Get ready for moar fires and carbon tax initiatives, peasants.
Why this summer may be especially hot in the United States
A new outlook for summer from the National Weather Service is a toasty one: Hotter-than-normal conditions are favored almost everywhere, except for a small portion of the northern Plains. The highest odds for a hot summer stretch from Texas into the Pacific Northwest, as well as much of the Northeast.
This forecast sets the stage for bouts of record-challenging high temperatures throughout the nation and the possibility of the hottest summer ever observed. In the central states and Rocky Mountains, the combination of heat and an expectation for drier-than-normal weather will increase drought potential. It will also raise the fire threat in some areas.
If you are in CA, you are likely familiar with the shit show the insurance markets are. (BTW, this is spreading to other states.) A lot of carriers have exited writing new business and now are begin to exit (not renew) altogether. State Farm is the most recent example. The CA FAIR plan run by the state has been the stop gap for this - basically an insurer of last resort. A barebones policy that covers fire only. There was an article recently that emphasized that the plan has grown tremendously over the last couple of years but that liabilities are now trending around $300B but they only have $200B in the bank. An actual carrier with this kind of balance sheet would likely be put into receivership.
There is argument the companies are looking for bailouts (they have to pay into it under law), but I would add that while there is an element of truth to that, in part it is because the CA Department of Insurance did NOTHING over the last four years. (I don't think one new auto policy has been approved since CV and I think most of them still work from home. They have something like 1800 employees- WTF do you people DO?) I asked a friend of mine who works pretty high up for one of the publicly traded agencies about it. I said "do you get the feeling they are trying to crash the whole thing and then turn around and blame it on the convenient boogeyman?" Let's just say she didn't disagree.