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hurricanes
Bluelining Is the New Redlining
Bluelining occurs when insurers raise their prices or pull out of areas that they perceive to be at greater environmental risk. These tend to be minority or low-income areas made vulnerable by historic discrimination.
Aug 24, 2024
On July 21, the world experienced the hottest global temperature on record, only to surpass that record the next day. However, not everyone experiences the impacts of this heat and other climate-exacerbated disasters equally. As summer intensifies, the impacts of climate change—especially extreme heat—are becoming more severe, disproportionately affecting low-income and minority populations.
In the U.S., a history of racial discrimination in finance and housing policies has left Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities more susceptible to the impacts of climate change and less equipped to recover from extreme weather disasters. Today, home insurers are pulling out of areas they perceive as risky to climate hazards, once again leaving BIPOC communities behind.
From Redlining to Bluelining
The disparate impact of climate change on property and infrastructure in U.S. minority communities is the result of nearly a century of discriminatory home lending and insurance policies.
In the 1930s, the U.S. federal government used a rating system in its low-cost home loan program to assess lending risk. Assessors created maps ranking the perceived risk of lending in certain neighborhoods, with race often used as the determining factor in assessing a community’s risk level. Black and immigrant neighborhoods were typically rated as ‘hazardous’ and outlined in red, warning lenders that the area was a perilous place to lend money. This practice became known as redlining, and the term is often used today to refer to racial discrimination in any government or corporate financial policies.
In many U.S. cities, maps from the 1930s showing redlined neighborhoods could be used as modern flood risk maps.
Redlining and other discriminatory practices, such as racial profiling in the provision of home insurance, led to a lack of investment in minority and vulnerable communities. This lack of financial access resulted in shoddy construction and poor infrastructure that has made minority neighborhoods less resilient to climate change.
Though redlining is now illegal, its legacy endures. These neighborhoods’ growing exposure to climate-related damage has left them vulnerable to other financial risks. Not only are homes in these areas more likely to be damaged by climate hazards, but insurers are more likely to increase insurance rates if they determine that properties are more likely to suffer environmental damage. This new financial practice is known as bluelining, and it occurs when insurers raise their prices or pull out of areas that they perceive to be at greater environmental risk.
While not illegal, bluelining disproportionately impacts minority and lower-income residents. Bluelining—the ‘new’ redlining—is now placing both the physical and financial burden of climate change on those least equipped to deal with its impacts.
How Past Redlining Created Climate Vulnerable Communities
In many U.S. cities, maps from the 1930s showing redlined neighborhoods could be used as modern flood risk maps. A Redfin study reveals that $107 billion worth of homes in formerly redlined neighborhoods face high flood risks—25% more than in non-redlined, predominantly white neighborhoods. Other studies have found that formerly redlined neighborhoods are more vulnerable to extreme heat and more likely to experience prolonged power outages during a storm. These disparities are a direct result of nearly a century of divestment and restricted access to capital, which deprived these neighborhoods of critical climate resilience infrastructure such as sewers and levees to capture flood waters and green spaces to absorb rising heat.
As a result of this lack of infrastructure, minority and vulnerable communities in the U.S. face the most severe and direct effects of climate change. In a 2021 study, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) confirmed that “racial and ethnic minority communities are particularly vulnerable to the greatest impacts of climate change.”
As climate change exacerbates natural hazards like hurricanes and wildfires, widespread access to insurance will be necessary to help vulnerable communities survive.
This vulnerability and racial disparities are evident when climate disasters strike. For example, when Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005, 4 out of 7 zip codes that faced the costliest flood damage were at least 75% Black. Similarly, Hurricane Harvey in 2017 hit historically Black neighborhoods in Houston the hardest, and many residents there lacked a safety net to recover. Winter Storm Uri, in February 2021, brought persistent subfreezing temperatures to the southeastern U.S., resulting in electricity and water outages, substantial personal property damage, and increased mortality rates. The impact of the winter storm was likewise “disproportionately concentrated among low-income communities and communities of color.” Communities that are mostly Black, Latino, or Native American also experience 50% greater vulnerability to wildfires compared with other communities.
Despite these patterns, many cities have done little to bolster climate resilience in minority-dominated neighborhoods. For instance, Black communities from “Texas through Florida to Virginia” are projected to see at least a 20% increase in flood risk over the next 30 years.
This increased vulnerability not only exposes minority communities to damage from climate hazards, but also to bluelining from insurers. When a disaster strikes in a neighborhood, rates are likely to go up the following year. This affects both homeowners and renters, who often bear the costs of a landlord’s rising insurance costs.
