Many losses are concentrated in the Pacific Palisades, where just last year State Farm dropped 70 percent of its customers - some 1,600 homeowners - due to increasing risk.
"Due to the way insurance rates are regulated" Paradoxically, among the ways that insurance rates have been regulated has been to prevent rates being set based on forward-looking, climate risk informed models!
I've also heard that the homeowners that were covered by insurance are not getting anywhere near the payouts they should be. Thank you for sharing this important piece.
"A full 37 percent of the area burned across western North America over the last 35 years is attributable to emissions from 88 corporations."
The link does not explain how fossil fuel _production_ companies cause emissions. One supposes that they sell most of their output to other firms who cause the actual emission.
How about talking phasing out the ongoing destruction directly connected to the Northern Hemisphere's water cycle that was hijacked by the hydroelectric industry. The blocking of the 24x7 flow of most of the major rivers in the subarctic from Siberia to Labrador.
ok simplicity seems to be hard to come by with the siloed scientists protecting the wholly grail of complexities around climate. What would it do to think of the planet as a being not unlike us humans and born with systems that maintain life and its longevity. If only the old scientific community would come down to Earth and follow the on the ground clues and evidence when it comes to climate .
ARE HUMAN AND PLANET SYSTEMS ALIKE?
There are very specific causes for human illness We run a fever, well the planet is running a fever too, and it is not stopping. And why is it not cooling down even with all the mitigation practices over the last decades? Because we are not treating a significant forcing factors some of which does sequestor Co2 but it is only one portion of the larger issue effecting other planetary spheres that continue to be ignored by the Science"experts". Maybe it's time to look at our planet with the same lense we look at human health.
OUR PLANET: PERSON OR LIVING ENTITY?
It’s time to consider our Earth as a living, breathing being possessing systems that keep it running smoothly and in good health. We now have to face the fact that the temperature of the planet is increasing. and as in other living beings this signals that something is happening out of the “normal functioning range”.
Scientists and 75% of the population call this climate change. We can also say the earth has a fever, and its not going down. When we humans have a prolonged fever we see a doctor. We test our fluids, our breathing, our blood pressure and our blood for toxic and nutritional levels. Our cardiovascular system - heart, arteries, veins and capillaries - supply us with nutrients, circulate oxygen from our lungs, and cleanse our kidneys and liver. In short, this system keeps us alive. Earth, as a living, breathing being, has a similar cardiovascular system in play - a system that is no longer functioning within “normal range”. In the Earth’s cardiovascular system, we can think of the oceans and atmosphere as its heart and lungs, large rivers its arteries, smaller rivers and streams, wetlands and bogs its veins and capillaries sending nutrients to its extremities.
OCEAN NUTRITION COMES FROM TERRESTRIAL SYSTEMS
Terrestrial ecosystem provide sustenance: nutrition, oxygen, and a home to living beings. Land is connected to the waterways providing food and life to aquatic species that travel, breed and participate in the lifecycle of the Earth. and those avenues of support are severely clogged, (similar to cardiovascular disease in humans) by large hydroelectric dams: mega-dams. Mega-dams are creating clots in the world’s circulatory system, not only retaining water for electricity generation, and also prohibiting passage of the nutrients which the marine ecosystem needs to live and thrive.
MARINE NUTRITION and CLIMATE CHANGE
The damming of rivers is one of mankind’s most significant modifications to the worlds cardiovascular system impacting the flow of water and associated materials from land to sea. Included in these nutrients are nutritional elements like nitrogen and phosphorus, required by all life on Earth, and silicon, which is required by diatoms, the plankton that account for the largest percentage of biological productivity in the oceans. Diatoms in the oceans sequester more Co2 than all the rainforests of the planet and up to 25% of Co2 on the planet is fixated by diatoms and every 5th breath you can thank microscopic diatoms for
MAJOR FREE FLOWING RIVERS OF UPPER NORTHERN HEMISPHERE ARE NO MORE
Prior to the mid 20th century many of the larger rivers had been functioning normally. Rivers have always been the main nutritional delivery system for the smallest microscopic living things in the oceans: diatoms (plankton), which feed the largest of marine mammals the Blue Whale. The estuaries, bays, and Continental Shelf flood each spring and during stormy periods, feeding the earth with rich nutritional sediments from erosion. Through the late 1950s into the 1980s many of the major rivers and waterways that emptied into the Northern Hemisphere oceans had large dams constructed that obstructed the natural flows containing much of the nutritional requirements of marine life.
