I am reminded of an Alan Perlis quip about Lisp programmers, "they know the value of everything and the cost of nothing." (Lisp is the second oldest high level computer programming language next to Fortran.) Well I say this not in jest, what is a gentle admonition about abusing system resources in the context of computing machinery is an all too accurate portrayal of current human existence.
When you consider the large coastal populations of the U.S. what motivates these inhabitants is scenery, not survival, as it is in Bangladesh. Scenery, not survival motivates most decisions about home location in the U.S.
Much of the U.S. is going to be rather unpleasant to occupy with large arid areas, or high humid heatdomes everpresent, or salt water intrusion into fresh water distribution systems. The value of all these locations is realistically nothing. The cost for remedies matters not. There are simply not the resources available to ameliorate coming adverse conditions.
That this will happen is sure. The question is the role of government. They are the insurers of last resort. Will they step in? If so, where, when and how? They could keep the current system more or less running by telling private insurers they'll underwrite their policies, for example.
A bigger question is "when can we no longer afford, materially (not financially) to continue to rebuild in places no one should live?" A second question is "how many of those places will their be?" A third question is "can we change how we build and live (aka, keeping wetlands or creating them) to make certain places inhabitable and safe?"
I think you might be underestimating the scale of the current building insurance crisis. My context is Australia, but we are a net importer of US insurance so what's happening to us is happening to you, just perhaps still hidden from obvious view in your larger population base
From first hand experience I can say that following catastrophic disaster (our floods are a big as yours, but our fires are many, many times larger) communities here are rebuilding only to find insurance premiums have gone up between 3 and 10 fold, if insurance is even still available.
There was no warning this would happen, and no news headlines about the reality, so the rebuilding funds had already been committed long before the re-insurance threat was seen. And long before we recognised our governments would do NOTHING to minimise the threat in the future.
This has left many communities now wholey uninsured. It remains hidden from view, even now, because the communities first hit are on the fringes, and already downtrodden into silence after the trauma of the disaster event and the even larger trauma of trying to rebuild lives.
I guess, I am saying, don't expect this to happen in big headline moments. The fatal bleed is happening now, and it is only going to escalate.
Am I misunderstanding the lower graphic....there's a $ sign in front of 54.6 million employed [employed people, I assume].
I am reminded of an Alan Perlis quip about Lisp programmers, "they know the value of everything and the cost of nothing." (Lisp is the second oldest high level computer programming language next to Fortran.) Well I say this not in jest, what is a gentle admonition about abusing system resources in the context of computing machinery is an all too accurate portrayal of current human existence.
When you consider the large coastal populations of the U.S. what motivates these inhabitants is scenery, not survival, as it is in Bangladesh. Scenery, not survival motivates most decisions about home location in the U.S.
Much of the U.S. is going to be rather unpleasant to occupy with large arid areas, or high humid heatdomes everpresent, or salt water intrusion into fresh water distribution systems. The value of all these locations is realistically nothing. The cost for remedies matters not. There are simply not the resources available to ameliorate coming adverse conditions.
That this will happen is sure. The question is the role of government. They are the insurers of last resort. Will they step in? If so, where, when and how? They could keep the current system more or less running by telling private insurers they'll underwrite their policies, for example.
A bigger question is "when can we no longer afford, materially (not financially) to continue to rebuild in places no one should live?" A second question is "how many of those places will their be?" A third question is "can we change how we build and live (aka, keeping wetlands or creating them) to make certain places inhabitable and safe?"
I think you might be underestimating the scale of the current building insurance crisis. My context is Australia, but we are a net importer of US insurance so what's happening to us is happening to you, just perhaps still hidden from obvious view in your larger population base
From first hand experience I can say that following catastrophic disaster (our floods are a big as yours, but our fires are many, many times larger) communities here are rebuilding only to find insurance premiums have gone up between 3 and 10 fold, if insurance is even still available.
There was no warning this would happen, and no news headlines about the reality, so the rebuilding funds had already been committed long before the re-insurance threat was seen. And long before we recognised our governments would do NOTHING to minimise the threat in the future.
This has left many communities now wholey uninsured. It remains hidden from view, even now, because the communities first hit are on the fringes, and already downtrodden into silence after the trauma of the disaster event and the even larger trauma of trying to rebuild lives.
I guess, I am saying, don't expect this to happen in big headline moments. The fatal bleed is happening now, and it is only going to escalate.