CREATION CARE CORNER

This week, as we have been watching the Los Angeles wildfires in horror, we are being forcefully reminded of the consequences of our planet-warming activities. It’s as if God is pushing reality into our faces so we can’t think any longer that the consequences are somewhere off in the future.
LA is the second largest city in our country, and so many structures there are being destroyed that there is no way this is not going to affect all of us, even here, in some ways. Explanations of the insurance consequences make this obvious. California fire insurance was already extremely expensive, causing many to drop coverage because they don’t have the money. Some insurance companies there already dropped fire insurance from their policies for thousands of Californians because they decided the fire risks have become too high. Secondary insurers (insurance companies who insure primary insurance companies) will have to fund these insurance companies, and when they run short will have to assess their sources of funds, the primary insurance companies and in turn, their policyholders. This will eventually lead to insurance companies going broke or leaving some states, and all our insurance rates going up across the country. This has already happened in Florida, due to high risk of water damage from the more frequent severe hurricanes. FEMA, a federal program, will also be helping out and to do so will need massive additional funding from US taxpayers at a time when they are already short of funding due to other disasters, and when the incoming US administration has promised to cut funding to most federal programs.
We will eventually find out how many uninsured homes, businesses, and vehicles have burned in the fires, but the overriding concern of all of this is how we are going to handle a changed climate. Our cities and states will need to re-imagine our infrastructure to handle huge new water systems and find the money to install them before the next tragedy rears its head. We will need to engineer new water diversion projects to protect homes and businesses from floodwater across the country. We will need to plant different crops and trees because the current ones will not be able to survive in this new climate. We will need to protect against diseases and dangerous wildlife that never ranged out of the tropics before. Some of our food sources will become limited due to climate. The conflicts that exist all over the world because of migrations of people from inhospitable environments will only get worse, causing despots to gain power over long-standing democracies.
This “climate change business” has been known about and we have been warned about it for over 50 years. Oil companies have known about it and discussed it behind closed doors for at least that long. These same companies financially support politicians who will promise to help them continue “business as usual” and hide their responsibility for many of the consequences of burning fossil fuels.
President Jimmy Carter’s funeral reminded us that he was forward-thinking about this. He installed solar panels on the White House, setting an example for us, only to have them taken down by President Reagan. It isn’t comfortable to think about these things, but we must, because our survival as a civilized society will depend upon us.
Sandy McKitrick, Climate Care Team