Trump doesn't like Scottish wind farms. (Credit: Christopher Furlong/Getty)
On his recent trip to Scotland, Donald Trump brought with him his ire about mass immigration, high taxes and — naturally — wind turbines. Sitting with Ursula von der Leyen at Turnberry, his golf resort, the President said that offshore wind turbines drive whales “loco” and that those on land are “killing the beauty of our scenery, our valleys, our beautiful plains”.
He made similar comments on Joe Rogan’s podcast in the run-up to his re-election, asserting he wanted to be a “whale psychiatrist”. Rogan remarked on the “dystopian” aesthetics of a wind farm in South Texas. Whether the concern is whale psychology or landscape aesthetics, there seems to be something visceral, even vibes-based, in the Right’s disdain for renewable energy.
In his second term in office, Trump has intervened on behalf of the whales — or, at least, against renewables. While Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was uniquely generous in using tax credits to support electricity from solar and wind, Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” (OBBB) is equally ruthless in repealing them.
What distinguishes the OBBB is its exacting focus on solar and wind energy: increasingly the object of an emerging culture war. On one side, the Right argues solar and wind are “expensive and unreliable”, to use the words of Trump’s energy secretary, Chris Wright. Increasing reliance upon these intermittent power sources has led, Wright insists, to grids that are “less stable”.
On the other side, many on the Left see climate change as solvable only through the vast expansion of solar and wind energy — entailing a huge increase in the supply of batteries. Several high-profile commentators, including the activist Bill McKibben and the engineer Mark Jacobson, argue that the world can solve its decarbonisation needs by focusing exclusively on solar and wind, along with hydroelectric power — with, of course, more batteries. “100% renewables!” is their rallying cry.
[su_unherd_related fttitle=”More from this author” author=”Matt Huber”]https://unherd-wpml-test.go-vip.net/2023/09/the-left-is-losing-the-climate-class-war/[/su_unherd_related]
Granted, the Right downplays the real value of these energy sources, which are already making huge contributions to energy capacity in places such as Texas and California. But the Left is wrong to imagine that wind and solar will be a cure-all. Decarbonisation is complex, and will rely on a wider variety of energy sources and technologies to not only clean up electricity, but also deal with harder sectors like steel, cement, aviation and shipping.
Intermittency, of course, remains a real challenge for renewable energy — particularly in regions not blessed with a robust supply of sunshine or wind. The problem is not only geographical, but temporal. To deal with the recurring phenomenon of “winter”, renewable-heavy grids would need better “long-duration” batteries than those that exist today. To its credit, the IRA actually did enact a very broad-based set of support for not just solar and wind, but also nuclear power, carbon removal and green hydrogen.
This is not the first time that energy policy has been shaped by antagonistic cultural politics. The oil shocks in the Seventies led to a wave of anti-Arab xenophobia in the United States — leading one country singer to suggest that America should cut off food supplies to the Middle East by way of retribution. Fifty years later, energy provision remains affected by culture. Germany has a significantly more carbon-intensive grid than its neighbours because it voluntarily dismantled its nuclear power plants at the behest of a vocal and powerful anti-nuclear movement. The country has spent billions on renewable energy, but these investments have not yet broken Germany’s dependence on coal and gas.
But Biden did not have a culture war in mind with his energy policy so much as an audacious political theory. With many of its investments targeted for red states, Biden bet the IRA would create a durable political coalition that would help ward off attacks from Republicans. It was an attempted enactment of the neo-Marxist theory that clean-energy jobs and investments would appeal to the material class interests of Republicans, thus securing political support for the Democrats.
The theory has many flaws, one of which was the reality that most of the investments had barely broken ground prior to the 2024 election. Worse, the Democrats’ theory of material interests fell prey to the larger culture war. It’s notable that, during the negotiations of the OBBB, a vocal faction in the Republican Party rose up to attempt to save some of the IRA tax credits and investments. But they were drowned out by a wider GOP that was scornful of renewable energy. Reporting suggests that, at the eleventh hour, Trump himself entered the negotiations, assuring many in his party that the OBBB would repeal the subsidies for solar and wind specifically.
