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Comment by tick_tock_tick | Hacker News Reader

> climate catastrophe

What's happened that you expect the general population to care about? It's hotter, a couple more storms or fires but not too many more.... You call it a catastrophe but the effect on the average persons like in this country is little to nothing.

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The big problems are going to be when unstable weather patterns destroy food harvests and we end up with huge famines and wars over food crops and liveable habitats. Currently the world's food production is very much just-in-time, so there's going to be hungry people. Civilisation is only ever three meals away from collapse.

In other words, there is no "climate catastrophe" happening right now.

Average people are already losing flood insurance in Florida and fire insurance in California. Sooner or later they are going to feel the pinch.

They already are, but it isn’t yet in your face enough for most. Things like food price increases or insurance woes are readily abstractable or blameable on other phenomena.

There are enough extreme events happening now, however, that it won’t be long before everyone, everywhere, has either been directly affected by or knows someone who has been directly affected by an extreme weather event. This kind of rapid change could be the best hope we have for remedying the situation, as rather than being frogs in slowly warming water, we will find ourselves thrown directly into the skillet.

The average person in California doesn't live near wildfire areas. Seven percent of the population is in a high risk area. Last year 876 structures were lost, or damaged, due to a wildfire. Not exactly moving any needles for the average Californian.

This ignores the impact of wildfire smoke on people, which affects a much larger population.

Your insurance carrier isn’t going to cancel your policy because of smoke

They aren't going to cancel, but at least StateFarm won't renew or sell new homeowners insurance.

While they are the largest in CA, there are 100 home insurance companies operating in California. Also the excuse of wildfire doesn’t make much sense. They also cite high building costs, but policies are priced on how much insurance people buy, so that doesn’t make much sense either. Also, State Farm is renewing, just no new policies.

https://calmatters.org/economy/2023/06/california-home-insur...

Do you not think major insurers like StateFarm pulling out of the market will drive premiums up for the average folks?

More so commenting on that many Californians will notice the impact of wildfires, regardless if they are in an area prone to wildfires.

February 2020: "So it's a fast spreading virus affecting a lot of Chinese people, but the effect on this country is little to nothing...".

Not an encouraging analogy, because despite the unprecedented impact of Covid, surprisingly little has changed in our everyday lifestyles.

The average person in this country just isn't able to connect the dots yet - but I think they're starting to. Average people in places like Phoenix where it's been over 110F for the last 3+ weeks are starting to make the connection. As well as average people in places heavily impacted by wildfire smoke over the last month or so. Average people in Florida who can't get homeowner's insurance (or have to pay $6K+/year for it) must be starting to notice something is amiss.

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