast.

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And yet still at risk of climate disasters. Seems like a problem we should reckon with in a sober and responsible way.

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There is literally no chance we will ever do that.

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