The US government says they shouldn't have to pay. I doubt there is enough data to state empirically that storm 'intensity' has increased substantially over the last 50 years relative to the last 1000.
We don't have a system in place to account for every environmental impact made by people. Is everyone that has ever dug a hole in the ground responsible in some small way for soil erosion to contaminate waterways?
Similarly, what about crop irrigation and water rights? Farmers use public waterways to the detriment of estuaries and deltas. This might cause economic and ecological problems down stream. This may cause destruction of property such as an oyster farm.
It's clear at this point that coastal environments are subject to change, and sometimes dramatic change, irrespective of human influence. This should factor into the cost of the property and its insurance.
> By leaving "the market" to contend with increased hurricane resistance alone you have just caused increased expenses for everyone building homes for ignoring fossil fuel externalities (some of which was encouraged by gov't subsisdy). And it's not just homes, it's maybe reworking entire metropolitan areas sewer or housing zones.
The cost of homes is not necessarily rising but being more fairly distributed to those who choose to live in high-insurance areas. The marginal value of the land will decrease, more money can be allocated towards home construction quality versus merely owning the land, and the cost of housing will normalize.
Higher cost to insure will place deflationary pressure on housing prices to normalize total cost of ownership.
So which is it? Do we have to carefully consider "subsidy" of some activities, or are we throwing up our hands and saying "we don't have a system in place to account for environmental impacts"? I would say economic impacts (instead of environmental) made by political decisions?
> The cost of homes is not necessarily rising but being more fairly distributed to those who choose to live in high-insurance areas.
I would dispute that claim. If a 200 year old plantation house in the south now has to be rebuilt to handle more extreme weather due to expanded areas of storm incursions are we to blame the "choice" of the current owners? This is to some degree a pretend level of market "choice" by people living in regions of the nation. What if a family has handed down that house for generations. Did they make a choice of any sort? But they'll have to bear the cost of the upgraded durability of the building beyond that of regular maintenance. Public city infrastructure is the same way - incurring completely unneccessary upgrade costs due to non-choice climate change.
The future always holds some level of uncertainty. At this point, most people believe climate change is a certainty, so they have to operate based on those assumptions.
I don't think anyone had this information 50 years ago, so who are we going to hold accountable?
The US government says they shouldn't have to pay. I doubt there is enough data to state empirically that storm 'intensity' has increased substantially over the last 50 years relative to the last 1000.
We don't have a system in place to account for every environmental impact made by people. Is everyone that has ever dug a hole in the ground responsible in some small way for soil erosion to contaminate waterways?
Similarly, what about crop irrigation and water rights? Farmers use public waterways to the detriment of estuaries and deltas. This might cause economic and ecological problems down stream. This may cause destruction of property such as an oyster farm.
It's clear at this point that coastal environments are subject to change, and sometimes dramatic change, irrespective of human influence. This should factor into the cost of the property and its insurance.
> By leaving "the market" to contend with increased hurricane resistance alone you have just caused increased expenses for everyone building homes for ignoring fossil fuel externalities (some of which was encouraged by gov't subsisdy). And it's not just homes, it's maybe reworking entire metropolitan areas sewer or housing zones.
The cost of homes is not necessarily rising but being more fairly distributed to those who choose to live in high-insurance areas. The marginal value of the land will decrease, more money can be allocated towards home construction quality versus merely owning the land, and the cost of housing will normalize.
Higher cost to insure will place deflationary pressure on housing prices to normalize total cost of ownership.