[su_unherd_related fttitle=”Suggested reading” author=”David Rose”]https://unherd-wpml-test.go-vip.net/2025/03/the-true-cost-of-net-zero/?=refinnar[/su_unherd_related]
To explain their defeat, the Left has reached for another class theory. In this telling, the passing into law of the OBBB is just another example of the power of the fossil fuel industry. Likewise, the legislation could be seen as a defeat for “green capital”. Indeed, the CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association, Abigail Ross Harper, claimed it was time to “storm the Hill” upon reading the Senate version of the bill.
At its core, though, the energy culture war is being waged not between industries so much as between classes. For the new populist Right, whose most prominent figures include JD Vance as well as Chris Wright, the class enemy is not green capital per se, but the wider “professional class”: the liberal academics, journalists and bureaucrats who, of all Americans, are the most enthusiastic about the transition to renewable energy. Although the OBBB does the bidding of fossil fuel capital, its most significant appeal to MAGA is in its broader culture-war project of “owning the libs”. Beyond solar and wind, the repeal of electric vehicle tax credits for liberal consumers plays into this larger cultural class war.
[su_pullquote]‘The class enemy is not green capital per se, but the wider “professional class”.’[/su_pullquote]
It helped that Trump and his allies in Congress could call on some supportive evidence. One striking revelation of the political fight over energy policy was that Republicans on Capitol Hill were reportedly swayed less profoundly by energy capitalists, or even energy engineers, than by a philosopher, Alex Epstein. Epstein is the author of The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels and is one of the more powerful energy “influencers” on the Right engaging in online polemics against renewable energy. On his Substack, “Energy Talking Points”, he argues solar and wind power are “not real energy” and “unreliable parasites of reliable energy”, and if the US were to embark on a “renewables-only policy”, the consequences, “…would quickly turn America into a third-world country”.
This is a battle, then, that transcends energy sectors. It is also a battle that maps precisely onto the increasingly geographical contours of political polarization. Pro-renewable liberals live in cosmopolitan, blue cities where climate change is an overarching concern. In these areas, solar and wind power appear as an unalloyed good on spreadsheets and in newspaper charts.
In rural areas, where the vast majority of these projects are constructed, people see things differently. Wind and solar farms take up a significant amount of land. This is a boon for landowners, who receive lucrative lease payments, but it is of less obvious benefit to the broader swathe of rural residents. This concern, coupled with the aesthetic problem of landscapes covered in solar panels and wind turbines, has contributed to significant resistance to these projects in rural areas all over the country.
The culture war over renewables cannot obscure the reality that the challenge of climate change is much broader than simply swapping solar and wind power for fossil fuels. It’s a civilizational infrastructure challenge, encompassing housing, transit, agriculture and energy, and will require something akin to a new, green industrial revolution reshaping entire geographies of life and work. The Trump administration’s attack on solar and wind is as superficial and unserious as Biden’s gambit that it would be enough to use tax credits to incentivize the right investments and consumer choices.
The irony is many climate liberals have been insisting for years that renewables have become incredibly cheap and cost-competitive with fossil fuels. If that’s the case, they shouldn’t need the subsidies. Their theory is about to be put to the test.
Matt Huber is Professor of Geography at Syracuse University and the author of Climate Change as Class War: Building Socialism on a Warming Planet.
Matthuber78 
The net 0, carbon credit loonies have been exposed lately as hack jobs, their promised materialization of “the effectiveness is almost there” has been going on for 2 decades now and it turns out the battery technology still hasn’t quite come up to snuff. Meanwhile the entire European industrial sector has been hollowed out because of the massive effort to “decarbonize” meanwhile in the UK the brunt of that is being felt by citizens who are having to pay exorbitant prices to heat their homes in the winter while the luxuried class complaining about this is zipping around in their private jets.
Meanwhile the same nutcases screaming about imminent climate catastrophe are the same fruitcakes that 40 years ago when we couldve actually made a difference viciously opposed the only real solution in nuclear power, and still do.
As a final morsel for thought, solar and wind require massive investments in batteries. These batteries require enormous amounts of lithium, China has been acquiring access to many of the worlds major lithium deposits over the past several years. I wonder could the CCP be covertly trying to manipulate western governments with fake movements and “influence” campaigns to force western powers to develop a dependency on resources they control in an attempt to secure supremacy?
