Disasters

"President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead EPA lives in an area at high risk for flooding that gets federal support for climate mitigation."

"Without insurance, it’s impossible to get a mortgage; without a mortgage, most Americans can’t buy a home."

"With 2024 set to become the hottest year on record, growing climate extremes mean some places around the world will become uninhabitable and that could lead to mass migration."

"Despite two weeks of U.N.-sponsored talks in Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh, the participating 197 nations failed to agree early Saturday on a plan to deal with global droughts, made longer and more severe by a warming climate."

"Texas has seen surging interest from companies hoping to bury carbon dioxide in its oilfields, putting the state at the vanguard of a government-subsidized program to fight climate change. But pumping CO2 into the ground could exacerbate earthquakes and well blowouts already happening in the Permian Basin as Texas struggles to manage wastewater disposal, potentially undermining public support."

"Thousands of Southern California residents were under evacuation orders and warnings Tuesday as firefighters battled a wind-driven wildfire in Malibu that burned near celebrities’ seaside mansions, horse farms and Pepperdine University, where students watched as flames raced down hillsides and the sky turned deep red."

"Human-caused global warming helped increase dry conditions on every continent, scientists said in a new report, as talks on halting desertification were underway in Saudi Arabia."

"After the loss of key federal wetlands protections in 2023, scientists are warning the damage this change could bring to wetlands would also bring billions of dollars of flood damage with it. According to a report from the Union of Concerned Scientists, there are 30 million acres of wetlands across the upper Midwestern United States providing crucial flood prevention benefits, whose loss could potentially cost the region more than $22 billion annually."

"As sea levels rise and natural disasters become more intense, homes in low-lying coastal areas or tinder-dry mountains are starting to lose value. That’s a problem for the finances of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored enterprises that back half of the nation’s outstanding mortgages — and keep the residential real estate market liquid by buying mortgages from banks and repackaging them into securities."

"Concern over the climate crisis may evaporate in the White House from January, but its financial costs are now starkly apparent to Americans in the form of soaring home insurance premiums – with those in the riskiest areas for floods, storms and wildfires suffering the steepest rises of all."