1. They are calling a wildfire an "extreme weather event" which is dubious as weather is only a contributing factor here
2. Of that $100 billion, $60 billion is from the LA wildfire, so this number is extremely outlier driven
3. There are no inflation adjustments or tests of statistical significance in their claims that damage from extreme weather is rapidly increasing over time
The comment above you was not denying that climate change exists. It was criticizing a misleading title. The insurance industry would absolutely say that the California wildfires were an outlier event, even if there is a trend of increased damage overall.
More people living in high risk areas + big increases in costs for building supplies and labor + higher building code standards for new construction + higher costs for planning and permitting all also contribute to rising insurance premiums or insurers just deciding to leave an area.
Government policy has significant impacts on the probability of total loss events, such as wildfire or flooding.
Climate change is a really good excuse for insurance companies to raise premiums... people just shrug their shoulders and say "what are you gonna do?", then pay the new premiums.
Some of what insurance companies say may be true, but quite a bit of it is not. Funny how we don't believe health insurance companies but we'll take property insurance companies for their word.
Governments control budgeting and staffing for first responder units, they control training budgets, they control responses. While climate change may be impacting some of these events, they should never spiral into massive total loss events like as-of late.
Climate science does itself a disservice by being so imprecise and not controlling for unrelated variables. And yet your comment is flagged, and probably will be removed.
It's imprecise because modeling the whole climate is a humongous task.
A friend's whole PhD as a physicist was to improve modeling cloud formation at a molecular level to be used in a model which was then part of an ensemble, that took him 5-6 years to manage to improve one particular parameter of a model with thousands of parameters.
It's an attempt to simulate all the energy transfers happening from solar activity on Earth's atmosphere, through all chemistry and biological reactions that contribute to results.
What's also often omitted is population growth resulting in more / larger buildings being built in any given place, so the same event in the same area from 50 years ago would result in much more damage in $ today.
In fairness, the winds and droughts have been a documented feature of that area for thousands of years and for as long as Europeans have been there. While it may be extreme, it is also normal for that region.
There is nothing “extreme” about those things in Southern California. Those factors have existed as long as there have been people there, and neither condition this year was a statistical outlier.
The big challenge/mistake of "science" over the years has been trying to prove slow-moving, gradual influences by pointing to extreme - often outlier - events. If you say it was a super hot summer because of climate change you inevitably open yourself to the rebuttal "but the winter before had the coldest January in 50 years!"-type of response. Combined with decades of perpetual doom & gloom and a proposed solution that depends on major immediate sacrifice and trust in politicians that the pay-off will come to your grandkids - is there any surprise we've not made any progress? Fighting climate change has a major positioning and marketing problem.
> If you say it was a super hot summer because of climate change
Real scientists don't say that. They always say something like, "This [hurricane/heat wave/whatever] is an example of what climate models predict will be increasingly common."
It's individuals who don't understand the difference between climate and weather that draw those conclusions, and well-meaning news outlets do it a lot too.
It's still fair to say, "Hey, you know this extreme weather we've been having for the last few years? Whether it's caused by climate change now or not, it will be the norm by the time your grandkids are in college."
We play a dangerous game with science communication. When it was just "global warming" it almost worked to scare the public into behaving but then people went "yeah but look, it's cold outside". There are still a lot of people who view climate change (and really that's a very soft term, doesn't convey urgency) as a waste of money. By showing how much it costs they can try to mitigate that. But, as you point out, your numbers need to be bulletproof. Otherwise those climate deniers will go "but inflation"
If homo sapiens is to survive, we had better have the capacity to see the truth even if sometimes the messenger of that truth falls to human faults, like exaggeration or even straight lies.
That's just how things are. If we depend on the side that warns us of climate change to never make a mistake or an intentional wrong, we're cooked. Because that side is human as are all sides of all arguments.
Maybe we are cooked. That's how it looks to this clueless person.
One side has to argue in good faith and be correct 100% of the time, while the other side can lie with impunity. Is it any surprise who wins the debate?
I don't believe any climate change "skeptic" has ever been swayed by "bulletproof" numbers and arguments. Well, not for the last fifty years at least. This disbelief in a fundamental truth of our times wasn't birthed in rationality and won't be cured by it.
Those California Wildfires were difficult to control due to the extreme wind. Weather was a direct cause of well over 95% of the damages.
Inflation isn’t enough to actually measure what you care about here. A paper should account for individual homes increasing in value faster than inflation and the overall population increase.
Without that it’s far better to just convey the raw numbers and link to an more in depth analysis.
This is wrong as a stand-alone statement, and specifically in this case. The fire appears started by an arsonist, and the dry, hot wind was "a contributing factor" in making it much worse.
>> That's like saying rain is only a contributing factor for flooding
There are lots of places where abnormal amounts of rain don't cause flooding. Very important: geography, flood mitigation, environment & ecology, emergency response...
A small bush fire is not supposed to cause 60 billion in damage. Also, innocent until proven guilty. The evidence against the guy seems weak… like generating images on ChatGPT
Arson and the heavy and warm Santa Ana winds which is climate related
LA was experience hurricane force 80 mph winds, which were its own issue
LA always has small smoldering fires from arson and other sources
With that baseline then it’s still climate related, leaving us to evaluate if that particular weather event was part of any change or has its own prior frequency and intensity.
