Trump’s 48-Hour Manic Rant Had Immediate Consequences
Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling – November 30, 2023
The GOP’s presidential front-runner had himself a bit of an unhinged social media binge over the last couple of days, using Truth Social to air his scattered grievances, attack the wife of the judge overseeing his New York bank fraud trial, and take a wild left turn by claiming sudden allyship with the broader Black Lives Matter movement.
Kicking off the rapid-fire onslaught of posts late Tuesday, Trump called MSNBC’s coverage of the Republican Party “illegal activity,” adding that the “so-called ‘government’ should come down hard” on the news outlet and “make them pay.”
Then the former president revived an old gripe that “Obamacare sucks”—thus reopening the possibility that his campaign will renew the call to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act that has dogged the GOP since that law’s inception. Less than 20 minutes later, he redirected his attention to the sexual assault allegations made against him by columnist E. Jean Carroll, spewing comments eerily similar to the ones that have already lost him two defamation cases brought by the writer, in which he claimed that the allegations were a “made up fairytale” that was “funded by political operatives” to interfere with the 2020 presidential election results.
Over the ensuing hours, Trump also warned that the indictments against him had opened up “pandora’s box,” which he followed by snubbing his Koch-backed GOP opponent Nikki Haley as “a very weak and ineffective Birdbrain.”
In yet another post, Trump said he had done “more for Black people than any other President,” including Lincoln. He also confused the support of Mark Fisher, the founder of Black Lives Matter Incorporated, for that of the larger, national movement, despite statements front and center on BLM INC.’s web page that they’re not affiliated with “any other Black Lives Matter Movement.”
But the pièce de résistance of Trump’s 48-hour digital diatribe was a string of attacks on the wife of the judge overseeing his business fraud trial, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron, whose gag order on Trump had been repealed. In five separate posts, Trump uplifted a conspiracy theory that Dawn Engoron and her husband were inherently biased in his case and that Mrs. Engoron had attacked Trump and other “white male politicians” online.
“Judge Engoron’s Trump Hating wife, together with his very disturbed and angry law clerk, have taken over control of the New York State Witch Hunt Trial aimed at me, my family, and the Republican Party,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
In a statement to Newsweek, Engoron denied ownership of the account and any of its content.
“I do not have a Twitter account. This is not me. I have not posted any anti-Trump messages,” she told the outlet.
That may have been enough to convince a New York appeals court that Trump wasn’t capable of playing nice without his recently stayed gag order, which the four-judge panel dutifully reinstated on Thursday, in an attempt to halt the verbal onslaught against the judge, his court staff and, apparently, his family.
Donald Trump Wants Federal Government To “Come Down Hard” On MSNBC For Its Criticism Of Him
Ted Johnson – November 29, 2023
Former President Donald Trump’s attacks on the media are central to his image, but he’s once again calling on the federal government to take action against NBCUniversal for its MSNBC criticism of him.
In a late night post on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump complained that MSNBC “uses FREE government approved airwaves, and yet it is nothing but a 24 hour hit job” on him and “the Republican party for the purposes of ELECTION INTERFERENCE.”
He also attacked Brian Roberts, the CEO of NBCU parent Comcast, as a “slimeball who has been able to get away from these constant attacks for years.”
“It’s the world’s biggest political contribution to the Radical Left Democrats who, by the way, are destroying our Country. Our so-called ‘government’ should come down hard on them and make them pay for their illegal political activity. Much more to come, watch!”
A bit of background: MSNBC is a cable network, so it does not use the public airwaves. Yet even if it was a broadcast outlet, the FCC has been clear that it will not regulate news programming content. The Fairness Doctrine, which required that broadcasters present an array of viewpoints on controversial issues, was abandoned more than 35 years ago during Ronald Reagan’s presidency.
The Federal Election Commission expenditure rules, meanwhile, exclude the news media, or more specifically, “any cost incurred in covering or carrying a news story, commentary, or editorial by any broadcasting station (including a cable television operator, programmer or producer).”