Dams and flow regulation on rivers weaken the force of these upwelling ocean currents so fewer nutrients are available. The marine food chain is very dependent on diatoms, and their populations are declining rapidly; NASA has indicated diatom populations are diminishing by about one percent per year. This equates to a significant increase in CO2 levels, because CO2 removal by diatoms is not occurring at the same rate before dams. The world’s ocean fisheries are also in decline. Starvation?
FLOW REGULATION IMPOUNDING SEA-SIZE X-RIVER WATERS FOR MONTHS
Strict flow regimens caused by hydroelectric dams in the subarctic regions: Here many of the Northern Hemisphere's largest rivers used to exist but now 95% of the water stagnates in sea-size impoundments for 6 months of the summer and continues melting the permafrost. long hours in the sun has led to excessive humidity and added greater amounts of methane rich fresh water to these dam reservoirs, insuring a now much much larger volume of and now warmer water to be discharged all winter-long. This is not only warming these regions in the winter but sending this much larger volume and warmer fresh water into the bays and Arctic Ocean region. This is occurring with many of the former rivers from Siberia to labrador Many other species, also important for carbon sequestration, are starving because of the nutrients withheld by river impoundments. . River obstruction and impoundment cuts off much of the nutrient flow to all marine life, stockpiling it behind dams, decomposing (emitting methane) and accelerating global warming.
CIRCULATION BLOCKED
Clearly out of the historical normal range, the planet’s coronary arteries are now severely compromised. Like cardiovascular disease in humans, deprivation of this ‘blood supply’ results in the starvation of aquatic life and with it the decline of livable terrestrial habitat. Unfortunately the earth does not have a primary care physician who would recommend surgery to remove these blockages, freeing up the blood supply allowing the patient to recover.
It is up to us, the tenants, to take the helm and choose not to invest in damming up its cardiovascular system. We need to live with, not on, the earth and allow it to recover from our antiquated energy generation practices, which are doing what may be irreparable harm. Divest from mega-dams. Remove the blockages that are continuing to damage our climate by preventing nutritional flow, thawing the permafrost and destroying habitats for all living things, land and sea. Let’s allow the Earth to heal itself by freeing up the natural flow of river waters.
Many losses are concentrated in the Pacific Palisades, where just last year State Farm dropped 70 percent of its customers - some 1,600 homeowners - due to increasing risk.
"Due to the way insurance rates are regulated" Paradoxically, among the ways that insurance rates have been regulated has been to prevent rates being set based on forward-looking, climate risk informed models!
Thanks Katharine for your work. I'm interested to hear your thoughts on hydroclimate whiplash. I wrote about the recent paper here: https://predirections.substack.com/p/boom-and-bust-or-should-i-say-bloom
I've also heard that the homeowners that were covered by insurance are not getting anywhere near the payouts they should be. Thank you for sharing this important piece.
"A full 37 percent of the area burned across western North America over the last 35 years is attributable to emissions from 88 corporations."
The link does not explain how fossil fuel _production_ companies cause emissions. One supposes that they sell most of their output to other firms who cause the actual emission.
How about talking phasing out the ongoing destruction directly connected to the Northern Hemisphere's water cycle that was hijacked by the hydroelectric industry. The blocking of the 24x7 flow of most of the major rivers in the subarctic from Siberia to Labrador.
ok simplicity seems to be hard to come by with the siloed scientists protecting the wholly grail of complexities around climate. What would it do to think of the planet as a being not unlike us humans and born with systems that maintain life and its longevity. If only the old scientific community would come down to Earth and follow the on the ground clues and evidence when it comes to climate .
ARE HUMAN AND PLANET SYSTEMS ALIKE?
There are very specific causes for human illness We run a fever, well the planet is running a fever too, and it is not stopping. And why is it not cooling down even with all the mitigation practices over the last decades? Because we are not treating a significant forcing factors some of which does sequestor Co2 but it is only one portion of the larger issue effecting other planetary spheres that continue to be ignored by the Science"experts". Maybe it's time to look at our planet with the same lense we look at human health.
OUR PLANET: PERSON OR LIVING ENTITY?
It’s time to consider our Earth as a living, breathing being possessing systems that keep it running smoothly and in good health. We now have to face the fact that the temperature of the planet is increasing. and as in other living beings this signals that something is happening out of the “normal functioning range”.
