Hopes and Dreams - Stuck on AutoDrive

The High Costs of Climate Change
September 24, 2023

The compounding costs of climate change total trouble for insurance companies... and people too.

AAA, Allstate, American Family, Farmers, Nationwide, State Farm, Erie Insurance Group, and Berkshire Hathaway have told regulators that climate change has led them to stop writing coverages in some regions, exclude protections from various weather events, and raise premiums and deductibles.

The wildfires in California have been more frequent and intense because of increased temperatures, droughts, and earlier snow melts. California has more than 1.2 million homes at moderate to extreme risk of wildfire damage. Allstate, State Farm, American International Group, and Chubb have announced they will stop issuing new policies for California homes. The state is just too risky.

Flood waters and hurricanes continue to swamp Florida. A third of Florida's population lives in flood-prone areas, and even more Floridians are at risk from hurricanes. Home insurance policies in Florida now average $6,000 per year, more than double the national average of $1,700. Florida home insurance damage claims are capped at $700,000. And more than 13% of Florida homes are uninsured, about double the national average.

U.S. insurance companies have paid $295.8 billion in natural disaster losses from 2020 to 2022, a record for any three-year period.

U.S. insured losses from natural disasters 2013-2022

Summer of 2023

This summer had record heat, measured as global and sea surface temperatures.

June of 2023 was the hottest June on record. July was not just the hottest July but the hottest month since record keeping began in 1880. The record setting July heat came from equatorial Africa, Alaska, northern Canada, Mexico, and central America. Phoenix Arizona exceeded 110 degrees for all the days of July. And August of 2023 was the hottest August on record.

The roughly 6,000 Canadian wildfires in 2023 have scorched 34 million acres (the size of New York state). That's three times larger than any U.S. fire season and 10 times the 10-year average in Canada. The Canadian wildfires created 133 pyrocumulonimbus clouds (pyroCbs) with lightning, great walls of fire, and firenados with heights of 3,000 feet and speeds up to 140 mph. The pyroCbs are associated with volcanic eruptions and a typical year has 40 to 50 worldwide. Over 150,000 Canadians are currently displaced, with 145 million more in North America choking on toxic wildfire smoke. And next summer is expected to be worse.

The deadliest wildfire in modern U.S. history tore through Lahaina Maui on August 4th, leaving 97 dead and $5.5 billion in property damage.

Is climate change good for anything? Yes, climate change is great for poison ivy.

Music Associations: Michael Murphey - Wildfire
& Jerry Lee Lewis - Great Balls Of Fire

U.S. map - increased insurance risk due to climate change 2023

Truth or Consequences
August 26, 2023

“Now. Backstage we have a man that you won't believe. And before I forget, our hair and makeup department wants you to know they had nothing to do with his hair and makeup!

“This man had a job. He was fired. He refused to leave. He called anyone to attack the place. He took important papers. And now he's trying to get his job back while he's being prosecuted for attacking his job and stealing papers! The man doesn't have a soul to stand on.

“He thinks he's six foot three. His driver's license says he's six two. His elevator shoes say he's five nine if he's an inch!

“So here's what we're going to do.

“We've talked the people who hang around him into pulling a little prank on him. Well, we spread around a few dollars, and everyone was agreeable.

“You're going to love this.

“He's backstage, surrounded by hidden cameras. And we... are going to trick him out of his shoes!”

Music Association: Edd Kalehoff - Come On Down

Hopes and Dreams

Trump called Georgia on January 2, 2021 begging for votes

After 2 ½ Years & 75 Witnesses
Georgia Indictment of Trump & 18 Others
August 15, 2023

Trump and 18 others were criminally charged in connection with efforts to overturn his 2020 loss in the state of Georgia, according to a 41-count, 98-page indictment made public late last night.

Trump was charged with 13 counts, including violating the state’s racketeering act, soliciting a public officer to violate their oath, conspiring to impersonate a public officer, conspiring to commit forgery in the first degree, and conspiring to file false documents.

It’s the fourth and by far the most wide-ranging set of criminal charges Trump has faced.

