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Is the world becoming uninsurable?

(charleshughsmith.substack.com)
482 points spking | 7 comments | 17 Jan 25 00:32 UTC | HN request time: 1.408s | source | bottom
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tobyhinloopen ◴[17 Jan 25 07:13 UTC] No.42734903[source]▶
American, living in area prone to natural disasters: "Is the WHOLE WORLD becoming uninsurable?"

The answer is obviously "no" since there are other parts of the world that don't live on a hurricane highway nor build houses made from firewood in an area prone to wildfires.

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nejsjsjsbsb ◴[17 Jan 25 08:24 UTC] No.42735252[source]▶
Climate change enters the chat...
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adrianN ◴[17 Jan 25 08:27 UTC] No.42735264[source]▶
Even pessimistic scenarios don't predict threats to buildings (other than war, which to my knowledge never was insurable) in most areas of the world.
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agsnu ◴[17 Jan 25 08:59 UTC] No.42735451[source]▶
A significant portion of human structures are located close to the coast (seaborne trade having been a huge enabler of economic development for a few hundred years) and are exposed to flooding from rising sea levels, or built in valleys that are increasingly at risk from flooding due to far-above-long-term-historic-norms precipitation runoff (higher atmospheric temps lead to more energy in weather systems; see eg massive floods in Europe in the past few years).
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1. soco ◴[17 Jan 25 10:37 UTC] No.42736110[source]▶
Said the American living in a log cabin in Montana. But if you're from, say, Tuvalu, or Venice, the 15cm rise of the last decades is definitely noticeable, and the trend has no reason to stop or decrease.
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2. ljf ◴[17 Jan 25 11:20 UTC] No.42736383[source]▶
Agreed - Where I live now, 8 thousand years ago I could have walked all the way from the UK to Holland.

Even just 1000 years ago the coastline here went four miles out to sea compared to today.

In the last 20 year we've seen the erosion of the coastline here accelerating - regular news stories about people losing their houses to the sea: https://www.norfolk.gov.uk/article/56352/Challenges-of-coast...

It doesn't matter if you think it is human caused or not, the sea level is undeniably rising:

https://royalsociety.org/news-resources/projects/climate-cha....

3. georgeplusplus ◴[17 Jan 25 12:34 UTC] No.42736858[source]▶
it used to be reported that Venice is sinking into the water but now the climate nut jobs have flipped it to it’s actually because it’s rising. I guess it’s all relative
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4. vintermann ◴[17 Jan 25 12:39 UTC] No.42736904[source]▶
Sea level naturally varies (if we define it liberally). It's at the times of maximums - high tide plus storm surge - we notice, otherwise it's easy to miss.

But when those high tides plus storm surges hit, we really notice sea level rise.

5. soco ◴[17 Jan 25 12:42 UTC] No.42736941{3}[source]▶
It's difficult to not be sarcastic but let me try my best: Venice sinking is what happens when water is rising.
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6. avianlyric ◴[17 Jan 25 12:58 UTC] No.42737050{4}[source]▶
Eh, Venice is also sinking regardless of sea level rise. That’s what happens when you build a city on top of what is practically a swamp. No surprise that big heavy buildings put on top of loose, waterlogged soil are gonna slowly sink into that soil.
7. ekianjo ◴[18 Jan 25 06:25 UTC] No.42746326[source]▶
I live next to the sea, for your information