Curious about what it's like to be young and noticing all the climate/social issues that intersect along the Mississippi River? Join me tomorrow night to see Hollow Tree - Cafritz Hall, DC JCC, 1529 16th St. NW DC- filmmaker Kira Akerman will be there! Tickets: www.edcjcc.org/jxj/show/hol...

Want functioning insurance markets and real climate forecasts? Then you want NCAR intact. Post today - for insurance sector forwarding. Banks, too - susanpcrawford.substack.com/p/trump-targ...

The insurance industry—essential to US economic activity, woven into the financial plans of every home and business in the nation—sees NCAR as absolutely, concretely, crucial. @scrawford.bsky.social susanpcrawford.substack.com/p/trump-targ...

A September brookings.edu report, “Who Bears the Burden of Climate Inaction?”, found climate -driven changes in home insurance premiums, home energy costs, and smoke effects on mortality are $400-$900 per household per year, with much higher costs—upward of $1,300 a year—in the hardest-hit places.

Smart: RI has a statewide document prioritizing 10,000 crucial assets—infrastructure, healthcare facilities, emergency service—for adaptation funding. Bond proceeds will finance a state revolving loan fund for multi-million-dollar resilience projects; grants will fund smaller design efforts.

What if every state had a plan--and a fund--for climate resilience? Rhode Island’s about to. Read all about it in my column today: susanpcrawford.substack.com/p/a-small-st...

#ClimateResilience is an #affordability issue with a massive return on investment. There are plenty of shenanigans by the #NJ Legislature during lame duck; let’s do something worthwhile.

No clear path for industry on adaptation, stresses @scrawford.bsky.social: "If you’re in business and know the climate risks are real, you’re better off kicking the can down the road until your retirement—rather than changing your business model to reflect and help shoulder climate risks"

Failing to adapt to the physical ravages of climate change amounts to a national moral failure. These increased costs likely severely undercount what’s happening now to these households, and certainly don’t account for what is going to happen in the decades to come. @scrawford.bsky.social

I don’t know how it’s possible that @scrawford.bsky.social is an expert in my two favorite climate-risky places - Plumas County and the Jersey Shore - but she is, and I’m grateful.

New paper demonstrates climate inaction is already hitting U.S. households like a hidden, regressive “climate tax”--but unlike Obamacare, there’s no national coalition or business deal to turn that fact into real climate adaptation progress. Column today: open.substack.com/pub/susanpcr...

He’s like, ‘I think I did see your house. It was the blue one, right? Yeah, it’s floating down Route 35. It’s on fire.’” A brilliant @scrawford.bsky.social story on New Jersey's endless cycle of rebuilding the shore. And yes, there is a climate angle. www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...

This post gets to the heart of systemic questions raised by new Zillow + First Street climate risk score news. For years, floodplain management professionals (e.g., ASFPM) have highlighted a need for more funding and increased efficiencies in FEMA's FIRM...(1/6) www.floods.org/annual-legis...

Masterclass from the great @elizkolbert.bsky.social in how to talk about climate change (and books about climate change). youtu.be/42e1qdYDw_Q?...

This is the conclusion that I hope we will draw from the Zillow drama... that we need a gold-standard national data source for property-level risk to climate hazards that is transparent, accessible, and legally defensible. Private companies can help build it but the public needs to own it.

“We’re going to have places where only wealthy people can live,” says Peter Kasabach, executive director of New Jersey Future. Richer residents will work around the inconvenience of coastal flooding and walk away from their houses when they feel like it — if they haven’t been able to sell.

Floods and Storms Are Ravaging the Jersey Shore. Why Do We Keep Building It Back? The government has spent billions on beach replenishment over the last four decades. But with worsening climate change, experts say more dramatic change is in order. 🔗 www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...

Seas are rising more than twice as quickly off the Jersey Shore than the average. Storms are growing in intensity and by 2100, severe flooding will "be the new normal." Still, some can't stay away. "There’s only one place for me to live. My soul is here" Story: www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...

If money were no barrier and political crosswinds didn’t exist, wise public policy steps would include stopping development in risky places like the Jersey Shore, helping people gradually move out of harm’s way. That's not on the table. Story: www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...

We humans have such a hard time letting go... and an equally hard time with abstract risk. There is no saving places like this, we will see bigger storms and higher seas, so it is either find a way to transition or suffer abrupt, too often cataclysmic shifts. Great article.

I can check “Get quoted in Rolling Stone magazine” off my bucket list. Thanks to @scrawford.bsky.social for a sobering assessment of the challenges we face to address the accelerating impacts of climate change at the Jersey Shore. www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...

Story for Rolling Stone about climate threats to the Jersey Shore - signals what's ahead for the East Coast: rising risks, shortage of public money to adjust, and built-in incentives to keep the status quo in place. Plus: attachment to a place full of memories. www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...

"When buyers can’t see the risks up front, they may take on more exposure than they can afford — homes that become too expensive to insure, with costs families didn’t anticipate, and, worst of all, natural disasters they hadn’t yet thought of in personal terms." www.nytimes.com/2025/12/05/o...

