Thoughts and prayers for those in the Los Angeles Area, and worse yet to come in other areas. Of course, loss of human life, now set at 25, is my main concern. I also asked ChatGPT about property losses and coverage, and it said about 250 billion in “total economic impact,” but only about 30 to 40 billion covered by insurance. The Financial Times was cited, with ChatGPT adding, “It is important to note that a significant portion of the total economic losses may not be covered by insurance. Reinsurance companies have significantly reduced their exposure to natural catastrophe risks in California, now covering less than 3% of insured losses from these fires.”
I wonder what this situation means going forward, and implications for individuals and the State.
Long ago I received permission from a Hopi man who sat with Hopi elder Dan Evehema to use Evehema’s quote, “The degree of violence will be determined by the degree of inequity caused among the peoples of the world and in the balance of nature. In this crisis rich and poor will be forced to struggle as equals in order to survive.”
I am grateful for Thomas Rain Crowe’s review of my book Bridge at the End of the World – New and Selected [Climate] Poems, winner of a 2023 Blue Light Book Award. Rain Crowe wrote one of my favorite books titled Zoro’s Field: My Life in the Appalachian Woods that was published by University of Georgia Press, and won a Phillip D. Reed Memorial Award from Southern Environmental Law Center.
I am also grateful for 546 views from Brazil on my main climate blog in the past 30 days, and nearly 100 views each from Germany and Austria in the last 24 hours. In a previous post I asked sarcastically, “Do you think COP29 November 11-24, 2024 in Baku, Azerbaijan, or COP30, 2025, in Belém do Pará, Brazil near the Amazon forest, will take appropriate and timely action?” I would love to be surprised by a meaningful response at COP30 in Brazil to what Bill McGuire, Professor Emeritus of Geophysical & Climate Hazards at University College London, said in a June 18, 2024 YouTube published October 14, 2024, “Climate Talk – The Bottom Line”: temperatures have “never” “risen as quickly as they are doing now” in Earth’s 4.54 billion year history [ . . . . ]