No, no of course not, that’s crazed conspiracy thinking, after all it’s not like national governments ever attempt to use control over valuable resources to advance their own geopolitical interests, we’re at the “end of history” after all.
It’s pure virtue signaling to ‘save the planet’, which doesn’t need saving, and which targets can never be fulfilled. A perfect perpetual scam.
Alex Epstein is right. Solar and wind are indeed parasites.
Solar farm generators should be banned, and solar should only be allowed for businesses and homes prepared to pay for their own systems; that is, without subsidies.
Wind generation should be banned outright.
Roof top solar on flat-roofed commercial buildings, especially data and A.I. centers, is a fine idea.
In the event of instability they can be cut off from the grid. And they would help address the cost-of-new-generation issue that these large scale users create. It certainly isn’t fair to make rate-payers foot the bill for new plants to supply such massive commercial consumers.
This would be what’s known as “good governance”.
Give me a break. Opposition to wind and solar is not a cultural issue. It’s the application of junior high math and common sense. If this is a cultural issue, it exists only in the fever dreams of rabid ideologues on the left.
Absolutely. Opposition is due to the numbers, and the constant need to rely on some, as yet, undeveloped battery technology. Renewables don’t scale rapidly and are expensive as electricity bills show.
The cultural thing is being pro-renewables – all the ‘nice’ stories for individuals who struggle to grasp the numerical implications of the difference between mega and giga.
We need cheap abundant non-carbon electricity. Economics will do the rest.
Carbon based energy is just fine. The only feasible non-carbon energy is hydro-way to limited, and huge foot print, and fission power. The “greens” have successfully stymied fission for nearly 50 years.
There are nuts on both sides. I think the emerging “middle way” is that we will move to a 90%+ carbon free energy system but only at the rate that the renewable and other technologies become cheaper than their carbon based alternatives. The price of solar power in particular has collapsed. Battery storage is getting better and cheaper at an exponential rate but until they can economically store energy not just for a few hours but for weeks then reserve gas plants will still be needed. Electric cars are about to become cheaper than petrol based ones. Domestic heating will take longer and so forth. I suspect the key is to give the Department of Energy a triple mandate – moving to net zero AND the lowest energy costs in Europe AND security of supply. Stressing only the first is dumb.
While I agree with you wholeheartedly about there being a bulletproof evidence-based case against renewable energy, I dispute that it’s not also a cultural issue. The cultural rift is between those who think hard science trumps wish-fulfilment and luxury politics, and those who think it doesn’t, or won’t, or ought not to, and that this supposedly-moral imperative is what matters.
Ultimately the hard facts will reveal themselves in plummeting living standards on the part of the majority, but luckily for the elites they can simply fall back on the same delusion that enabled them to impose economic suicide on everyone else in the first place: the moral imperative.
Green ideology is of course the same as the old 20th century socialism that a society can vote itself into, but must shoot its way out of.
Its a battle between people who know how s**t works and people who don’t know s**t.
Why don’t we give your grand children a break and own the FACT that human activity is causing climate change!!!
Prove it. And prove that the “solution” to your imaginary problem will not destroy our living standards anyway.
Technically science cannot prove anything. It can only disprove hypotheses through contradictory results. By repeating experiments many times and getting consistent results to support a hypothesis, we increase the confidence in the correctness of that hypothesis, but it’s never truly proven. Newton’s laws of motion were considered absolute and proven until Einstein’s experiments on relativity and space-time showed that they were not completely true. The climate change scientists think they’ve run enough experiments to be highly confident in their hypothesis, certain enough to advise on matters of policy anyway. The temperature of the planet does seem to be increasing and that will indeed have profound effects on the environment. Rising carbon dioxide levels are a reasonable explanation of this. People burning coal/gas/etc. is a reasonable explanation of the increase in CO2 levels. Climate change science is actually pretty reasonable when we only look at the raw data and the substance of the hypotheses. There’s little doubt a warming planet will cause problems. We probably should be preparing for these problems to a far greater degree than either side of the climate change debate is suggesting. Energy policy is one aspect of that but there are others that are being studiously ignored by both sides of the debate. That’s most likely a result of having one bunch of elites now profiting from green energy subsidies and a different bunch of elites profiting from fossil fuel extraction.
