Humans, despite being the brainiest species ever to have lived, have an amazing penchant for getting bored by the very information that would keep them alive. Dismissing Climate Change warnings by climate scientists is like deer getting sick and tired of hearing wolves howling in the night and deciding to ignore the disturbing sounds altogether.

Yet the numbers—the number of carbon dioxide molecules in our atmosphere in parts per million (as of today it’s 409) and the number of inches our oceans are rising—keep climbing and most people still continue business as usual.

Climate Change presents some of the most intractable problems we face and some of these problems will be made insoluble if we don’t prioritize them. For example, if we keep responding to extreme weather in the same way we’ve done historically, we are never going to rebuild our homes in the aftermath of a deluge, and we’ll probably go broke trying.

As we go further into the Climate Change Bottleneck, where our past environmental abuses get cooked on a warming planet, insurance for flooding and the other consequences of Climate Change will become unsustainable. NOT planning for Climate Change is getting too expensive.

Only 10 percent have flood insurance on hard-hit Carolina coast People without flood insurance will lose their homes or have to try to rebuild on FEMA aid that is often less than $5,000. As Americans in North and South Carolina make it out of the Florence floodwaters, they face another daunting task: figuring out whether they can afford to rebuild. Few have flood insurance in the areas with the worst destruction. Home insurance does not typically cover flooding, a fact many realize the hard way. People have to purchase a separate flood insurance policy at least a month in advance of a major storm to be eligible for reimbursement. Only about one in 10 homes has flood insurance in the counties hit by Florence, according to a Washington Post analysis comparing the number of policies in National Flood Insurance Program data with the number of housing units in counties hit by the storm. Milliman, an actuarial firm, found similar results. (September 17, 2018) The Washington Post [more on Climate Change in our area]

Also, trying to escape regions that are continually experiencing extreme weather and not able to adapt is going to be problematic. Not every place is as inviting and relatively safe from the worst of a quickly warming planet as Rochester:

A year after Hurricane Maria, thousands of Puerto Ricans rebuild their lives in Rochester Sonia Burgos remembers her first few days working in the midst of hundreds of families who came to Monroe County with nothing. Burgos, a retired Rochester resident who came to the U.S. from Puerto Rico with her family at age 3, walked into the Ibero-American Action League headquarters last fall to see a mass of humanity. Puerto Rican families who fled an unprecedented island-wide disaster were now looking for basic necessities like clothing, bedding or household goods in a city miles from home. They’d come from neighborhoods either destroyed or maimed by Hurricane Maria, and many had been living in Puerto Rico without running water or electricity for months before deciding to leave. Some had family in Rochester, others did not. Most came with essentially their clothes on their backs. (September 20, 2018) Democrat and Chronicle [more on Climate Change in our area]

It is more likely that the ‘new reality’ of Climate Change will not be as onerous if we plan wisely, adapt, and prevent more warming than if we continue business as usual. Humanity can change; we don’t have to keep doing the same things that don’t work.

 ‘It’s Back’: Underwater Yet Again, the Carolinas Face a New Reality After Hurricane Matthew stomped into his trailer home and pulped his floors, walls and cabinets two years ago, Bobby Barnes Jr. spent $90,000 to rebuild and protect himself from another flood. He raised the house two feet onto brick pilings, bought $1,300 worth of flood fencing and said he complied with every federal recommendation. But on Tuesday morning, his family was underwater again. The Black River, 10 feet above flood stage and still rising, was now a lake that had swallowed farm fields around the Barnes’s house. The water lapped at their front door and sloshed around the newly laid floors. “It’s back,” Mr. Barnes said. “Same nightmare.” It was the kind of tragic, expensive, depressing rerun that played out across much of the Carolinas this week, not only on the coast, but in inland communities like this one in Sampson County, blessed with tobacco and turkeys, not sea and sand. (September 18, 2018) The New York Times [more on Climate Change in our area]


Time passes.