Climate Change Is Not to Blame for the Rising Costs of Natural Disasters, NBC

[rangerrebew]

Climate Change Is Not to Blame for the Rising Costs of Natural Disasters, NBC
 
By
H. Sterling Burnett
August 4, 2025
 

An NBC New story reports on the rising costs of natural disasters, citing an analysis from one of the world’s largest re-insurers, Munich Re. For the most part, the story is accurate, detailing the high costs of natural disasters so far in 2025 and in recent years, honestly reporting the most destructive events have been earthquakes and that the  rising costs of damage from extreme weather events is due largely to urban development in disaster prone areas. This is a growing problem as more and more people move to such locations. Unfortunately, late in the story NBC felt the siren call of climate alarm, briefly diverting an otherwise accurate report, into the fiction that climate change is making such disasters more common.

In the NBC story, “Billion-dollar disasters: The economic toll of wildfires, severe storms and earthquakes is soaring,” Denise Chow, the writer reports:

Weather disasters in the first half of this year have cost the United States $93 billion in damage, according to a report released Tuesday by a German multinational insurance company.

The report shows the soaring economic toll that wildfires, severe storms and other extreme events are exacting in the U.S. and globally.

The devastating wildfires in Southern California in January topped the list of the [U.S.]’s costliest disasters in the first half of 2025. The two largest fires, which killed at least 30 people and displaced thousands more, ripped through the communities in Pacific Palisades and Altadena, fanned by strong Santa Ana winds.

Munich Re estimated that the wildfires caused $53 billion in losses, including about $13 billion in damages for residents without insurance. The reinsurer said the Los Angeles-area blazes resulted in the “highest wildfire losses of all time.”

The wildfires’ huge economic and societal toll was due in part to increased development in fire-prone areas.

“Losses are on the rise because often properties are in harm’s way,” Tobias Grimm, Munich Re’s chief climate scientist, said. “People still live in high-risk areas.”

https://climaterealism.com/2025/08/climate-change-is-not-to-blame-for-the-rising-costs-of-natural-disasters-nbc/

[roamer_1]

Partly right... Folks ought not build a mansion on a coast. The only ones that can take it are castles.

But those wildfires were just poor management. Extremely poor management. Government is not only failing to perform, but is actively preventing the solution. Mowing and logging, and removal of ladder fuels and brush - That's what fixes it.

California should be encouraging that removal - Fining people who won't comply, and managing those actions on their own or abandoned properties. But California often prevents those actions.

[Free Vulcan]

Ah the old Marxist half-truth gloss over.

Going off say, Camille in '69, you not only had a population that was a bit over half of what it is now, but the median house price was 5% of todays.

None of that counts for population distribution and density, i.e. the percentage of people actually living near the coast in the hurricane zone. I suspect that's also way higher today than then.

Lots of other changed variables I'm sure as well.

So accounting for all that what exactly is the average inflation adjusted true cost?

[roamer_1]

Hurricanes...

I lived in a house built after a beachcomer built in the 50s. It had a full, unfinished basement, which we later grew into, but the living area was 900 ft2. Raised four kids in that house.

You'd play hell finding a bungalow like that in today's market... Not to mention anything like it on the coast(s). The houses are huge. And few folks have four or more kids to justify all that living space.

I mean, I don't care - If you want to live in a 5000 ft2 McMansion, that's on you. But I think insurance companies should limit their liability in disaster prone areas. It's one thing to put back a 900 ft2 bungalow set up on piles 10ft in the air... A McMansion is a whole nother thing.

[Bigun]

Ah the old Marxist half-truth gloss over.

Going off say, Camille in '69, you not only had a population that was a bit over half of what it is now, but the median house price was 5% of todays.

None of that counts for population distribution and density, i.e. the percentage of people actually living near the coast in the hurricane zone. I suspect that's also way higher today than then.

Lots of other changed variables I'm sure as well.

So accounting for all that what exactly is the average inflation adjusted true cost?

 

[Smokin Joe]

Partly right... Folks ought not build a mansion on a coast. The only ones that can take it are castles.

But those wildfires were just poor management. Extremely poor management. Government is not only failing to perform, but is actively preventing the solution. Mowing and logging, and removal of ladder fuels and brush - That's what fixes it.

California should be encouraging that removal - Fining people who won't comply, and managing those actions on their own or abandoned properties. But California often prevents those actions.

It might help if the water that should have been in the reservoir to fight fires hadn't been just let to run off into the ocean, too. (The person responsible for that was getting paid about $750,000 a year--almost double what the POTUS salary is.)

There is no excuse.

Then add in the insane values for those properties because of their location. Put the same house on the Montana Prairie, or in Nebraska some place, and it would be worth a fraction of the money claimed as losses on the coast or in the hills overlooking lesser parts of L.A.