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Is the world becoming uninsurable?

(charleshughsmith.substack.com)
478 points spking | 7 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source | bottom
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giorgioz ◴[] No.42737024[source]
It seems everyone is on the same "We will find new solutions to a new problem". I totally agree.

Here is a list of all new solutions we need: 1) not insure places at higher risk 2) mass desalinification 3) fix US hot climate grids sparkles and/or place them underground 4) Street corridors to isolate fires in neighborhood 5) Build with more fire-resistant materials 6) Install automated hydrant towers with cameras able to spray water on fire remotely (it's done in Spain on the edge of forests and urban areas) 7) Pass on the costs of maintaining of living in expensive risky areas to the people living there and/or give them benefits to move to unpopulated areas with no risk

1) Not all the world will suffer equally from climate change. The parts that are at higher risk should not be insurable so that new housing will not be built there but somewhere else.

2) The idea there won't be water because it doesn't rain it's ridiculous. We live on a planet literally made of water. We'll develop mass production de-salinification plants and have enough water. We need to keep investing and improving that technology. I think having water artifically priced at a low price won't help the development of the desalinification industry. So water should cost more NOW that we can afford it to reflect the R&D cost of it that we must make to have water later.

5) Hot countries don't tend to have plenty of wood to build with. Forests grow with more rain. Building with wood in Spain and Italy is very rare. LA got his wood shipped from somewhere further out. Let's build with other materials in arid fire-prone zones. Yes it's perfectly possible to have houses that are both more-fire-resistant and more-earthquake resistant.

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1. nojvek ◴[] No.42737137[source]
You’re mostly talking about wildfires. The top 5 most destructive events in US are all hurricanes. They are the size of multiple states and bring more water in a period of a day than rest of annual non-hurricane rainfall.

It’s desalinated water falling from a massive sprinkler in the sky.

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2. trollbridge ◴[] No.42737358[source]
Wildfires can be avoided by not building wood structures in places that historically have had frequent wildfires. A good way to incentivise this is very high insurance costs, which lenders will require before granting a mortgage. Governments can also enact fire codes.

Buildings can be built out of less fire prone materials, and surrounding non native vegetation avoided which feeds fires. This does mean someone can’t live in LA as if they are in a New England country town.

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3. giorgioz ◴[] No.42737694[source]
You are right. I live in Europe and I'm not very familiar with hurricanes. I'm more familiar with fires and earthquakes. It seems some parts of Florida have been hit by catastrophes every 2-5 years. Maybe we should treat the whole space as natural reserves and building less there. I saw a lot of houses constructured right on the beach in Florida that they seemed just looking for trouble.
4. giorgioz ◴[] No.42737729[source]
I'm not so familiar with huge wind but a lot of water I got some (naive) ideas. Build much bigger sewer pipes and river beds. Build houses higher. As usual each region has his own problems. We can all agree either we move out of there or we invent ways to mitigate the problems. For the long term of course, as we all agree, reducing CO2 emissions, stop climate warming and trying to get back some CO2. I believe and hope we can both do that and not having to live like austerity monks.
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5. pc86 ◴[] No.42738762[source]
Wildfires can also be avoided by letting forest management people dictate forest management policies instead of environmental activists, and by prioritizing the people that live there over the animals.
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6. trollbridge ◴[] No.42739497{3}[source]
Forestry management seems like a suitable state level activity that should have civilian/legislative oversight but also a fair bit of freedom for experts to do their jobs.
7. munificent ◴[] No.42744829[source]
> Build much bigger sewer pipes

Great, now in a storm surge (which is the most destructive part of most hurricanes), you have built an effective system for transferring rising seawater into your urban area!

> and river beds.

Great, now you've completely eradicated the delicate ecosystem that was living there and everything that depends on it.

> Build houses higher.

That is how a lot of coastal houses are built. But now you're more susceptible to wind damage, so you're playing a risk balancing game.

Every time a natural disaster shows up, nerds starting inventing solutions. I love the optimistic spirit behind that impulse. But at the same time, people living in those areas, including generations of civil engineers, having been thinking about this a lot longer than us.

The solutions are known but most either have even worse externalities, or simply take a long long time to roll out.

Any solution relating to housing is particularly slow to ship because, surprise, people don't like being forcibly kicked out of their homes. So houses basically only get upgraded at the rate that people die.