From Wildfires to Heavy Metal Playlist
1. Los Angeles Fires
- Insurance Premiums Spike as Natural Disasters Strike. What Homeowners Can Do.
- Hurricanes, floods and wildfires are wreaking havoc, and property owners are paying the price.
- Private firefighters are helping out in LA wildfires. It raises ethical questions.
https://www.bankrate.com/insurance/homeowners-insurance/natural-disaster-costs
https://www.npr.org/2025/01/18/nx-s1-5265301/california-wildfires-private-firefighters
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/insurance-rates-2025-spike-climate-canada-1.7430472
Insurance Companies and Climate Change:
It turns out that Insurance Companies think deeply about climate change. As a regulatory priority, it is well known that the insurance sector is very well positioned and highly incentivized in relation to climate change mitigation and adaption for two reasons.
- The associated risk affects both the assets and liabilities of the insurance balance sheet
- Insurers have decades of expertise in extreme risk pooling, which is critical in relation to the management and mitigation of the catastrophic effects that arise as a result of climate change
Military
Just like global insurance companies, the professional military everywhere have grasped the impact of global warming, as it will impact the food supply causing suffering, poverty across the world especially in the tropics and sub-tropics, it will generate huge numbers of refugees, of “failed states”, and of wars between countries that must share river systems. So state military planning includes planning for climate change disasters.
2. Backtracking
So if insurance companies and the military, two of the stuffiest and most entrenched global corporate dominant society entities recognize the climate crisis why is there so much recent backtracking on climate?
- Four of Canada’s biggest banks leave Mark Carney-led climate initiative
- The world has ground to make up at climate summit in Dubai after a year of ‘backsliding’
- What Trump’s exit from the climate deal really means
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/30/world/cop28-climate-backsliding/index.html
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/net-zero-corporate-climate-targets-1.7338799
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/canada-banks-leave-net-zero-banking-alliance-1.7435273
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/20/trumps-exit-climate-deal-means-00199406
3. How is this related to President Trump’s musing about Greenland and Canada?
- Staking a claim in Canada’s North. Reframing public perception on Arctic sovereignty and international law.
- An ice-free Artic means more private vessels and cruise ships, more fishing, more resource extraction, mining, bioprospecting.
- The environmental changes occurring in the north have transformed the narrative of the Arctic and its place on the geopolitical stage.
https://www.sshrc-crsh.gc.ca/society-societe/stories-histoires/story-histoire-eng.aspx?story_id=216
4. Doomsday Clock 2025
Link: https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/timeline/
On Tues, January 28th, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists will reveal the 2025 Doomsday Clock time in Washington, DC.
The Bulletin considers multiple global threats in the Clock setting, including the proliferation of nuclear weapons, disruptive technologies like artificial intelligence, the Russia-Ukraine war, Israel-Hamas war, Israel-Hezbollah conflict, bio-threats and the continued climate crisis.
Doomsday Clock Trivia
- The Clock’s original setting in 1947 was 7 minutes to midnight.
- In 2023 the Clock was reset at 90 seconds to midnight, the closest to midnight the Clock has been in its nearly 80 years of existence. Remained at 90 seconds in 2024.
- The clock was furthest from midnight in 1991, with the end of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the first treaty to provide for deep cuts to the two countries’ strategic nuclear weapons arsenals, prompting the Bulletin to set the clock hand to 17 minutes to midnight.
- There’s a “turn back the clock” exhibit, originally on display at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry, which is now available for visitors worldwide to explore online. https://thebulletin.org/virtual-tour/
- Probably the most important note:. Did you know that there is a DOOMSDAY CLOCK PLAYLIST? It ranges from Pink Floyd “Two Suns in the Sunset” (1983) to “Wasteland Baby” by Hozier (2019). Check it out here: https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/doomsday-clock-playlist/