[✔️] April 11, 2023- Global Warming News Digest | Real Estate bubbling, Charleston, SC. Stefan Rahmstorf on oceans, AI Chatbots. irrational decisions, fringe thinking, quiet revolution, Krugman

[Richard Pauli]

/*April*//*11, 2023*/

/[  watch the money, watch the homestead  ] /
*Bubble trouble: Climate change is creating a huge and growing U.S. real 
estate bubble*
Rising seas, bigger floods, and other increasing climate hazards have 
created a dangerous instability in the U.S. financial system.
by JEFF MASTERS
APRIL 10, 2023
Homes constructed in flood plains, storm surge zones, regions with 
declining water availability, and the wildfire-prone West are overvalued 
by hundreds of billions of dollars, recent studies suggest, creating a 
housing bubble that puts the U.S. financial system at risk.

The problem will get worse as sea level rises and storms dump heavier 
rains and if unwise building practices continue. But increased awareness 
of climate risks, more realistic flood insurance pricing, and reform of 
government disaster policy could reduce this overvaluation — and the 
risk of an economically disastrous bubble burst.

Climate futurist Alex Steffen has described the climate change–worsened 
real estate bubble this way: “As awareness of risk grows, the financial 
value of risky places drops. Where meeting that risk is more expensive 
than decision-makers think a place is worth, it simply won’t be 
defended. It will be unofficially abandoned. That will then create more 
problems. Bonds for big projects, loans and mortgages, business 
investment, insurance, talented workers — all will grow more scarce. 
Then, value will crash, a phenomenon I call the Brittleness Bubble.” 
Something that is brittle is prone to a sudden, catastrophic failure, 
and cannot easily be repaired once broken.

*A housing bubble in the hundreds of billions of dollars*
A 2023 study in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Climate Change has 
drawn attention to a massive real estate bubble in the U.S. — property 
that is overvalued by $121-$237 billion because of current flood risk. 
And that may be an underestimate.

A 2022 study by actuarial and consulting firm Milliman put a much higher 
price tag on this bubble — $520 billion, with almost 3.5 million 
homeowners facing a decrease in property value greater than 10% if flood 
risk were priced correctly. For comparison, the U.S. government spent 
$431 billion via the Troubled Asset Relief Program to help people 
recover from the 2008 housing crisis. In an interview last week with 
cnbc.com, one of the few skeptics who recognized the housing market was 
on the brink of collapse in 2007 — Dave Burt, CEO of investment research 
firm DeltaTerra Capital — agreed that a huge U.S. housing bubble existed 
because of unpriced flood risk. “We think of this repricing issue as 
maybe a quarter of the size and magnitude of the [global financial 
crisis] in aggregate, but of course very, very damaging within those 
exposed communities,” he said.

Increased flooding from climate change is worsening this overvalued 
property bubble. And such estimates don’t account for the effects of 
climate change-intensified wildfires, drought, and extreme heat. For 
example, the surge in catastrophic wildfires in California in recent 
years has contributed to a major affordable-housing and insurance crisis 
in the state. Lack of water in dry states with water availability 
issues, like Arizona and California, has also created increased risk of 
property overvaluation. In addition, a rise in extreme heat from a 
warming climate combined with a growing urban heat island effect is 
likely to make living in hot cities like Phoenix and Miami undesirable 
for an increasing number of people in coming decades, potentially 
depressing property values there.

Property overvaluation is particularly widespread among low-income 
households, which tend to be located in high-risk flood areas where land 
is cheaper. Poorer neighborhoods also receive fewer government dollars 
for flood protection infrastructure compared to wealthier neighborhoods, 
causing disproportionately high flood losses. If a crash in real estate 
values occurs, the U.S. wealth gap is likely to widen, because many 
households’ most valuable asset is their home.

    Jeff Masters
    @DrJeffMasters
    One of the comments: “I don't know if this fits my needs. Do you
    have any homes built into the rim of an active volcano?” NFIP allows
    you to insure the property for up to $250K, and I expect the
    premiums are a few thousand per year (not easy to find specific NFIP
    rates online).
    https://twitter.com/DrJeffMasters/status/1640882423939432449?

