There needs to be pre-bunking/ educational ads about how inflation has been fueled by huge property insurance premium increases due in part, by GOP MAGA politicians defining climate change problems as a hoax. Homeowners in states vulnerable to hurricanes and/ or floods like Florida, California, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas and Mississippi, are facing price sticker shock increases in homeowner insurance premium rates, that is if the policies aren’t cancelled outright. Nebraska, Texas and Colorado are prone to wildfire outbreaks. Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas experience frequent tornadoes, etc.

These increases in property insurance premium rates are frequently added to consumers’ mortgage monthly payments. This leads to landlords charging higher rental prices.

This can be described as an invisible tax, but Florida property owners know how real this tax is. Car insurance rates have increased also to allow for collection of fees to cover homes harmed in storms that are no longer insured. As per Insurify, in 2024, South Florida homeowners are paying the highest premiums at nearly $11,000 annually.

This is a huge problem facing millions of Americans. On the campaign trail, candidates vying for elected offices have to be made to address this issue with plans to mitigate for this invisible tax. GOP MAGA politicians can ‘no longer be allowed to discount the science regarding the consequential negative repercussions of climate change.

In my next blog, I’ll be explaining how LLC corporations have been buying into the Florida homeowner market causing a shortage of available homes for purchase by individuals and rental rate hikes which also adds to consumers’ inflation complaints. In the Tampa Bay area alone, LLCs have purchased 27,000 homes, 70% are backed by institutional investors like Wall Street and Equity firms.

As per the May 14, 2024 New York Times article by Christopher Flavelle, “4 Takeaways From Our Homeowners Insurance Investigation:”

Excerpts:

“We found an industry facing a level of disruption that is far greater than most people know. Here are the biggest takeaways from our investigation.”

Climate change is upending the insurance market

“Until recently, only widespread damage from hurricanes and earthquakes had the potential to put insurers out of business and overwhelm their ability to pay claims. That’s a big reason insurers have found it so hard to make money in Florida, which is more exposed to hurricanes than any other state.”

“But in the past few years, previously small-scale threats like wildfires, hail and windstorms have become more intense and frequent. That means the threat to insurers has grown as well. In Iowa, a number of insurers have stopped writing homeowners insurance since the start of last year, dropping tens of thousands of customers. Insurance agents say it’s getting harder to find companies that will write new business.”

“The same is true across the Midwest, in much of the Southeast, and in parts of the West. We found that the insurance industry lost money on homeowners coverage in 18 states last year, a list that includes Kentucky, Michigan, Utah, Illinois, Georgia, Arkansas and Washington . (You can learn about the health of the homeowners insurance market in your state here.)”

There’s the September 9, 2024 FactCheck.org analysis by Jessica McDonald, that tackles GOP MAGA/ Fossil Fuel methods for explaining climate change issues like ‘Global Cooling’ Myth, Scientists Still Use the Term ‘Global Warming, Misconstruing a Climate Report, ‘Clean’ Coal, and Wind Power.

The article is a lengthy must read, “Trump Clings to Inaccurate Climate Change Talking Points:”

Excerpts:

“Former President Donald Trump, who has famously called climate change a “hoax” for many years, hasn’t used the word lately with respect to climate change. But he still clings to some similar arguments, and other claims he makes about climate change haven’t changed much over the years.”

“Some of his claims reflect a larger shift in rhetoric that other Republicans have embraced. Instead of suggesting that the phenomenon isn’t occurring, isn’t due to humans or the burning of fossil fuels, or that somehow the science isn’t settled (it is), politicians who oppose climate action increasingly use other tactics.”

“This includes accusing others of exaggerating the risks of climate change, making false claims about clean energy and other climate change solutions, as well as incorrectly claiming that nothing can be done about it.”

“But for the most part, Trump’s comments are firmly rooted in older tropes that deny or question the existence of climate change — or are far from new. As we recently detailed, this summer Trump has revived claims from 2019, repeatedly providing absurdly low estimates for sea level rise — and at times indicating that maybe even those tiny increases won’t happen at all — to argue that climate change isn’t a concern.”

“That claim was again on display in a podcast episode that aired on Aug. 26, when he said “the oceans in 500 years will raise a quarter of an inch” and “the oceans will rise an eighth of an inch in 355 years.”

“You know, they have no idea what’s going to happen. It’s weather,” he added.”

“Climate, of course, is not the same as weather. Weather refers to short-term atmospheric conditions, the National Ocean Service explains, whereas climate is average weather over an area for an extended period of time.”

“The conflation of climate and weather — such as the idea that cold weather or a snowstorm disproves global warming — is a strategy those opposed to climate action have used for years.”

“Trump has previously said he doesn’t “think science knows” whether temperatures will increase to similarly cast doubt on climate change. But while scientists can’t know the exact future — largely because they cannot predict how humans will ultimately respond — there is no question that global warming is happening.”

“Global sea levels, for example, are already rising a bit more than one-eighth of an inch per year, contrary to Trump’s claim, and by 2050 the sea level along the U.S. coastline is projected to be 10 to 12 inches higher than in 2000.”

“Later in the podcast interview, which was with Shawn Ryan, a former Navy SEAL, Trump repeated other familiar falsehoods about climate change. We contacted the Trump campaign to clarify multiple aspects of the former president’s comments and to ask Trump’s position on climate change, but we did not receive a response. Here, we review several of the claims he made in his interview with Ryan.”

Scientists Still Use the Term ‘Global Warming’

“When first broaching the topic of climate change in the interview, Trump falsely claimed that people — presumably, scientists or Democrats — had to stop using the term “global warming” and replace it with “climate change” because not every place was getting warmer.”

“You know, when I hear these poor fools talking about global warming, they don’t call it that anymore, they call it climate change because, you know, some parts of the planet are cooling and warming. It didn’t work,” he told Ryan, referring to the term. “So they finally got it right … they just call it climate change. They used to call it global warming.”

“Trump has been spinning a version of this changing-of-the-terms story since at least 2019, and has repeated it on at least three other occasions this summer. Other politicians, including Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, have been saying something like it even longer.”

“But it’s bogus, as we’ve written. Scientists haven’t stopped saying “global warming.” On the contrary, the term appears in more than 40,000 papers so far this year, according to a Google Scholar search. And there’s nothing problematic about it, either.”

“Global warming is “the unusually rapid increase in Earth’s average surface temperature over the past century primarily due to the greenhouse gases released by people burning fossil fuels,” NASA explains. The term specifically refers to average temperatures across the globe and “does not mean temperatures rise everywhere at every time by [the] same rate,” the agency adds. The fact that a few places have gotten cooler over time does not negate the overwhelming trend in the opposite direction for the rest of the world, nor does it invalidate the term.”

“Climate change is a related but more general term for long-term changes to the climate. Many scientists prefer saying climate change because it captures the wider range of effects that will occur as the planet warms, such as loss of Arctic ice, sea level rise, and more or more severe extreme weather, including hurricanes, wildfires and floods.”

“In the early 2000s, a GOP strategist also advised Republican politicians to use the term “climate change” because it sounded “more controllable” and “less frightening” than global warming.”