741–750 of 1001 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Clearly it’s not true that “no one” could afford to live there. And if demand was low then the housing would become more affordable
No one can truly afford to live there, if you price in the cost of insurance. The only reason people live there is because they haven't hit the 1/100 chance yet.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wildfires are not the problem. They happen all the time without causing billion-dollar insurance claims. Insurance is always assets x risk. The issue is expensive flamable housing (assets) in a wildfire area (risk). We ask for trouble when we create million-dollar wooden houses surrounded by manicured gardens in desert enviroments. And build on a slope facing pervailing winds. The answer is concrete/brick houses with…
That doesn't align with the reality of these areas. To get insurance in these areas you have to demonstrate that you have created a defensible space around your house. This is enforced by local fire department inspections. I know this because I live near a fire prone area. Despite these things the area still burned. The problem isn't "lawns" or "wooden houses". In the case of the LA fires you would have had the burne…
I live along the Mediterranean sea in France, many wood fires every summer, with wind above 100km/h; never seen so many houses burn like in California even when most of our houses are concrete but with wooden framework.
I'm pretty sure that if houses were built like here (concrete / concrete blocks with terracota tiles on wooden framwork) at lot less would have burnt. Maybe those near the wooded slopes but not in the middle of a neighborhood block.
American, living in area prone to natural disasters: "Is the WHOLE WORLD becoming uninsurable?" The answer is obviously "no" since there are other parts of the world that don't live on a hurricane highway nor build houses made from firewood in an area prone to wildfires.
Honest question. Why when people describe wood framed homes do they always phrase it like houses made from "firewood", "sticks", "twigs" etc? It at least for me always detracts from the argument at hand. You could just as easily build a wood framed home with an exterior shell that is fire resistant using modern materials or brick.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wildfires are not the problem. They happen all the time without causing billion-dollar insurance claims. Insurance is always assets x risk. The issue is expensive flamable housing (assets) in a wildfire area (risk). We ask for trouble when we create million-dollar wooden houses surrounded by manicured gardens in desert enviroments. And build on a slope facing pervailing winds. The answer is concrete/brick houses with…
A forward looking (part of a) solution for Malibu would be the county acquiring and maintaining beach paths every few houses. Prescribed 10' wide fire breaks. This solves the fire problem AND the limited access to a public resource that is common in Malibu. Ideally a permeable surface without any growth, cleared at least 2x a year.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hurricanes are mostly just flood damage in the US, and some wind/debris damage exactly like the blown over trees you mention. Houses generally aren't destroyed by hurricanes in the sense of "the storm literally ripped them up", they're made uninhabitable by storm surges (flood). The scary ones are tornados. And tornados do genuinely fuck shit up. Even in those "enlightened" parts of the world you think have proper bu…
The real problem is that we're politically/socially unwilling to transfer the risk to the people who are responsible for creating it: Wealthy coastal landowners believe that the cost of home insurance should be about $2000/year. If their properties actually cost $200,000 per year to insure, then that's what they should have to pay! If they don't like it, they should either build something cheaper (that's the other ha…
This is important. Insurance was invented 2000+ years ago but aggressively deploying technology that worsens floods, weather, and fires is only around ~100.
But that doesn't mean that the concept may still be valid for the end user in a way or another, just that in the other end you may have a different kind of actor or mitigation of risk. That those events become far more common is not random or an act of some god, i.e. taxes for fossil carbon usage or other economic action towards those actors meant to have a fund for those cases. Or having a personal saving plan instead of giving that money to someone else, that in average may work better for most. Or force insurance companies to keep playing even when the odds are not so extremely favourable for them.
Every 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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s possible that solve the hurricane problems with proper building regulations and lower the risk of huge wildfires with controlled burning. But the US as always prefers to pretend that there’s nothing to be done when other parts of the world has figured it out. We have cyclones here similar to the hurricanes in the US and usually it just blows over some trees maybe causes a power outage. The absolute worst I have…
Hurricanes are mostly just flood damage in the US, and some wind/debris damage exactly like the blown over trees you mention. Houses generally aren't destroyed by hurricanes in the sense of "the storm literally ripped them up", they're made uninhabitable by storm surges (flood). The scary ones are tornados. And tornados do genuinely fuck shit up. Even in those "enlightened" parts of the world you think have proper bu…
American, living in area prone to natural disasters: "Is the WHOLE WORLD becoming uninsurable?" The answer is obviously "no" since there are other parts of the world that don't live on a hurricane highway nor build houses made from firewood in an area prone to wildfires.
Honest question. Why when people describe wood framed homes do they always phrase it like houses made from "firewood", "sticks", "twigs" etc? It at least for me always detracts from the argument at hand. You could just as easily build a wood framed home with an exterior shell that is fire resistant using modern materials or brick.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Spain just had the worst flooding ever, Australia has massive wildfire issues, coastal areas all over the world are flooding, inland areas are dealing with drought. It's definitely not just the US.
Climate change is gonna be really expensive. Some people have tried to point this out.