*The danger of the climate change–worsened real estate bubble*
In part because of worsening climate change impacts, home insurers are 
already pulling out of the most at-risk areas, which has led to an 
insurance crisis in three states — Florida, Louisiana, and California. 
This insurance crisis threatens to make property ownership too expensive 
for millions, posing a serious threat to the economically critical real 
estate industry. Homebuyers who can’t afford insurance can’t get a 
mortgage, and in those fire and flood zones where insurance rates 
skyrocket, many owners will try to sell, potentially triggering panic 
selling and a housing market collapse like the crisis of 2008...
- -
The 2023 study warned: “The collapse of housing prices during the Great 
Recession had negligible impacts on local government property tax 
revenues. In contrast, declines in property values due to climate risk 
are unlikely to be temporary, particularly for properties affected by 
sea-level rise … local governments may need to adapt their fiscal 
structure to continue to provide essential public goods and services.”
- -
*Six actions that could help with the climate change real-estate bubble*
*1) Require sellers to fully disclose flood risks when selling a property.*
The 2023 Nature Climate Change study found that in general, highly 
overvalued properties are concentrated in counties along the coast with 
no flood-risk disclosure laws. A prospective buyer who is informed of 
the flood risks of a property may be less likely to pay top dollar for 
it if the flood risks were high, reducing its overvaluation. Many states 
require a seller to detail the flood risk of any property being sold, 
and several more have implemented new disclosure laws in recent years. 
However, the powerful real estate industry often opposes these laws. The 
state with the highest amount of overvalued property — Florida — has no 
requirement to disclose flood risk...

*2) Increase climate change awareness.*
Several studies have shown that less development occurs in high-risk 
areas where there is greater awareness of climate change. Climate change 
awareness has been increasing in recent years (see Tweet below), and the 
new floodfactor.com tool that rates property-specific flood, heat, wind, 
and wildfire risk from the nonprofit First Street Foundation has the 
potential to further increase awareness in the coming years...
- -
NFIP rate hikes are causing homeownership to grow too expensive for 
some, particularly those with lower income, and a steady stream of 
people have been canceling their flood insurance policies in recent 
years ...

*3) Charge market-based insurance rates.*
The National Flood Insurance Program, or NFIP, has historically charged 
rates far lower than the actual flood risk. As a result, the program has 
experienced multiple taxpayer-funded bailouts, beginning in 2005 with 
Hurricane Katrina. NFIP is currently $20.5 billion in debt...
- -
*4) Reduce federal subsidies to live in risky places...*
  I estimate that at minimum it will take a year of us meeting regularly 
to write something that will be effective. Longer to negotiate it 
through various stakeholders. Our stumbling block has been a lack of 
political support and funding.”...
- -
*5) Revamp FEMA and create a National Disaster Safety Board. *
In its present form, FEMA is underfunded, understaffed, and has minimal 
authority. FEMA could be revamped and well-funded, becoming a 
cabinet-level organization...
- -
In addition, a National Disaster Safety Board could advocate for policy 
changes that would correct bad development decisions, discriminatory 
policies, and lack of climate change planning.

*6) Implement a fair and properly funded managed retreat policy. *
Rather than rebuilding in areas of known hazard multiple times — a 
practice subsidized by taxpayers — we could instead get people out of 
flood zones and into affordable housing...
*When will the bubble burst?*
The inexorable rise in sea level alone increases the risk of a bubble 
burst unless radically transformative policies are enacted to reduce it.

NOAA predicts that sea level rise by 2050 for the U.S. will average 
10-14 inches for the East Coast, 14-18 inches for the Gulf Coast, and 
four to eight inches for the West Coast. A rapid rise will continue 
thereafter, with NOAA estimating that the U.S. will experience four to 
seven feet of sea level rise by 2100, compared to 2000, in the 
intermediate and high scenarios.

But considering that people are continuing to flock to the 
climate-vulnerable Sun Belt states, we may still have a few years — and 
perhaps decades — before the bubble pops. One period of increased risk 
will likely occur in the mid-2030s, when a wobble in the moon’s orbit 
(part of a cycle that repeats every 18.6 years) will being unusually 
high tides to the U.S. Gulf Coast and West Coast, causing a surge in 
sunny-day high tide flooding. But given the highly concerning ramp-up in 
extreme weather in recent years, the housing bubble could burst sooner 
than that. Uncertainty has not been our friend when it comes to the 
impacts of extreme weather, which have largely been underpredicted by 
the climate models...
- -
There isn’t going to be an orderly transition to a new society that is 
in balance with the 21st-century climate; a massive climate-change 
disruption is already underway, and this great upheaval will 
fundamentally rip at the fabric of society. The sooner we acknowledge 
and plan for this reality, the less expensive and disruptive the 
transition will be, and the less suffering and death will occur.