The second part of your question is the bigger problem, and it’s one that climate change activists don’t actually have an answer for, so they frame climate change as an apocalyptic threat that will destroy human civilization or even destroy all life on planet earth, which isn’t scientific, but it might scare people enough to do things they otherwise wouldn’t. Fearmongering is an old strategy and one we should all recognize. Most of the fearmongers don’t actually believe their apocalyptic pronouncements, but they believe in eliminating fossil fuels and preserving the environment as it currently is, and think the ends justify the means. They eventually find gullible true believers who actually believe the worst case scenarios and become useful idiots in spreading apocalyptic messages (Thunberg). Of course, the one side will never admit that climate change is real and the other will never admit that they have no realistic solution to offer other than energy rationing global totalitarianism. That’s what climate change is really about Charlie Brown.
Probably the main way in which human activity is affecting climate change is by reducing air pollution. There is a clear correlation between reductions in air pollution and recent increases in temperature. It’s worth it! A little warming is not a bad thing. We are seeing higher crop productivity and fewer deaths from cold (which far outweighs deaths from heat — something almost never mentioned).
If human activity is causing climate change, then renewables are the wrong solution – too little impact, too long to implement. They scale poorly (only one third of electricity generated by renewables now, and that’s after 25 years of investment) taking money from the only proper grid-scale solution we have. We could have solved this last decade if we had invested in the right (and proven) electricity generation option. If it’s an emergency invest with emergency speed in our only known and proven solution.
Whether our emissions are, or are not, affecting climate in a dangerous way, renewables are the wrong answer.
C.F. for Cult Follower?
Which certainly includes this author. This article practically screams climate change activist trying to sound fair and balanced and show concern for opposing viewpoints. I suspect the smart climate activists have read the writing on the subway walls and realized that there’s never going to be a critical mass of people who are actually willing to sacrifice standard of living to ‘save the planet’ or who even believe it needs to be ‘saved’. This is progress insofar as it means ideologues are recognizing that social and political constraints are just as real as the average global temperature and can’t be ignored. There simply aren’t enough cosmopolitan liberals and thanks to AI there now likely never will be. So now they are arguing to keep the wind and solar subsidies in the name of cheap and plentiful energy in general along with jobs and economic nationalism, which I must say is far more sensible argument that might gain some limited political traction outside urban enclaves. We know that zealotry doesn’t go away that easily, but it can be suppressed and limited by political and social pressure. Perhaps in another five to ten years we’ll be able to have a sensible political debate on what to do about energy and climate without the unrealistic nonsense.
We already have zero carbon industrial power that can be implemented anywhere. That is nuclear power. I hope Trump removes some of the ridiculous regulations imposed on the industry to show the world how cost effective it can be.
Yes, anyone who wails about “climate change” (i.e. supposedly catastrophic global warming) should be strongly supporting nuclear power. Very few do. I see no problem with global warming (which I’ve been paying attention to for 30+ years) but have always supported nuclear. BTW, nuclear is just as “renewable” as solar or wind. The Sun has a limited lifespan, so the category makes no sense.
I have come to view solar and wind power as the equivalent of loose change down the back of a sofa. Always pleasant to find but not a reliable source of income.
…and such a big challenge that people need to know that the green industrial revolution is both necessary and possible. Something that has not been demonstrated yet (if ever).
“The Trump administration’s attack on solar and wind is as superficial and unserious as Biden’s gambit that it would be enough to use tax credits to incentivise the right investments and consumer choices. “
What, why?? These are massively inefficient and intermittent technologies that are so bad at replacing fossil fuels they would need the entire grid and energy system completely rebuilt with battery technology that doesn’t exist just to support them. Only an unserious person would defend them.
Can you imagine what these battery farms would be like?
What is a ‘climate policy?’
A power grab led by people who will pay no price for being wrong.
A well-thought out strategy for imposing central control and achieving numerous statist goals including redistribution.
Matt Huber is Professor of Geography at Syracuse University and the author of Climate Change as Class War: Building Socialism on a Warming Planet.
So we are not really likely to get a sane impartial take on this issue are we.
If Unherd are going to commission articles from the looney left for balance can we have one from Nick Griffin
Not Titania McGrath?