Scientists and 75% of the population call this climate change. We can also say the earth has a fever, and its not going down. When we humans have a prolonged fever we see a doctor. We test our fluids, our breathing, our blood pressure and our blood for toxic and nutritional levels. Our cardiovascular system - heart, arteries, veins and capillaries - supply us with nutrients, circulate oxygen from our lungs, and cleanse our kidneys and liver. In short, this system keeps us alive. Earth, as a living, breathing being, has a similar cardiovascular system in play - a system that is no longer functioning within “normal range”. In the Earth’s cardiovascular system, we can think of the oceans and atmosphere as its heart and lungs, large rivers its arteries, smaller rivers and streams, wetlands and bogs its veins and capillaries sending nutrients to its extremities.
OCEAN NUTRITION COMES FROM TERRESTRIAL SYSTEMS
Terrestrial ecosystem provide sustenance: nutrition, oxygen, and a home to living beings. Land is connected to the waterways providing food and life to aquatic species that travel, breed and participate in the lifecycle of the Earth. and those avenues of support are severely clogged, (similar to cardiovascular disease in humans) by large hydroelectric dams: mega-dams. Mega-dams are creating clots in the world’s circulatory system, not only retaining water for electricity generation, and also prohibiting passage of the nutrients which the marine ecosystem needs to live and thrive.
MARINE NUTRITION and CLIMATE CHANGE
The damming of rivers is one of mankind’s most significant modifications to the worlds cardiovascular system impacting the flow of water and associated materials from land to sea. Included in these nutrients are nutritional elements like nitrogen and phosphorus, required by all life on Earth, and silicon, which is required by diatoms, the plankton that account for the largest percentage of biological productivity in the oceans. Diatoms in the oceans sequester more Co2 than all the rainforests of the planet and up to 25% of Co2 on the planet is fixated by diatoms and every 5th breath you can thank microscopic diatoms for
MAJOR FREE FLOWING RIVERS OF UPPER NORTHERN HEMISPHERE ARE NO MORE
Prior to the mid 20th century many of the larger rivers had been functioning normally. Rivers have always been the main nutritional delivery system for the smallest microscopic living things in the oceans: diatoms (plankton), which feed the largest of marine mammals the Blue Whale. The estuaries, bays, and Continental Shelf flood each spring and during stormy periods, feeding the earth with rich nutritional sediments from erosion. Through the late 1950s into the 1980s many of the major rivers and waterways that emptied into the Northern Hemisphere oceans had large dams constructed that obstructed the natural flows containing much of the nutritional requirements of marine life.
Dams and flow regulation on rivers weaken the force of these upwelling ocean currents so fewer nutrients are available. The marine food chain is very dependent on diatoms, and their populations are declining rapidly; NASA has indicated diatom populations are diminishing by about one percent per year. This equates to a significant increase in CO2 levels, because CO2 removal by diatoms is not occurring at the same rate before dams. The world’s ocean fisheries are also in decline. Starvation?
FLOW REGULATION IMPOUNDING SEA-SIZE X-RIVER WATERS FOR MONTHS
Strict flow regimens caused by hydroelectric dams in the subarctic regions: Here many of the Northern Hemisphere's largest rivers used to exist but now 95% of the water stagnates in sea-size impoundments for 6 months of the summer and continues melting the permafrost. long hours in the sun has led to excessive humidity and added greater amounts of methane rich fresh water to these dam reservoirs, insuring a now much much larger volume of and now warmer water to be discharged all winter-long. This is not only warming these regions in the winter but sending this much larger volume and warmer fresh water into the bays and Arctic Ocean region. This is occurring with many of the former rivers from Siberia to labrador Many other species, also important for carbon sequestration, are starving because of the nutrients withheld by river impoundments. . River obstruction and impoundment cuts off much of the nutrient flow to all marine life, stockpiling it behind dams, decomposing (emitting methane) and accelerating global warming.
CIRCULATION BLOCKED
Clearly out of the historical normal range, the planet’s coronary arteries are now severely compromised. Like cardiovascular disease in humans, deprivation of this ‘blood supply’ results in the starvation of aquatic life and with it the decline of livable terrestrial habitat. Unfortunately the earth does not have a primary care physician who would recommend surgery to remove these blockages, freeing up the blood supply allowing the patient to recover.
It is up to us, the tenants, to take the helm and choose not to invest in damming up its cardiovascular system. We need to live with, not on, the earth and allow it to recover from our antiquated energy generation practices, which are doing what may be irreparable harm. Divest from mega-dams. Remove the blockages that are continuing to damage our climate by preventing nutritional flow, thawing the permafrost and destroying habitats for all living things, land and sea. Let’s allow the Earth to heal itself by freeing up the natural flow of river waters.