Your Independent Journal from the Heartland
In case we thought the climate crisis wasn’t going to affect our personal lives, here’s a news flash.
No one wants to learn their home’s value is dropping but First Street Foundation says that in some areas it probably is. The non-profit research and technology organization’s mission is to assess the financial risks of climate change for companies and governments.
A Feb. 4 report by First Street entitled “Property Prices in Peril” (how absurd to advocate with an abundance of alliteration) was covered by CBS News and USA Today. It predicts that American home values will likely sink nearly $1.5 trillion in the next 30 years due to damage from floods, fires and crumbling coastlines caused by the climate crisis.
Besides the drop in value for homes in harm’s way, there are rising insurance costs for those properties. No, not everyone’s home will lose worth. But the amount of money lost will be six times the amount gained, according to First Street’s projections. Be assured that the insurance companies take studies like these very seriously because their profits depend on realistic risks for compensating claims. As property prices in the sunbelt might drop up to 40%, the report estimates insurance premiums in Jacksonville and New Orleans will triple and Miami’s will quadruple.
There are already climate migrations by the millions going on in America. People have moved from California to flee the frequent forest fires and from Florida and the Gulf of Donald to avoid recurring hurricanes. The Midwest seems to be their favorite destination even though they have to acclimate themselves to winter weather, which was what they had moved away from to begin with. So some of these returning refugees now had to sell their homes at a loss from what they had paid.
Meanwhile, to underscore the urgency of climate change, temperatures in the Arctic Circle soared by 36 degrees Fahrenheit above average in February to reach the point of ice melting and that’s in the middle of winter!
Such extreme warming of the northern icecap could accelerate the rising of sea levels. If the same thing happens in Antarctica during the Southern Hemisphere’s winter a few months from now, we could be looking at cataclysmic flooding of coastal areas worldwide. Projected models of sea levels are basically guesswork anyway, and such warming of the poles could bring the future into the present splashing on our shores. A state like Florida which is flat as a pancake and only a few feet above the ocean, could suffer the drowning of whole cities.
Also meanwhile, President Felon 47 is actually set to increase U.S. oil production which set a record high in 2024. So we’re doubling down on our murder-suicide of the world and our human family.
Maybe there’s a chance that an economic wake-up call like the First Street Foundation’s report will jolt us out of our fossil fool bottom-of-the barrel behavior, but would you bet on it?
The smart money says things are getting worse, and we just elected the world’s worst spoiled brat to lead the nation in our treatment of the Earth.
Frank Lingo, based in Lawrence, Kansas, is a former columnist for the Kansas City Star and author of the novel “Earth Vote.”
Email: lingofrank@gmail.com.
See his website: Greenbeat.world
