Earlier quoted context omitted.
Climate change enters the chat...
Pole drift.
Magnetic, rotational, geodetic .. ?
What are you trying to say?
Is the world becoming uninsurable?
331–340 of 1001 posts
Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?
#332Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?
#333Not uninsurable, but buildings are going to have to become tougher. It's happened before. Chicago's reaction to the Great Fire was simple - no more building wooden houses. Chicago went all brick. Still is, mostly. The trouble is, brick isn't earthquake resistant. Not without steel reinforcement. I live in a house built of cinder block filled with concrete reinforced with steel. A commercial builder built this as his…
Wood for earthquake resistance vs masonry for fire resistance seems like a false dichotomy. Australia has a lot of experience with building fire resistant homes, and they didn’t do it with masonry, they did it with timber and steel framed homes, plus fireproof cladding and roofing materials, keeping a perimeter free of vegetation and protecting against ember ingress. It is possible to have both earthquake and fire re…
Australia is surprisingly urban, especially in terms of I would guess 90%+ of people live in relatively safe places fire wise (putting inhalation of particles aside).
People in built up areas almost don't think at all about wildfire safety, cladding an so on.
Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?
#334Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Yugoslavia, in 1969, one of the biggest earthquakes occurred, destroying several cities. After that, the country’s leaders decided to change building codes. Even today, although Yugoslavia no longer exists, the countries that adopted those codes have homes capable of withstanding earthquakes up to 7.5 on the Richter scale. My main point is that if we face major natural disasters, we need to take action to mitigate…
In 1666 London had a bit of a problem with fire, after that some building codes were introduced. Buildings made entirely from wood were not allowed and roofs had to have a parapet. If you don't know what a parapet is, take a look up to the roofs on London's older buildings, the front wall rises up past the bottom of the roof. If there is a fire in the building then the parapet keeps the burning roof inside the footpr…
> ideally nobody has living memory of the last [...]
Funny, I would have said the exact opposite. If people forget how bad things were, they seem more likely to repeat them.
Nazism, for one. And the rise in antivax sentiment - people today have never come across an iron lung, which is a testament to medical technology, but it means some silly opinions get way more traction than they should.
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" - George Santayana
Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?
#335Every era has it's Malthusian alarmists and without fail, each has been proven wrong by exactly the same thing the author decries and says won't work this time: technological change and adaption. There's no reason to think this time will be any different. Will some places become uninsurable? Sure, plenty of places over time have become uninsurable. Will the whole world became uninsurable? Absolutely not, because we a…
I think what I worry about is large-scale migrations of people to 'better' areas and the problems that's going to cause.
Let alone migrations for other reasons, e.g. moving to states with better human rights or work availability.
Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?
#336Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Yugoslavia, in 1969, one of the biggest earthquakes occurred, destroying several cities. After that, the country’s leaders decided to change building codes. Even today, although Yugoslavia no longer exists, the countries that adopted those codes have homes capable of withstanding earthquakes up to 7.5 on the Richter scale. My main point is that if we face major natural disasters, we need to take action to mitigate…
Yeah, I'm surprised that the damages of the LA fire occurred, because it was known beforehand that California had a fire problem (and also have an earthquake problem I think). I'm here in Eastern Europe and our buildings can withstand a lot of things. > we need to take action to mitigate their impact in the future. As a foreigner, it seems to me that Americans prioritize building cheap homes over constructing better…
All the properties that survived in those LA neighborhoods all had some pretty basic and intentional fire resistance
I’m curious about how many others did that burned down too
But so far the ones highlighted had super obvious mitigations that its astounding to see were not more common
Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?
#337Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Yugoslavia, in 1969, one of the biggest earthquakes occurred, destroying several cities. After that, the country’s leaders decided to change building codes. Even today, although Yugoslavia no longer exists, the countries that adopted those codes have homes capable of withstanding earthquakes up to 7.5 on the Richter scale. My main point is that if we face major natural disasters, we need to take action to mitigate…
In 1666 London had a bit of a problem with fire, after that some building codes were introduced. Buildings made entirely from wood were not allowed and roofs had to have a parapet. If you don't know what a parapet is, take a look up to the roofs on London's older buildings, the front wall rises up past the bottom of the roof. If there is a fire in the building then the parapet keeps the burning roof inside the footpr…
> Florida was obliterated in 2024
That’s an huge exaggeration. FL was not obliterated in 2024.
Stats:
Total storms 18
Hurricanes 11
Major hurricanes (Cat. 3+) 5
Total fatalities 401
Total damage $128.072 billion
(Third-costliest tropical cyclone season on record)
Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?
#338Earlier quoted context omitted.
The fire problem can be managed by burning or removing some of the dead wood, and building adequate water storage. Apparently California has been neglecting those two problems for decades.
Frankly, this is just an ignorant take. Put Twitter/Elon Musk down for a bit. The Palisades Fire was not a forest fire. Please dispel your myths and learn what 60-80 mph winds, sometimes 100 mph gusts, can do.
While having above ground power lines
While having unmanaged accumulated flammable brush
While having an empty reservoir under repair
While having the public water source unable to maintain water pressure for multiple hydrant usage
While having too few fire fighters dispatched in the area anyway
While having houses made out of wood
is it an ignorant take when the houses not made out of wood with their own watersource were able to withstand 100mph wind gusts and firestorm? it really really makes everyone else look ignorant
Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?
#339Not uninsurable, but buildings are going to have to become tougher. It's happened before. Chicago's reaction to the Great Fire was simple - no more building wooden houses. Chicago went all brick. Still is, mostly. The trouble is, brick isn't earthquake resistant. Not without steel reinforcement. I live in a house built of cinder block filled with concrete reinforced with steel. A commercial builder built this as his…
If the market is allowed to price insurance correctly then we can motivate building designs to be more disaster resist. If the McMansion can't get insurance but disaster resistant, modest homes do, then people will adapt.
It was only a week or so ago that I learned that a major failure mode of most houses in Florida during Hurricane season used to be the roofs ripping off. The tie plates and straps that were invented to solve that problem created the McMansion as a side effect.[1]
Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?
#340Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Yugoslavia, in 1969, one of the biggest earthquakes occurred, destroying several cities. After that, the country’s leaders decided to change building codes. Even today, although Yugoslavia no longer exists, the countries that adopted those codes have homes capable of withstanding earthquakes up to 7.5 on the Richter scale. My main point is that if we face major natural disasters, we need to take action to mitigate…
(Recently there was a major public building collapse in Serbia: the porch of the Novi Sad railway station collapsed, killing 15 people. This has really focused attention on corruption and caused massive protests.)
What collapsed was the newly rebuilt part of the porch, not the old one built to those codes. It has nothing to do with insufficient building codes, hence a corruption scandal.