Insurance czar has 'harsh' message about climate: you may just have to move

In my country, there have been devastating floods last year, displacing a lot of families. Of course, investigations have been done uncovering that a lot of the plots were not catalogued as livable, and were marked as such exactly because of the possible flooding. Nevertheless, the local authorities gave permits to build. No-one got reprimanded in the slightest yet.

Of course, a rebuilding programme was proposed, and favourable loans have been given out by the state to help the displaced people rebuild their houses...On the same locations that flooded. The ones who had rebuilt it by now have got them flooded again because nobody thought that rebuilding a house on a flood-prone plot was possibly a bad idea.

This rings somewhat parallel to the case presented in the article, at least to me. I guess my point is that I really hate when insurance companies whine when they have to insure something, even if the people insured are living in the Swamp Castle from Monty Python.

It's not harsh, it's mere logic. We have ALWAYS migrated, following our current needs. Back then certain areas, when our ancestors move there, have reasons to be chosen for a settlement, now tech, climate, civilization change, so we have to change as well.

Just a simple example: back than was common to choose the bottom of valleys because sometimes floods happen, as landslides, but every day there was clean water and back than we have no pumped aqueduct. Back than peasants move by feet only so being nearby a field was needed. Things have changed. Nowadays the impact of a flood is much bigger than before, because we do not only have let's say two-story houses with the ground floor only used for iron+wood tools and animals (the hay under the roof, with a hole to drop it), now we have cars who do not typically swim or going out alone in a high ground nearby, we have electricity who do not mix well with water, telco lines with their cabinet who do not like ended up underwater as well and modern tools are not so easy to simply wash off the mud, dry them and start working again. Even homes alone with insulation do not like the flood. Now we have pumped aqueducts, peasants have cars and alike, there is no damn reason to be in certain places, while there are new more reasons not to be there (climate, pollution, ...).

The whole point is how to handle relocations. IMVHO we need public plan because people who move have to move in "new" areas where anything is to build ex-novo, so before moving something new have to be built, not only homes, but roads, telco lines, power lines, aqueducts, and so on. The government is the best suited to select hydro-geological safe area with climate apt to modern life as possible (for instance not too hot in summer, or at least not too hot at night so people can get "free" A/C from p.v.) and start offering infra and lots, offering permutation of at-risk homes at the past 10-years commercial values with new ones for private individuals or companies who works in new buildings (meaning no incentives for landlords to speculate on rents). Doing so will reduce the catastrophic real-estate quake and offer the possibility to move calmly a cohort at a time, because moving to a NEW place, where there is next to nothing is a tricky business, so the first who can move are just "young" retirees and remote workers, once they have moved few others can do the same for the service for the first cohort, and again others could move to populate the newly created services and so on. A slow move over 20+ years who re-design a country.

Climate change is increasing wildfires foods, droughts. The doomsday ice shelf will cut loose and raise the seas a meter. I’m not sure there’s anywhere to move to. But if you find a spot get there quick because a billion people are going to be displaced in the next couple decades so better to beat the rush.

"And even if climate change happens, and all the low-lying areas around the coast are underwater, don't you think those people would just sell their house and move?"

That's great. Just fuck everybody over by not fixing climate change and then blame the victims lol