Consider this vision for the future, though, from the excellent new 
book, “Charleston: Race, Water, and the Coming Storm,” by Susan 
Crawford: “Imagine planning for a multi-decade, gradual move, in 
consultation with each community, to new and welcoming locations 
well-connected to transit and jobs. Imagine caring for the least 
well-off among us, ensuring that they have a voice in this planning and 
choices about whether, when and how to leave, while firmly setting an 
endpoint on human habitation in the riskiest places.”
https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2023/04/bubble-trouble-climate-change-is-creating-a-huge-and-growing-u-s-real-estate-bubble/

- -

/[ book mentioned above ]/
*Charleston: Race, Water, and the Coming Storm *
by Susan Crawford (Author),
An unflinching look at a beautiful, endangered, tourist-pummeled, and 
history-filled American city.

At least thirteen million Americans will have to move away from American 
coasts in the coming decades, as rising sea levels and increasingly 
severe storms put lives at risk and cause billions of dollars in 
damages. In Charleston, South Carolina, denial, boosterism, widespread 
development, and public complacency about racial issues compound; the 
city, like our country, has no plan to protect its most vulnerable. In 
these pages, Susan Crawford tells the story of a city that has played a 
central role in America's painful racial history for centuries and now, 
as the waters rise, stands at the intersection of climate and race.

Unbeknownst to the seven million mostly white tourists who visit the 
charming streets of the lower peninsula each year, the Holy City is in a 
deeply precarious position. Weaving science, narrative history, and the 
family stories of Black Charlestonians, Charleston chronicles the 
tumultuous recent past in the life of the city—from protests to 
hurricanes—while revealing the escalating risk in its future. A 
bellwether for other towns and cities, Charleston is emblematic of vast 
portions of the American coast, with a future of inundation juxtaposed 
against little planning to ensure a thriving future for all residents.

In Charleston, we meet Rev. Joseph Darby, a well-regarded Black minister 
with a powerful voice across the city and region who has an acute sense 
of the city's shortcomings when it comes to matters of race and water. 
We also hear from Michelle Mapp, one of the city's most promising Black 
leaders, and Quinetha Frasier, a charismatic young Black entrepreneur 
with Gullah-Geechee roots who fears her people’s displacement. And there 
is Jacob Lindsey, a young white city planner charged with running the 
city’s ten-year “comprehensive plan” efforts who ends up working for a 
private developer. These and others give voice to the extraordinary 
risks the city is facing.

The city of Charleston, with its explosive gentrification over the last 
thirty years, crystallizes a human tendency to value development above 
all else. At the same time, Charleston stands for our need to change our 
ways—and the need to build higher, drier, more densely-connected places 
where all citizens can live safely.

Illuminating and vividly rendered, Charleston is a clarion call and 
filled with characters who will stay in the reader’s mind long after the 
final page.
https://www.amazon.com/Charleston-Race-Water-Coming-Storm/dp/1639363572



/[ Latest climate science ]/
*Prof. Stefan Rahmstorf: The Oceans in a Changing Climate*
Earth System Analysis - Potsdam Institute
3,462 views  Oct 4, 2022
The Earth is undergoing a major rapid warming, unprecedented in its 
speed for millions of years. How is this affecting the physics of the 
oceans, and thereby us? The lecture will cover ocean warming and its 
consequences:

- Arctic summer sea ice cover has shrunk by half in extent and also in 
thickness, so that only about a quarter of the ice mass that was normal 
until the 1970s is left now.

- Thermal expansion and loss of land ice is causing global sea-level to 
rise, by around 20 cm thus far, and accelerating. The latest IPCC report 
concluded that 2 meters by the year 2100 cannot be ruled out.

- Tropical cyclones draw their energy from the heat stored in the upper 
ocean and are consequently already getting more violent with global 
warming, and also extending their range to higher latitudes.