   I. The New York Stormy Daniels hush money case
    II. The Mar-a-Lago classified documents case
    III. The Justice Department’s investigation into the January 6 attacks
    IIII. The Georgia investigation into Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election

Trump currently faces 91 charges in four criminal cases, in four different jurisdictions (two Federal cases and two state cases). All plan to try him as an adult.

If convicted in Georgia, Trump could face at least five years in prison and fines up to $250,000 or three times the amount of any pecuniary value gained from the scheme to interfere in the election results.

The Georgia indictment has several disadvantages to Trump. It charges his co-conspirators. It covers many of the post-election plots and shenanigans to overthrow the United States election. And the Georgia indictment has nothing to do with Trump appointed judges.

Unlike the Federal cases against Trump's activities, in Georgia the power to pardon is held by a Board of Pardons and Paroles, which requires that a sentence be completed at least five years prior to applying for any pardon.

Plus, Georgia courts are more transparent, more receptive (let's say) to televising Trump's criminal proceedings to the world.

Trump will push to move the indictment from Georgia to the Federal courts.

Music Association: Billie Holiday - They Can't Take That Away

Read the full Georgia indictment - here, here, or here.

Songs of Sweltering
Record Heat
July 26, 2023

The average planetary temperature hit a record high of 63° F last Thursday, July 20th. Sorry. That's on me. I used the microwave that night to warm up some vegetables.

Anthropogenic climate change caused June 2023 to be Earth’s warmest June on record and is responsible for shattered temperature records this month in China, Spain, and the southern US.

China set a new national daily temperature record of 126° F (52.2° C), at the Sanbao weather station in the Xinjiang Uygur region. Catalonia in Spain recorded its hottest-ever temperature of 113.7° F (45.4° C).

El Paso has endured 40 consecutive triple-digit days with at least a few more scorching hot days expected this week, about twice as long as El Paso's previous record. The streak began June 16.

Phoenix has reached 110 degrees or higher for 25 straight days, continuing the record for the most days in a row with temperatures that hot. Phoenix has also had 15 days in a row with lows in the 90s, another all-time record. The pavement there is more than 40 degrees hotter than the ambient temperature, hot enough to burn skin. Phoenix Fire Captain Kimberly Ragsdale told ABC15, “We're seeing people with heat stroke, heat exhaustion, dehydration, and we are seeing an increase to burn injuries to the skin.”

At the Las Vegas airport last week, Delta flight 555 sat on the tarmac in 111° F (43.8° C) heat with no air conditioning for four hours. Multiple passengers were seen by first responders, and a flight attendant and a passenger were transported to a local hospital.

Someone on social media commented, “Oh, the irony. People sitting on a plane in the extreme heat that's a direct result of climate change, and not one person says that maybe, just maybe, the best reason never to fly Delta (or any airline) is to preserve even a tiny chance of avoiding catastrophic climate change.”

More than 200 heat-related deaths have been reported in Mexico. Cattle have also died in Mexico's heat. The heat has also damaged cotton crops in China and olive crops in Spain. In Europe in 2022, an estimated 60,000 people were killed by the heat.

Sea water hit hot tub level at the tip of Florida. A Manatee Bay buoy recorded 101.1° F Monday evening, which may be a record sea water temperature, July 24th. Hot sea water is causing devastating coral bleaching and death in the supposedly resilient reefs of the Florida Keys.

Record wildfires continue to burn Canada. More than 650 wildfires were out of control as of July 24th. According to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Center more than 11 million hectares have already burned in 2023, compared to the 10-year average of about 800,000 hectares.

And the north Atlantic Ocean Gulf Stream may collapse as soon as 2025, as part of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (Amoc). The collapse of the currents would have disastrous consequences around the world, severely disrupting the rains that billions of people depend on for food in India, South America, and west Africa. It would increase storms and drop temperatures in Europe, and lead to a rising sea level on the eastern coast of North America. It would also further endanger the Amazon rainforest and Antarctic ice sheets. “I think we should be very worried,” said Peter Ditlevsen, at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, and who led the study in the journal Nature Communications. “This would be a very, very large change. The Amoc has not been shut off for 12,000 years.”