Fire, like death, will not escape the wealthy. Even homes of people like Mel Gibson, Billy Crystal, and Paris Hilton, among others, were destroyed. They, though, with their wealth will find it easier to rebuild or relocate. Insurance companies, already reeling from floods and hurricanes, are rethinking how or what to insure.
The insurance issue obviously affects us along the Eastern seaboard. Nearly 2 million home contracts have not been renewed since 2018 and more than 200 counties have seen their rates increase by triple or more. Here in New Jersey Atlantic and Hudson counties have the highest non-renewal rates.
It would have been cheaper to reduce the rate of global warming. Just this past year between hurricanes destroying much of the western south and Los Angeles, just to mention two terrible events, the cost is more than it would have been to really shift to clean energy, don’t you think? But now, fossil fuel companies are licking their chops,
Prayer for the Day
Coming to us, O Lord, where we are, not where we would like to be,
We shudder at your warning in wind and fire;
Forcing us to acknowledge our failings of you and the earth,
We know we must respond to your call and listen to your word.
Let us move beyond our inability to change our lives
So we heal the damage we have done to your creation.
In the name of the One walks with us,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
We’ll see faster sea level rise in the future if we continue to (release) greenhouse gas emissions.
Robert Kopp, Earth & Planetary Sciences, Rutgers
Southern New England, the Carolinas, New Mexico and counties in the Northern Rockies, Oklahoma, and Hawaii all suffer from high non-renewal rates, demonstrating that the full panoply of climate-related effects — hurricanes, wildfires, severe convective storms, hail, extreme precipitation, and sea level rise — are all destabilizing insurance markets.
From Next to Fall: The Climate Driven Insurance Crisis, U.S Senate Report
Make me to know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths.
Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation,
For you I wait all day long.
Psalm 25: 4-5