Author: greenman3610

NYTimes Blockbuster on Climate and Home Insurance

Welp, this is one hell of an article.

New York Times (gift link):

The insurance turmoil caused by climate change — which had been concentrated in Florida, California and Louisiana — is fast becoming a contagion, spreading to states like Iowa, Arkansas, Ohio, Utah and Washington. Even in the Northeast, where homeowners insurance was still generally profitable last year, the trends are worsening.

In 2023, insurers lost money on homeowners coverage in 18 states, more than a third of the country, according to a New York Times analysis of newly available financial data. That’s up from 12 states five years ago, and eight states in 2013. The result is that insurance companies are raising premiums by as much as 50 percent or more, cutting back on coverage or leaving entire states altogether. Nationally, over the last decade, insurers paid out more in claims than they received in premiums, according to the ratings firm Moody’s, and those losses are increasing.

The growing tumult is affecting people whose homes have never been damaged and who have dutifully paid their premiums, year after year. Cancellation notices have left them scrambling to find coverage to protect what is often their single biggest investment. As a last resort, many are ending up in high-risk insurance pools created by states that are backed by the public and offer less coverage than standard policies. By and large, state regulators lack strategies to restore stability to the market.

“I believe we’re marching toward an uninsurable future” in many places, said Dave Jones, the former insurance commissioner of California and now director of the Climate Risk Initiative at the University of California Berkeley law school.

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Will New Rules Break Transmission Logjam?

E&E News:

Federal energy regulators on Monday directed U.S. electricity grid operators to plan new transmission infrastructure that can deliver more renewable energy and defend against extreme weather.

Adivided Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said grid planners and transmission owners must look 20 years ahead to expected shifts in how electricity is produced and consider a range of long-term benefits to building and upgrading power lines. The vote for the rule, Order 1920, was 2-1.

FERC also established new requirements for how the costs of building high-voltage power lines should be allocated among customers, pulling states deeper into issues around regional infrastructure. Also Monday, FERC unanimously passed a separate rule, Order 1977, that gives it the authority to grant permits to electric transmission lines in certain instances where states do not act first.

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Smoke Returns to Heartland. Canada’s Wildfires Back

New York Times:

If you’re in the northern part of the Central United States and the skies look smoky, here’s why: Minnesota and parts of Wisconsin were under an air quality alert on Monday morning because of wildfire smoke from Canada.

On Sunday, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency issued the alert for the entire state, which was set to expire at noon Eastern on Monday. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources issued an air quality alert for northwestern Wisconsin that was set to last through 10 a.m. on Monday.

Fine particle levels were expected to reach the red air quality index category, the agency said, which also warned that was “a level considered unhealthy for everyone, across all of Minnesota.” In those areas, officials said, everybody, and particularly sensitive people, should avoid prolonged or heavy exertion and should limit their time outdoors.

Axios:

By the numbers: Most of the 146 blazes burning in the first major wildfires since Canada’s record season that finally abated in October were in British Columbia (50) and Alberta (45) as of early Monday, per the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre.

  • The CIFFC listed 40 of the fires burning as “out of control.” 
  • The fires were impacting four U.S. states’ air quality: Montana, the Dakotas and Minnesota, with much of the latter state’s air quality listed as “unhealthy” early Monday.

State of play: Authorities issued evacuation orders for communities in British Columbia over the weekend, and B.C. Wildfire Service official Cliff Chapman urged people to avoid travel to the Fort Nelson area and said residents should leave if they hadn’t already “due to the aggressive and extreme” fires.

  • “The fuels are as dry as we have ever seen,” Chapman said in a briefing of conditions surrounding the Parker Lake fire, which had burned across some 13,000 acres as of Monday.
  • “The wind is going to be sustained, and it is going to push the fire toward the community. Escape routes may be compromised and visibility will be poor as the fire continues to grow.”
  • The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency issued an air quality alert for the entire state that’s valid until 12 noon Monday local time due to “very heavy smoke from wildfires in northeast British Columbia.”
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Are US Carmakers Toast? China’s EVs Sleek, Well Made, and Cheap

Wall Street Journal:

The Biden administration is preparing to raise tariffs on clean-energy goods from China in the coming days, with the levy on Chinese electric vehicles set to roughly quadruple, according to people familiar with the matter.

Higher tariffs, which Biden administration officials are preparing to announce on Tuesday, will also hit critical minerals, solar goods and batteries sourced from China, according to the people. The decision comes at the end of a yearslong review of tariffs imposed by former President Donald Trump on roughly $300 billion in goods from China. 

Officials are particularly focused on electric vehicles, and they are expected to raise the tariff rate to roughly 100% from 25%, according to the people. An additional 2.5% duty applies to all automobiles imported into the U.S. The existing 25% tariff on Chinese electric vehicles has so far effectively barred those models, often cheaper than Western-made cars, from the U.S. market. Biden administration officials, automakers and some lawmakers worry that wouldn’t be enough given the scale of Chinese manufacturing. 

Bloomberg:

Once upon a time, Japanese cars were seen as an exotic and quirky product that could never take on the might of Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co. Right now, Chinese EVs are in a similar place. 

“Corolla, New Economy Car, Is Shown Here by Toyota,” the New York Times yawned in a 1968 headline, introducing history’s best-selling automobile to the US market. Four years later, another piece noted with idle curiosity that Honda Motor Co. — “primarily a motorcycle name in the United States” — was starting to sell “diminutive” four-wheelers as well.

The story of the Big Three automakers’ hubristic fall to Japanese rivals is well-known, and should act as a warning to manufacturers who underestimate China’s competitive threat. With designers focused on large, powerful gas-guzzlers that earned better margins for Detroit’s inefficient production lines, the US auto industry in the 1970s failed to comprehend the appeal of affordable Japanese cars that sipped fuel, needed minimal maintenance, and came packed with standard features that local buyers were used to finding only as pricey add-ons.

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Michigan Attorney General: I’m Putting Together a Team

Let’s go.

You’ve become part of a bigger universe. You just don’t know it yet.

Michigan Attorney General:

This request for proposals (RFP) is to solicit proposals from attorneys and law firms to serve as Special Assistant Attorneys General (SAAGs) to pursue litigation related to the climate change impacts caused by the fossil fuel industry on behalf of the State of Michigan through the Department of Attorney General (DAG) (together, the State) on a contingency fee basis.

Tornadoes Challenge Climate Science and Models

This video is a few years old, but still current scientifically.
I interviewed a pretty good spread of extreme weather experts to get current thinking on extreme convective storms and climate change.
Given the continuing outbreaks across the country this week, seems like a good time to review.

The connection for tornadoes is tough, because the reliable record is not as long as we would like. Modern systems of Doppler radar and networks of reliable spotters have only been in place for a few decades, according to Jason Samenow, weather guru at the Washington Post.

Still, Dr. Jeff Masters told me, “..we are seeing tornadoes at locations, and at times of year, we’re not used to seeing them.”
John Allen of Central Michigan University reminded me of the outbreaks of December 2021, which saw 218 twisters, more than any previous December – “that’s more like the number of tornadoes you’d see in a typical May, or April May period. That’s a really big departure from our normal values.”

I had also done a piece on the outbreaks of that December of ’21, which is below.

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