"But the whole [Jersey Shore], every square foot of which has fulfilled someone’s American dream of living right on the beach, is sailing toward disaster." Great work by @scrawford.bsky.social: www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...

We need probabilistic, future-conditions, multi-peril mapping data that is public and subject to norms of oversight and transparency. @scrawford.bsky.social susanpcrawford.substack.com/p/zillows-cl...

When private models sow confusion, it’s a flashing warning sign that Washington needs to fix federal flood maps @scrawford.bsky.social susanpcrawford.substack.com/p/zillows-cl...

Just spent my lunch break with an engineer trying to sort out a neighborhood-wide stormwater problem caused by aging infrastructure and 10yr rainfall events that occurred multiple times per month last summer. It’s wild how inadequate current tools are for handling the no longer extreme.

good idea!

Completely agree with @kellyhereid.bsky.social's take on @scrawford.bsky.social's excellent article. The potential for private sector firms to discontinue providing critical info has been long recognized in the climate services space (of course, now this Administration is doing the same thing).

Spot on.

Guess what is going to be our class discussion topic for the climate change segment in my Intro Earth Science course?

Funding support for these analyses has been insufficient for more than 30 years. When I was a summer intern at NOAA in the 90's getting projects done for major update efforts like California, SW US, or Puerto Rico were budget limited and updates were decades behind. It's beyond time to fix this.

This is the correct take on the whole Zillow fiasco (and fire maps, and hurricane maps) 2023 PCAST report essentially called for this as well - it's been a recognized gap in capacity for years bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/u...

The article therefore "urges state and federal governments to invest in their own climate services capacity at a scale not currently contemplated" scholarship.law.bu.edu/cgi/viewcont...

time to unearth this excellent paper by legal scholar @madisoncondon.bsky.social (see below), which "argues that actionable and transparent information about our climate-changed future is a public good that the private sector cannot be depended upon to provide equitably or reliably."

Zillow’s climate score rollback is a wake-up call: build open, future‑conditions federal flood maps -- gold‑standard, trustworthy data for building codes, mortgages, and our future. Column today: open.substack.com/pub/susanpcr...

"Because of increasing insurance costs, what a homeowner might have thought was a fixed 30-year mortgage on a house that increases in value is turning into an adjustable-rate obligation covering an asset that might not find a buyer at the price the homeowner believes is fair."

Another great read from @scrawford.bsky.social: "We can’t rely on the insurance industry to be the only risk-signaler for homes. These companies may be tracking hurricanes and wildfires, and translating those risks into higher premiums, but they are likely to exclude saltwater intrusion coverage."

Policymakers, like these researchers, are in the dark when it comes to making plans for the future based on the signals being conveyed by insurance providers. The real story, the accelerated erosion of risky housing markets, is mostly hidden. @scrawford.bsky.social

"Because of increasing insurance costs, what a homeowner might have thought was a fixed 30-year mortgage on a house that increases in value is turning into an adjustable-rate obligation covering an asset that might not find a buyer at the price the homeowner believes is fair" @scrawford.bsky.social

New research shows climate risk is already hitting insurance and home values. And that’s only part of the story. Some serious hazards, like saltwater intrusion, often aren’t covered at all -- and aren’t yet priced into housing markets. Column today: susanpcrawford.substack.com/p/new-data-s...

Legendary climate scientist James Hansen says climate risks for coastal cities--and young people’s futures--are far bigger and coming faster than most realize. Wall Street’s cyclic complacency can’t protect against rising seas. Column today: open.substack.com/pub/susanpcr...

Tom Metcalfe, a scholar from the year 2120 in Ian McEwan’s "What We Can Know," yearns for our long lifespans and wild landscapes. It's a literary, time-bending, and moving reminder of what we have to lose ... column today susanpcrawford.substack.com/p/ten-things...

0.5 % annual risk ... is a key metric for running a large insurance business in the NE. Why isn’t that level of risk the planning lever for governments... driving building codes, land use decisions, and investment priorities? @scrawford.bsky.social susanpcrawford.substack.com/p/insurers-p...

I can tell you this: Based on multiple tabletop exercises with local municipalities around Massachusetts- No, they are not prepared. No matter what you hear. Local EM capacity is not up for it.

“A 0.5% annual risk might sound pretty low. But it’s a key metric for running a large insurance business in the Northeast. Why isn’t at least that level of risk the planning lever for local governments in that region, driving building codes, land use decisions, and investment priorities?”

Insurers plan for 1-in-200-year storms. Why don’t governments? If a Melissa-level hurricane hit the Northeast, would we be ready? New column looks at climate whiplash, risk, and what real preparedness means. open.substack.com/pub/susanpcr...

Fire risk: "Why would the federal government go into the business of subsidizing living in areas that insurers don’t want to insure and reinsurers don’t want to cover?", asks @scrawford.bsky.social