Solar is probably OK at the micro level – e.g. on the roof of my house. But I will freely admit it is only really effective ~8 months of the year (south of England). Wind is expensive, even before you take into account the eye-watering amounts needed to reconfigure the national grid.
If we let the market decide our generation, I suspect we would be back to Coal & Gas (& maybe nuclear if we choose the right technology) pdq.
“The culture war over renewables cannot obscure the reality that the challenge of climate change is much broader than simply swapping solar and wind power for fossil fuels. It’s a civilisational infrastructure challenge, encompassing housing, transit, agriculture and energy, and will require something akin to a new, green industrial revolution reshaping entire geographies of life and work.”
And the reason this is addictively compelling to the people who risibly describe themselves as liberals, is that it requires a massive expansion of power by the State at the expense of the individual. They don’t actually care whether a Green economy works. What they care about is being in charge of it.
They are selling indulgences, er… forcing us to buy indulgences.
Chris Wright is anything but a culture warrior. He is a very smart and well informed scientist/engineer who relies on technical and not emotional arguments to make his case.
Wright’s office released a hugely important report yesterday. It was written by a group of experts in climate science,
https://www.energy.gov/topics/climate
“Whether the concern is whale psychology or landscape aesthetics, there seems to be something visceral, even vibes-based, in the Right’s disdain for renewable energy.”
The Right’s disdain for renewable energy is a direct result of the Left’s beatification of it, wild exaggeration of its benefits, and increasingly undeniable fact that it is largely a weaponization of energy policy against the West’s capitalist economy.
The right does not have “disdain” for renewables. It just knows that they alone are not an answer. And if you’re not pushing for more nuclear energy, you are not serious about climate change as an issue; you’re just parroting the lines of a cargo cult.
Also, most of the world outside the West doesn’t care about this manufactured crisis. It just wants the same access to affordable and available energy that has allowed us to prosper. One thing the author is right about is tax credits, subsidies, and other coercive measures that rely on other people’s money being almost worthless.
“The oil shocks in the Seventies led to a wave of anti-Arab xenophobia in the United States”
It was not xenophobia, That is ideological language used by woke progressives. Get the blinkers off!
It was anger at the imposition of an exploitive cartel that has extracted untold billions from energy consumers globally and used it to build bling cities, promote Islam and buy influence and permeate the educational, cultural and sports organisation of the western world. But notably not to support the economic development of a viable democratic Palestinian State. I wonder why. Out of the energy crisis created by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine the Opec countries made a windfall of over almost a trillion dollars.
Mind you the American oilman soon learned to ride on the back of the cartel too and today Europe is being urged to buy American energy in the form of liquefied natural gas at a price 4 times that which they charge themselves for natural gas.
renewable-heavy grids would need better “long-duration” batteries than those that exist today.
Its interesting that the climate catastrophe zealots always throw this line in as though its a minor issue rather than the single fact that precludes a reliable wind/solar grid-and thats without factoring in both the cost of effective battery back up and the environmental cost of providing them.Its a sthough if we go all out renewables “something will turn up”-terrifying.
this is always been about Class, and i’m no socialist, i judder at the mere mention.
People live in their bubbles, why do we need farms, why do we need men. Because with neither, your living in a cold , dark cave within a week
They are so removed from reality, they don’t understand what goes into a society to keep them in their A/C condo with Soy Lattes on demand
We have had effective, cheap , near unlimited clean energy since the 50’s, Nuclear power, we could put 20 of them on ascension, cable it, up, far enough not to be a problem, and be 100% energy secure
We are coming close to Fisson, so Wind, Hydro will go the way of the Dodo , within 30 years anyway
Yet some won’t want that, despite it being the cleanest form of energy ever, they want the control , as we see with Fossil fuel companies, who you think they prefer unreliable Wind, so you will always need them , or Fisson, where they are done
JSO and the likes are doing god’s work for the Fossil fuel industry, i’d argue they are probaly indirectly paid agitators for them, they unaware of that fact
Good points and analysis in this article. The energy system is complicated and complex. To make a mental model and claim that 100% renewables is just a matter of political will is naive. McKibben does this all the time, and I’ve never read of him considering counterarguments or even resource availability as well as costs for all those new batteries. Not to mention what we will do to dispose them when they wear out. I’ve lost confidence in McKibben.
https://www.aei.org/domestic-policy/energy-policy/the-ivanpah-solar-power-monstrosity-bites-the-taxpayers-again/
This gigawatt-scale solar facility was designed to avoid all of the problems described above. It’s located in the featureless desert on the California-Nevada state line, is directly connected to the grid. Land there is cheap and there were no environmental or NIMBY objections. Yet it proved uneconomical. If solar can’t pay in that location of endless clear sunshine, how can it pay off anywhere else?