- The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) has been 
weakening since the mid-twentieth Century and is now weaker than any 
time in the last 1,000 years. This is of great concern as it is already 
having an impact on European weather, and the AMOC has a tipping point 
where it will grind to a halt altogether.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnUlax_S5EA&t=3s



/ [ AI chatbot  ]/
*HOW AI CAN HELP COMBAT CLIMATE CHANGE*
Jim Bellingham, executive director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for 
Assured Autonomy, discusses the potential to use AI in tracking and 
mitigating the effects of climate change ahead of a presentation at the 
South by Southwest Conference on March 15
ByMegan Mastrola / Published Mar 7
How is AI being used to address climate change?
The interesting aspect of AI is that it applies to so many things we do, 
including tasks that were previously activities only humans could 
accomplish. Climate change is one of the most difficult scientific 
problems that humans have ever faced. It's a phenomenally complex system 
with an enormous number of variables. When people talk about climate 
change, they tend to focus on the physical aspects of climate, such as 
the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, temperatures, 
precipitation levels, and wind patterns. But these characteristics are 
all shaped by a living planet that is constantly changing. If you took 
life off planet Earth, it would have a very different environment.

Climate data sets are enormous and take significant time to collect, 
analyze, and use to make informed decisions and enact actual policy 
change. Using AI to factor in elements of climate change that are 
constantly evolving helps us make more informed predictions about 
changes in the environment, so that we can deploy mitigation efforts 
earlier...
- -
*What are some challenges that experts are facing when using AI to 
address climate change?*
One of the challenges we have in really understanding climate is to 
begin to truly comprehend the complexities of the living part of our 
ecosystem, particularly our oceans. The oceans present a number of 
difficulties, including the fact that it is prohibitively expensive to 
deploy and maintain the number of ships we need to observe the ocean and 
collect needed data. Robots are being increasingly used for this 
purpose, but their autonomous capabilities need to be improved. This is 
where AI comes into play.

The additional oversight and prediction that AI provides to researchers 
is valuable, but there are expenses that need to be considered to assess 
the true benefits in terms of climate change work. One example is that 
AI relies on computers, and computers need electrical power to function, 
and electricity uses resources. Scientists and researchers must keep the 
use of electricity that is used to power AI technology in mind when 
assessing how beneficial the technology is in addressing climate change. 
On average, each new generation of processor carries out more 
computations for less power, but AI demands for computation are fueling 
an explosion of investment in computational power. The AI technology we 
have today is due in part to the enormous computational power we have.

*What do you predict will be AI's biggest impact on combatting climate 
change in the next five to 10 years?*
My hope for the future of AI is that we will be able to have a 
meaningful impact on predicting climate change. As humans become more 
confident in AI, we will be able to rely on technology more to 
understand climate change and to make more accurate predictions and 
models. This will allow us to be more targeted in our strategies to 
mitigate the worst effects. Assurance in autonomy and AI is one area 
that needs to be taken very seriously. Even if we don't think something 
is an AI problem today, it will be an AI problem next week or next month.
https://hub.jhu.edu/2023/03/07/artificial-intelligence-combat-climate-change/



/[ 3 California guys talk doomscrolling, roadkill, and hopium.  Yet keep 
a sense of humor ]/
*Sam Mitchell, Michael Campi & Eliot Jacobson Talk Doom*
Climate Casino
Apr 9, 2023  SANTA BARBARA
Michael Campi is an author on medium.com who has recently been featured 
in a couple of Sam's videos on Collapse Chronicles. In this "get to know 
you" chat, Michael dives deep into his life as a doomer, sharing a few 
doomer-author secrets along the way.
Here's a link to Michael's articles & bio on medium:
https://medium.com/@campmac15
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQJI1DXDcdE



/[ one cognitive bias explained in a YouTube video ]/
*The psychology behind irrational decisions - Sara Garofalo*
TED-Ed
2,178,418 views  May 12, 2016
View full lesson: 
https://ed.ted.com/lessons/the-psychology-behind-irrational-decisions-sara-garofalo.

Often people make decisions that are not “rational” from a purely 
economical point of view — meaning that they don’t necessarily lead to 
the best result. Why is that? Are we just bad at dealing with numbers 
and odds? Or is there a psychological mechanism behind it? Sara Garofalo 
explains heuristics, problem-solving approaches based on previous 
experience and intuition rather than analysis.