Access to Insurance Is a Key Factor in Climate Change Resilience
Discrimination in the insurance sector extends beyond bluelining. Studies suggest that insurance claims following a disaster in areas with a higher Black population are less likely to be paid and, if they are paid, are likely to settle for less than other claims. A New York Times article supports these findings, presenting evidence of race discrimination in insurance company payout decisions for homeowners following disasters.
This racial discrimination, combined with bluelining, limits access to property insurance for vulnerable communities—a critical tool for climate resilience. Studies show that households with insurance are more likely to rebuild, face less financial hardship, and recover more quickly than households without insurance. As climate change exacerbates natural hazards like hurricanes and wildfires, widespread access to insurance will be necessary to help vulnerable communities survive.
Insurers must end their hypocritical and unconscionable conduct of investing large portions of their increasing premium income in fossil fuel companies, the undisputed drivers of climate change.
The climate change-induced insurance crisis and bluelining seriously undermine the ability of minority and vulnerable communities to access affordable insurance. Without insurance, minority communities are less able to adapt to climate change and less resilient when confronting these climate change-induced severe weather events. More importantly, minorities are hindered in their efforts to rebuild, particularly in rebuilding climate-resilient structures.
The compounded effects of the insurance crisis, rooted in past discriminatory insurance practices, perpetuate systemic inequities. The cycle of divestment from redlining to bluelining will increase systemic inequities and embed the disproportionate impact of climate change on minority and vulnerable communities for generations.
A Call to Action
Insurers should financially support and actively engage in community efforts addressing climate risk, community impact, and creating equitable solutions. Simultaneously, insurers must end their hypocritical and unconscionable conduct of investing large portions of their increasing premium income in fossil fuel companies, the undisputed drivers of climate change, and underwriting new oil and gas projects while turning away homeowners in high-risk climate zones. Public funding or support from local, state, or national government for the insurance industry must be contingent on the industry reducing investments and insurance commitments in carbon emissions causing climate change.
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'Historic' Category 5 Hurricane Beryl Offers Terrifying View of Future
"Beryl isn't 'unbelievable,'" one expert said. "it's what happens when you heat up the planet with fossil fuel pollution for decades."
Jul 02, 2024
As Hurricane Beryl barreled toward Jamaica on Tuesday after killing at least four people in the Caribbean's Windward Islands, climate scientists warned the record-breaking Category 5 storm is a present-tense example of what's to come on a rapidly heating planet.
Even before the Atlantic hurricane season began on June 1, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted an 85% chance of above-normal activity and 17-25 total named storms this year. Matthew Cappucci, a meteorologist for The Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang, highlighted some records Beryl has already broken.
"There is a strong, well-documented link between the effects of human-induced climate change and the development of stronger, wetter storms that are more prone to rapidly intensify," he wrote Tuesday. "Beryl sprung from a tropical depression to a Category 4 hurricane in just 48 hours, the fastest any storm on record has strengthened before the month of September."
Beryl is also the earliest Category 4 and 5 hurricane on record in the Atlantic, Cappucci pointed out. Previously, the earliest storm to reach the top level of the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale was Emily, in mid-July of 2005.
The Capital Weather Gang reported that Beryl "strengthened more Monday night, its peak winds climbing to 165 mph. It has surpassed Emily (2005) as strongest July hurricane on record. It's early July but Atlantic is acting like late August."
Certified consulting meteorologist Chris Gloninger emphasized that "the climate crisis has led to well-above-average ocean water temperatures and helped this storm explode."
As Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Potsdam University explained: "The heat in the upper ocean is the energy source for tropical cyclones. This heat is at record level, mainly caused by emissions from burning fossil fuel. That's why an extreme hurricane season has been predicted for this year. It's off to a bad start!"
Colorado State University meteorologist Philip Klotzbach on Monday shared graphics showing that "Caribbean ocean heat content today is normally what we get in the middle of September."
While some expressed disbelief over the storm, CNN extreme weather editor Eric Zerkel stressed that "Beryl isn't 'unbelievable' or 'defying all logic,' it's what happens when you heat up the planet with fossil fuel pollution for decades. The oceans store roughly 90% of that excess heat. The ocean is as warm as it typically is... when Category 4 storms form. June is now August."
Acknowledging Beryl's strength, Steve Bowen, a meteorologist who serves as chief science officer at the global reinsurance firm Gallagher Re, concluded that "this is a massive warning sign for the rest of the season."
Looking beyond this hurricane season, which ends in November, University of Hawaii at Mānoa professor and [C]Worthy co-founder David Ho said, "Let's remember that things are just going to get [worse] as we continue to consume nearly 100 million barrels of oil every day."
