Natural Disasters: Are They Truly Increasing?
Money For the Rest of Us
J. David Stein
4.5 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 16 August 2023
⏱️ 30 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
From raging wildfires to devastating floods, how are these natural events reshaping our financial landscape? What if anything, should we be doing with our investments as a result?
Topics covered include:
- The devastating Maui wildfire: What are the factors that led to one of the deadliest wildfires in US history.
- Global wildfire trends: Are they really increasing? The data might surprise you.
- The role of insurance companies: Learn how the giants of the reinsurance world, like Swiss Re and Munich Re, are navigating the increasing number of natural disasters.
- The complex interplay of climate change, urban expansion, and human choices
- Why IPCC is not highly confident regarding some weather impacts of climate change due to the natural variability in weather patterns.
- What should individuals do when there is a lack of details regarding a long-term potential threat?
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Show Notes
Why the fires in Hawaii have been so bad—The Economist
CAMS: monitoring extreme wildfire emissions in 2022—Copernicus
A human-driven decline in global burned area by N. Andela et al.—Science
Seasonal Trend for Europe—Copernicus
World insurance market developments in 5 charts—Swiss Re Institute
When Disaster Strikes: Preparing for Climate Change by Seán Nolan and Krishna Srinivasan—IMF
California insurance market rattled by withdrawal of major companies by Michael R. Blood—AP
CO2 emissions (metric tons per capita)—The World Bank
Related Episodes
340: Climate Change, ESG, and What Should Investors Do?
413: What if the World Stopped Shopping?
442: Crisis-Proof Investing: Strategies for a Shaky Future
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Money for the Rest of Us. |
| 0:02.0 | This is a personal finance show on money, how it works, how to invest it, and how to |
| 0:06.8 | live without worrying about it. |
| 0:09.2 | I'm your host, David Stein, today's episode 444, it's titled Natural Disasters. |
| 0:15.8 | Are they truly increasing? |
| 0:18.5 | Last week, a deadly wildfire broke out in Maui, killing at least 99 people. |
| 0:26.5 | It was the most deadly wildfire in the US in more than a century. |
| 0:32.1 | The town of Lahaina, a town I've been to, and I suspect many of you have been to and |
| 0:38.3 | traveling to Maui, was essentially obliterated. |
| 0:42.7 | It has a population or had a population of 13,000. |
| 0:46.2 | It was the capital of the Hawaiian kingdom back in the 19th century, and yet this wildfire |
| 0:52.1 | came down the mountain slope and wiped out the town, killing many individuals. |
| 0:58.3 | Reasons for the fire, why it was so powerful, was it was a period of drought. |
| 1:03.4 | In Maui, that portion of Maui, it was considered abnormally dry, but generally Maui doesn't |
| 1:09.6 | get a whole lot of rain on its south side in the summer. |
| 1:14.7 | There was also fuel for the fire from agricultural lands that had been abandoned, and so there |
| 1:20.2 | was grasses and shrubs to fuel the fire. |
| 1:23.2 | And then there was the wind as Hurricane Dora passed Maui at a distance but brought super |
| 1:29.7 | strong winds that came down the mountain. |
| 1:32.9 | This was a tragic event, and I was curious whether wildfires have been increasing around |
| 1:39.2 | the world, and I was surprised to find that no. |
| 1:43.5 | The number and extent of wildfires globally is in decline. |
... |
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