I am all in favour of renewable power, where it makes sense.
What I do object to is paying subsidies to ‘put a thumb on the scale’ in the favour of renewable.
As the author notes, there are parts of Texas where electricity from solar is cheaper than that generated from gas.
Remove all subsidies and let the market decide.
Yes, but let the market work properly. Don’t just remove all subsidies; also remove much of the insane overregulation of nuclear. That means abolishing or reforming the NRA, banning the use of the idiotic ALARA and linear no threshold rules.
Decarbonisation is both unnecessary and futile. It’s also ridiculously expensive.
This battle is far broader than this article poses. The ever increasing mountain of scientific evidence for climate change is being plowed under what can only be equated to a massive misinformation landfill. Per the remarks this week of our hideous EPA Director:
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday proposed revoking a scientific finding that has long been the central basis for U.S. action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change.
The proposed Environmental Protection Agency rule would rescind a 2009 declaration that determined that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare. The “endangerment finding” is the legal underpinning of a host of climate regulations under the Clean Air Act for motor vehicles, power plants and other pollution sources that are heating the planet.
Repealing the finding “will be the largest deregulatory action in the history of America,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said Tuesday.
“There are people who, in the name of climate change, are willing to bankrupt the country,” Zeldin said on the conservative “Ruthless” podcast. “They created this endangerment finding and then they are able to put all these regulations on vehicles, on airplanes, on stationary sources, to basically regulate out of existence, in many cases, a lot of segments of our economy. And it cost Americans a lot of money.”
Carbon dioxide: the only “pollutant” that is plant food.
The science is so settled that climate scientists are continually perplexed by a new finding. Meanwhile, in our never-before-warmer world ancient artifacts keep emerging from melting glaciers.
Why characterise this as an ideological battle between Left and Right? I have a science degree and like to think, a practical understanding of economics and energy generation.
The simple fact is that “renewables” don’t work. They’re made using energy dense sources such as coal and oil and never pay for themselves for the energy invested. They also take up a lot of land and kill many living creatures. Talk of storage is for the birds. We have a few minutes capacity for the grid at the moment. You gonna find storage for a 3 week dunkelflaute?
So, no, I’m not an ideologue about this stuff. I just get frustrated watching other idiot ideologues, like Miliband with zero understanding lie to the electorate whilst destroying the UK economy.
It’s only Left versus Right in that the Left has found a convenient vehicle to send us back to the Stone Age/communist paradise in the form of Net Zero. It’s all about control for them, but in reality it’s only Physics that matters.
“While Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was uniquely generous in using tax credits to support electricity from solar and wind” There is nothing generous about taking people’s money against their will and giving it to enrich political supporters.
“many on the Left see climate change as solvable.” Climate change is not something you “solve.” It exists and always has. And anyway, a slightly warming climate is probably overall a good thing as are higher CO2 (plant food) levels.
Alex Epstein’s blog (and book) are excellent and provide crisp, well documented facts to show the high cost and unreliability of “renewables” (a false term).
The Growing Challenge of Insuring Coastal Properties in 2025
Coastal properties represent the pinnacle of desirable real estate, offering breathtaking ocean views and unparalleled lifestyles. However, these idyllic locations come with significant insurance challenges that homeowners must navigate. The combination of extreme weather risks, environmental changes, and shifting insurance markets has created a perfect storm of coverage difficulties. For property owners along America’s coastlines, securing adequate protection has never been more complex or expensive. Understanding these challenges is the first step toward finding viable insurance solutions.