The "historic" storm is sparking calls for action to phase out fossil fuels across the globe. Noting how Beryl "is breaking records and leaving a trail of destruction throughout the Caribbean," the U.S.-based Sunrise Movement argued that "we must prosecute Big Oil for their role in causing devastation like this."
In response to a climate scientist who shared a photo of some damage Beryl has already caused, Rahmstorf expressed hope that people around the world won't "wait with voting for climate stabilization until extremes hit their homes."
Beryl made landfall Monday as a Category 4 hurricane on Carriacou, a Grenada island, and also affected St. Vincent and Grenadines. According toThe Associated Press, at least four people were killed.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Tuesday afternoon that on its current path, "the center of Beryl will move quickly across the central Caribbean Sea today and is forecast to pass near Jamaica on Wednesday and the Cayman Islands on Thursday. The center is forecast to approach the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico on Thursday night."
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NOAA Predicts 'Extraordinary' Atlantic Hurricane Season as Ocean Temperatures Soar
"The fun-filled summer season has increasingly become a time of dread for the dangers that await," said one climate scientist.
May 23, 2024
The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warned Thursday that it expects "above-normal hurricane activity in the Atlantic basin this year" due to rising ocean temperatures related to the climate emergency and La Niña conditions in the Pacific Ocean.
"NOAA's outlook for the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, which spans from June 1 to November 30, predicts an 85% chance of an above-normal season, a 10% chance of a near-normal season, and a 5% chance of a below-normal season," the agency—which is part of the U.S. Department of Commerce—said in a statement.
Rick Spinrad, who heads NOAA,
said the agency is bracing for an "extraordinary" Atlantic hurricane season.
NOAA is forecasting between 17 and 25 total named storms—which have winds of 39 mph or higher—with 8-13 of these predicted to become hurricanes, which have winds of 74 mph or higher. The agency is predicting 4-7 major hurricanes, defined as having winds in excess of 111 mph. NOAA said forecasters have 70% confidence in these predictions.
"Of note, the forecast for named storms, hurricanes, and major hurricanes is the highest NOAA has ever issued for the May outlook," Spinrad told reporters, adding that "the warmer ocean means it's a more energetic ocean."
The predicted increase in activity is "due to a confluence of factors, including near-record warm ocean temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean, development of La Niña conditions in the Pacific, reduced Atlantic trade winds, and less wind shear, all of which tend to favor tropical storm formation," NOAA explained.
"As one of the strongest El Niños ever observed nears its end, NOAA scientists predict a quick transition to La Niña conditions, which are conducive to Atlantic hurricane activity because La Niña tends to lessen wind shear in the tropics," the agency added. "At the same time, abundant oceanic heat content in the tropical Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea creates more energy to fuel storm development."
Florida meteorologist Michael Lowry, the hurricane specialist at WPLG in Miami, wrote Wednesday for Yale Climate Connections that "waters across the Atlantic's tropical belt—extending from the coast of Africa through the Caribbean—are hotter now than in any other late May on record, with over 90% of the area's sea surface engulfed in record or near-record warmth."
"The extent of marine heat has never been greater heading into a hurricane season, outpacing by wide margins the previous late May record-holder in 2005, a year remembered for one of the most active and destructive hurricane seasons in modern history." Among those storms was Hurricane Katrina.
Ocean temperatures are soaring as policymakers around the world continue to not only resist phasing out the fossil fuels driving the planetary emergency but also expand oil, gas, and coal development. Many coastal communities are unprepared for the extreme weather events that are increasing as air and sea temperatures rise.
"As a climate scientist that tracks hurricane activity, I recognize that the fun-filled summer season has increasingly become a time of dread for the dangers that await," Astrid Caldas, a senior climate scientist for community resilience at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said Thursday. "The people and places that have found themselves in the path of a tropical storm can attest to its utter and enduring devastation, which often hits communities of color and low-income communities the hardest."
"U.S. coastal communities are tired of crossing their fingers and hoping these storms of epic, record-breaking proportions veer away from their homes, dissipate, or spin out over the Atlantic," Caldas added. "It's imperative that local, state, and federal policymakers and emergency planners help keep communities safe by prioritizing investments to get homes, businesses, and infrastructure in frontline communities climate-ready and be prepared to ensure a quick and just recovery should disaster strike. Reining in heat-trapping emissions driving the climate crisis is also essential."
According to NOAA, there were 28 billion-dollar natural disasters in the United States alone last year—an unwelcome new record that cost Americans at least $92.9 billion.
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