It also reveals how vulnerable the area is to climate change either way
So let me get this straight: 70% of that number is caused by a wildfire for which the alleged arsonist is currently awaiting trial (and on record saying he did start the fire).
Thank you very much for being so open and transparent with your headline. It’s not like I expected some number shenanigans reading it.
Anthropogenic climate change is the most pressing issue humanity faces. Yet the best minds of our generation our focused on creating AI models to plagiarize human expression.
The world deserves better then the onslaught of ad powered content that technology has enabled the proliferation of.
I'm currently trying to decide what to replace my roof with. From the bids I've gotten, a metal roof is looking to be 3x more expensive than asphalt shingles. I could use that money for lots of other projects to make my house nicer and more energy efficient.
But I can't shake the feeling that I'd be glad to have metal for some future tornado, derecho, or wildfire hitting my area. My area isn't facing insurance companies pulling out yet, but the future feels less optimistic every year.
Readit News
2. Of that $100 billion, $60 billion is from the LA wildfire, so this number is extremely outlier driven
3. There are no inflation adjustments or tests of statistical significance in their claims that damage from extreme weather is rapidly increasing over time
There's an increasing number of locations where extreme weather losses are statistically inevitable, and insurers are no longer offering coverage.
https://earth.org/financial-storm-how-escalating-climate-eve...
It's a government caused shortage via price fixing.
Climate change is a really good excuse for insurance companies to raise premiums... people just shrug their shoulders and say "what are you gonna do?", then pay the new premiums.
Some of what insurance companies say may be true, but quite a bit of it is not. Funny how we don't believe health insurance companies but we'll take property insurance companies for their word.
Governments control budgeting and staffing for first responder units, they control training budgets, they control responses. While climate change may be impacting some of these events, they should never spiral into massive total loss events like as-of late.
A friend's whole PhD as a physicist was to improve modeling cloud formation at a molecular level to be used in a model which was then part of an ensemble, that took him 5-6 years to manage to improve one particular parameter of a model with thousands of parameters.
It's an attempt to simulate all the energy transfers happening from solar activity on Earth's atmosphere, through all chemistry and biological reactions that contribute to results.
If one ignore the winds, and the californian drought, then sure.
Real scientists don't say that. They always say something like, "This [hurricane/heat wave/whatever] is an example of what climate models predict will be increasingly common."
It's individuals who don't understand the difference between climate and weather that draw those conclusions, and well-meaning news outlets do it a lot too.
It's still fair to say, "Hey, you know this extreme weather we've been having for the last few years? Whether it's caused by climate change now or not, it will be the norm by the time your grandkids are in college."
That's just how things are. If we depend on the side that warns us of climate change to never make a mistake or an intentional wrong, we're cooked. Because that side is human as are all sides of all arguments.
Maybe we are cooked. That's how it looks to this clueless person.
> it almost worked to scare the public into behaving
That obviously isn't the point of science, and when you make it the point of science, people quite rationally stop trusting it.
Deniers will complain about any name you give it.
Inflation isn’t enough to actually measure what you care about here. A paper should account for individual homes increasing in value faster than inflation and the overall population increase.
Without that it’s far better to just convey the raw numbers and link to an more in depth analysis.
If it gets dry, hot, and windy enough, wildfires become a certainty. That's like saying rain is only a contributing factor for flooding.
Anyway, the thing that made all the numbers in LA wasn't the wildfires. When a city burns, it's not wildfire.
This is wrong as a stand-alone statement, and specifically in this case. The fire appears started by an arsonist, and the dry, hot wind was "a contributing factor" in making it much worse.
>> That's like saying rain is only a contributing factor for flooding
There are lots of places where abnormal amounts of rain don't cause flooding. Very important: geography, flood mitigation, environment & ecology, emergency response...
Also it’s not getting updated anymore because usgov is currently in ostrich mode when it comes to climate change.
It turns out it was good old fashioned arson[1].
[1] https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-10-08/palisade...
LA was experience hurricane force 80 mph winds, which were its own issue
LA always has small smoldering fires from arson and other sources
With that baseline then it’s still climate related, leaving us to evaluate if that particular weather event was part of any change or has its own prior frequency and intensity.
It also reveals how vulnerable the area is to climate change either way
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEwYDl5tl-s&list=PLuECoz9_QT...
There is a good write up in the Chicago Fed about them and how they work
https://www.chicagofed.org/publications/chicago-fed-letter/2...
And the FT did a recent piece on it too: https://www.ft.com/video/b3e44987-107d-49cd-b2b4-397a10bc3af...
I expect that this will become more common in the future.
Thank you very much for being so open and transparent with your headline. It’s not like I expected some number shenanigans reading it.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00335...
The world deserves better then the onslaught of ad powered content that technology has enabled the proliferation of.
But I can't shake the feeling that I'd be glad to have metal for some future tornado, derecho, or wildfire hitting my area. My area isn't facing insurance companies pulling out yet, but the future feels less optimistic every year.