Lesson by Sara Garofalo, animation by TOGETHER.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2EMuoM5IX4

- -

/[ discussion of fringe thinking  ]/
*Michael Shermer: Why the Rational Believe the Irrational*
     Commonwealth Club of California
43,954 views  Nov 4, 2022  SAN FRANCISCO
Long a fringe part of the American political landscape, conspiracy 
theories are now mainstream: 147 members of Congress voted in favor of 
objections to the 2020 presidential election based on an unproven theory 
about a rigged electoral process promoted, in part, by followers of the 
mysterious QAnon community, itself a network of believers of a 
wide-ranging conspiracy involving pedophilia among elected officials and 
other civic and business leaders. But these are only the latest examples 
of a long history of conspiracies that have gained adherents in society. 
In his timely new book, Conspiracy, Michael Shermer, founding publisher 
of Skeptic magazine, discusses what makes conspiracies so appealing to 
segments of the population.

Shermer finds that conspiracy theories cut across gender, age, race, 
income, education level, occupational status―and even political 
affiliation. One reason that people believe these conspiracies, Shermer 
argues, is that enough of them are real that we should be constructively 
conspiratorial: elections have been rigged, medical professionals have 
intentionally harmed patients in their care, your government does lie to 
you, and, tragically, some adults do conspire to sexually abuse 
children. But Shermer reveals that other factors are also in play: 
anxiety and a sense of loss of control play a role in conspiratorial 
cognition patterns, as do certain personality traits.

Join us for Dr. Shermer's discussion in our continuing series on false 
narratives. It is for anyone concerned about the future direction of 
American politics, as well as anyone who has watched friends or family 
fall into patterns of conspiratorial thinking
  November 1, 2022
Speakers

    Michael Shermer
    Publisher, Skeptic Magazine; Executive Director, The Skeptics
    Society; Author, Conspiracy: Why the Rational Believe the Irrational

    Eric Siegel
    Chair, Personal Growth Member-led Forum, The Commonwealth Club of
    California—Moderator

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDgJ4l8HtlE



/[  time to notice the future trends -  A global problem will train us 
in de-globalization? ]/
*Planet Local: A Quiet Revolution (English)*
Local Futures
35,798 views  Jun 20, 2022
Planet Local: A Quiet Revolution, a film by the international NGO Local 
Futures, shows a quiet and transformative revolution emerging worldwide.

Away from the screens of the mainstream media, the crude ‘bigger is 
better’ narrative that has dominated economic thinking for centuries is 
being challenged. As people work to protect and restore their local 
economies, their communities and the natural world, countless diverse 
initiatives are demonstrating a new path forward for humanity. It’s a 
path that localizes rather than globalizes, connects rather than 
separates, and shows us that human beings need not be the problem – we 
can be the solution.

Featuring activists from every continent alongside figures like Russell 
Brand, Noam Chomsky, Vandana Shiva, Helena Norberg-Hodge, Naomi Klein, 
Jane Goodall and Gabor Maté, Planet Local: A Quiet Revolution is a 
timely and compelling call to action.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHAXdrLagwY



/[The news archive - looking back]/
/*April 11, 2010*/
April 11, 2010: In the New York Times Magazine, Paul Krugman observes:

"If you listen to climate scientists — and despite the relentless 
campaign to discredit their work, you should — it is long past time to 
do something about emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse 
gases. If we continue with business as usual, they say, we are facing a 
rise in global temperatures that will be little short of apocalyptic. 
And to avoid that apocalypse, we have to wean our economy from the use 
of fossil fuels, coal above all.

"But is it possible to make drastic cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions 
without destroying our economy?

"Like the debate over climate change itself, the debate over climate 
economics looks very different from the inside than it often does in 
popular media. The casual reader might have the impression that there 
are real doubts about whether emissions can be reduced without 
inflicting severe damage on the economy. In fact, once you filter out 
the noise generated by special-interest groups, you discover that there 
is widespread agreement among environmental economists that a 
market-based program to deal with the threat of climate change — one 
that limits carbon emissions by putting a price on them — can achieve 
large results at modest, though not trivial, cost."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/magazine/11Economy-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&


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