Natural Disasters Make Coastal Areas High-Risk Zones
Coastal regions face constant threats from hurricanes, tropical storms, and severe wind damage that terrify insurance providers. Devastating events like Hurricane Ian in 2022 and Superstorm Sandy in 2012 caused billions in damages, permanently altering the insurance landscape. Many major carriers have responded by either dramatically increasing premiums or completely withdrawing from vulnerable coastal markets. These decisions leave homeowners with fewer options and higher costs, particularly in hurricane-prone states like Florida and the Gulf Coast. The increasing frequency of billion-dollar weather disasters continues to reshape insurer risk models and underwriting standards.
The Critical Gap in Flood Coverage
Standard homeowners insurance policies contain a dangerous exclusion that catches many coastal residents by surprise – they don’t cover flood damage. This creates a massive coverage gap for properties vulnerable to storm surges and rising tides. Homeowners must purchase separate flood protection through the National Flood Insurance Program or private insurers, often at staggering costs. Premiums in high-risk flood zones can reach thousands annually, with some properties becoming essentially uninsurable. The financial burden of mandatory flood insurance has caused many to reconsider coastal living altogether.
Climate Change Intensifies Coastal Risks
Rising sea levels and accelerating shoreline erosion present existential threats to coastal properties that insurers take very seriously. Many carriers now refuse to cover homes within 500 feet of the water or in areas with documented erosion problems. Some insurers have begun using advanced climate modeling to predict which properties might literally disappear underwater within a mortgage term. These environmental factors have created a new category of “uninsurable” coastal properties that struggle to find any coverage at any price. The situation will likely worsen as climate models predict stronger storms and faster sea level rise in coming decades.
———-
In my cataloging of beliefs climate deniers are right next to flat earthers
I dislike climate deniers too. I don’t know anyone who denies the existence of the climate but there are many who deny that the climate changes naturally, regardless of human activity.
I see you are have faith in climate models, despite their failure over more than 30 years. You probably cling to RCP 8.5 despite its utter implausibility. Even with that ludicrous scenario, the IPCC does NOT support climate crisis conclusions. You are the science denier.
Germany and much of Europe are turning themselves into third world countries with their lack of economic growth and innovation which is in part due to their obsession with net zero.
So MAGA follows science, not fear mongering narratives. The climate consensus is obvious bs. Calling out the bs is an act of liberation.
If the author is serious he should first talk to and convince the Chinese.
It never ceases to infuriate me that Climate Alarmists feel they have the right to ruin the beauty and quiet of someone else’s landscape to solve a “problem” that likely doesn’t really threaten any of us.
And, furthermore, that act of destruction will suck up vast amounts of taxpayer’s money. And, regardless of the author’s opinion, will cause instability in the system.
And to top it all off, even if they’re planned switch to renewables actually happens it won’t make one iota of difference in the CO2 levels in our atmosphere.
Is it any wonder that the Democrats are doomed?
Just as Hydrogen has been tomorrow’s fuel for decades and will always be tomorrow’s fuel, inexpensive and massive Battery back-up is the key to the future and always will be.
NetZero is rapidly being proved a fraud.
McKibben is actually a true Malthusian; his real motive is to depopulate. The Stanford engineer cited in this article has been widely criticized for his shabby logic and invalid economic calculations. No need to capture and sequester CO2. Plant more trees and crops; let them grow rapidly and green up the earth. Those countries actively pursuing utopian NetZero goals are presently being deindustrialized and committing future economic suicide.
I disagree with the author that opposition to solar and wind projects is a class warfare issue. There has been significant gaslighting of the public when singing the praises of so-called renewable energy and quite the minimization of risks and costs.
The poster child for this gaslighting has to do with battery storage. Ask your favorite AI or Search Engine about the Moss Landing battery fire. This was a major environmental impact in California, that was mostly ignored by the mainstream press. In short, there was a massive fire at a large battery storage facility that resulted in a blaze that burned for about two days, producing a large plume of smoke that released heavy metals and other toxic substances into the local environment and led officials to evacuate roughly 1,200 residents. A flare‑up occurred about a month later when damaged batteries under the rubble reignited. The U.S. EPA is overseeing what it calls the largest lithium‑ion battery cleanup in its history.
If a battery storage facility is targeted for an area you live in be sure that your local fire department has a seat at the table and has the capacity to thoroughly assess the fire risks.
Battery fire risk is not the only concern with these technologies but I’m not seeing class warfare in any of it.
And if you haven’t heard of any downsides to ‘green’ energy – ask yourself why.