People have lost their homes and everything they own to a natural disaster that was not under their control. I don't care where you live in the world, this could happen to you. The lack of empathy and victim blaming in these comments is absolutely revolting. I am done with this site. It has been taken over by heartless people with zero intellectual curiosity. Good riddance.
Readit Newsgreenthrow commented on Is the world becoming uninsurable? charleshughsmith.substack... · Posted by u/spking
greenthrow commented on Is the world becoming uninsurable? charleshughsmith.substack... · Posted by u/spking
Without accounting for population growth in high risk areas this is meaningless. If the population and housing units in a floodplain doubles, a $500M 1980s disaster becomes a $1B 2024 disaster. That's not to mention the above-inflation increase in the cost of housing which probably bumps these numbers up as well.
That is a red herring. The frequency and intensity of the wildfires has increased. Stop repeating fossil fuel talking points meant to distract from climate change.
greenthrow commented on Is the world becoming uninsurable? charleshughsmith.substack... · Posted by u/spking
What evidence do you have that these fires have anything to do with climate change? They appear to be adequately explained by the known behavior of the region, and to the extent that they're not the radical increases in habitation and the systematic suppression of small fires is enough to cover any gap.
Ironically there is a great case that varrious environmental groups that vigorously opposed controlled burns are among the greatest proximal human causes of the current situation. If careful analysis concluded so, would you support seizing their assets for use as disaster relief?
The frequency and intensity of droughts in the area has increased due to climate change. The increased winds is due to climate change. It is obvious. It is not explained by "radical population increase".
Stop trying to distract with fossil fuel propaganda trying to distract with everthing else they can. Yes controlled burns still happen but it is also understandable that people would be jumpy about them with the problems fire has been causing in that area in recent years.
greenthrow commented on Is the world becoming uninsurable? charleshughsmith.substack... · Posted by u/spking
In some parts of California, fires recur with some regularity. In Oakland, for example, fires of various size and ignition occurred in 1923, 1931, 1933, 1937, 1946, 1955, 1960, 1961, 1968, 1970, 1980, 1990, 1991, 1995, 2002, and 2008.
Orange County, Riverside County, San Bernardino County, and Los Angeles County are other examples. Orange and San Bernardino counties share a border that runs north to south through the Chino Hills State Park, with the park's landscape ranging from large green coastal sage scrub, grassland, and woodland, to areas of brown sparsely dense vegetation made drier by droughts or hot summers. The valley's grass and barren land can become easily susceptible to dry spells and drought, therefore making it a prime spot for brush fires and conflagrations, many of which have occurred since 1914. Hills and canyons have seen brush or wildfires in 1914, the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and into today.
Stop trying to muddy the waters, we already agree that wildfires do happen. Nobody disputes that. The frequency and intensity of what we are seeing in recent years is what is not normal. That is due to climate change because of the increased frequency and duration of droughts as well as increased winds.
greenthrow commented on Is the world becoming uninsurable? charleshughsmith.substack... · Posted by u/spking
The Los Angeles fires are not really about climate change. There have been wildfires there for centuries, it's part of the ecosystem.
Yes I remember as a kid in the 80s when wildfires woukd devastate LA every year. Oh wait no it did not happen until recently.
Yes wildfires do happen in nature. No this is not normal for this area. Yes it is about climate change. Stop believinf fossil fuel company propaganda.
greenthrow commented on Is the world becoming uninsurable? charleshughsmith.substack... · Posted by u/spking
Don't agree. Well partially. I also think the privatise the profits socialise the losses story is strong, and the coal and oil interests should pony up more remediation costs.
But insurance is one of the best signals we have to true risk/consequence/likelihood, which commercial interests pay attention to
The best long term outcome here would be rebuilding safer but the downside will be "which excludes the poor" -that's where I think state and federal policy should apply the lever: require socialised housing outcomes.
Price controls on insurance forces socialised losses. Better is some middle ground: mandate insurance, demand adequate mitigations and defences. But losing the price signal is bad.
The losses were already socialized without the controls. Look at how the insurance companies always behave in these situations. They always find a way to stick the public with the bill. Don't listen to the corporate talking points. The price controls may have been stupid but they are a distraction.
greenthrow commented on Is the world becoming uninsurable? charleshughsmith.substack... · Posted by u/spking
If you ask Americans to vote to make gas more expensive to stop climate change (eg. the Washington carbon tax referenda), they say no. America burns lots of fossil fuels because it's what the voters want. If every private fossil fuel company shut down tomorrow, there would be riots in the streets, and then oil and gas would be imported from abroad.
Did you miss the part where I said the public has been lied to for the past 50 years?
I didn't say we shut off all the gas pumps tomorrow. It will obviously take time to transition off. I said we seize their assets and use the proceeds for climate relief. We can keep the revenue coming and using the profits for disaster relief while we transition off fossil fuels. It's not that hard to understand.
greenthrow commented on Is the world becoming uninsurable? charleshughsmith.substack... · Posted by u/spking
An hour in and nobody in these comments is addressing climate change? The risks of drought and the resulting fire or hurricanes and floods is much higher than it has been in recorded history in these areas because of climate change. Should people be forced to abandon their homes because the fossil fuel companies lied and misled the public and bought out our governments for the last 50 years?
IMHO we should be seizing the fossil fuel companies' assets and using them for disaster relief around the world due to the catastrophe they have deliberately caused.
The talk about insurance rates is a deliberate distraction.
Anyone who thinks non-engineers can build quality products with just AI doesn't know anything about being an engineer.
greenthrow commented on Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable? newsletter.goodtechthings... · Posted by u/forrestbrazeal
“all kids are facing abuse by definition when home schooled” is still ringing.
By your own words here you should be agreeing with me, that homeschooling should be a legal choice.
That making a policy decision based on an outlier (home abuse) that affects everyone is bad.
As I explained in my initial comment, the problem is average parents are not equipped to be good teachers and homeschooled kids are being denied the variety of experiences that kids going to an actual school are getting. That's why I said all homeschooled kids are being abused by definition. Not the same type of abuse you got at school or I got at home. But they are being denied a proper education. They are being denied the opportunity to learn to make friends and socialize with different people. When it's time for them to finally go out into the world they will be poorly equipped to do so.
If I thought home schooling was a sure fire way to avoid violent abuse for any kids, maybe it would be worth the trade off. But we both know if anything abusive parents are also going to abuse their kids via home schooling.
I honestly think on the whole homeschooling is doing more damage to the kids being put through it and should be illegal. Obviously before actually doing that we should do scientific studies and surveys of adults who went through it and make a decision based on that rather than just my opinion. But right now we let parents do it just because extremist parents insist on it. And I think we are failing those kids.