Trump’s attacks on NBC, MSNBC and Roberts are nothing new. In the first year of his presidency, he was upset over the network’s reporting and suggested that NBC’s broadcast license be challenged. Ajit Pai, who Trump appointed to chair the FCC, said a week later that the FCC “under the law does not have the authority to revoke the license of a broadcast station based on the content of a particular newscast.”
While Trump’s Truth Social post was one of many, many outbursts at the news media, his suggestion of government retaliation, something that would surely raise a First Amendment challenge, also comes as many of his allies and others on the right chide tech platforms for censorship over their content moderation practices.
The Republican attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana have been challenging the Biden administration’s contacts with social media platforms, claiming that they were efforts to curb misinformation about Covid vaccines and elections were in fact censoring conservative speech. The administration has argued that it is merely pointing out the spread of misinformation on platforms about urgent issues of public health and election integrity. Supreme Court last month lifted a preliminary injunction on Biden administration contacts while it will hear arguments in the case in a hearing next year.
Trump has told supporters that he would be their “retribution” in a second term, and has vowed to appoint a special prosecutor to go after Joe Biden and his family. The New York Times and The Washington Post also have been reporting in recent weeks on Trump and his allies’ plans for a second term, including taking greater hold over the federal workforce.
Russia is preparing a ‘loyalty agreement’ requirement for foreigners
Guy Faulconbridge and Lidia Kelly – November 29, 2023
Steam rises from chimneys of a heating power plan over the skyline of central Moscow
MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia’s interior ministry has prepared draft legislation that would force foreigners to sign a “loyalty agreement” forbidding them from criticising official policy, discrediting Soviet military history, or contravening traditional family values.
Since President Vladimir Putin ordered troops into Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has introduced a slew of tough laws that outlaw discrediting the military, and courts have handed down long jail sentences to opposition activists.
As the 2024 presidential election approaches, Putin has cast the war as part of an existential battle with the West, saying he will defend Russia’s “sacred” civilisation from what he portrays as the West’s decadence.
The TASS state news agency reported on Wednesday that the draft legislation had been prepared by the interior ministry and would force all foreigners entering Russia to sign an agreement that essentially restricts what they can say in public.
A foreigner entering Russia would be prohibited from “interfering with the activities of public authorities of the Russian Federation, discrediting in any form the foreign and domestic state policy of the Russian Federation, public authorities and their officials”, TASS said.
The proposed agreement would include clauses about morality, family, “propaganda about non-traditional sexual relations” and history.
In particular, foreigners would be barred from “distorting the historical truth about the feat of the Soviet people in the defence of the Fatherland and its contribution to the victory over fascism”.
The Soviet Union is estimated to have lost at least 27 million people in World War Two and eventually pushed Nazi forces back to Berlin. Governments loyal to Moscow then took power across swathes of eastern Europe.
It was not clear from Russian media reports which foreigners the draft legislation – if it becomes law – would apply to or what the punishment would be for not adhering to the “agreement” which foreigners would have to sign upon entry to Russia.
The Kremlin declined to comment on the initiative.
‘LOYALTY AGREEMENT’
Opposition activists and foreign diplomats in Moscow have for months been warning that the authorities are toughening their stance on any dissent ahead of the presidential election.
The Kremlin said earlier this month that some measure of censorship was needed as Russian troops were fighting in Ukraine, and cautioned those who wanted to criticise the military to think carefully before they did.
For the draft to become law, it has to be introduced to the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament, and to go through committee review and several readings before being submitted to Putin for signing.
The chairman of the Duma’s CIS Affairs Committee said that the draft law was well advanced and was being worked on by the interior ministry, the government, the presidential administration as well as his committee.
“The draft law on the so-called ‘loyalty agreement’ with migrants entering the Russian Federation is in a high degree of readiness,” Leonid Kalashnikov told Interfax.
Kalashnikov said some details of the proposed law were still to be worked out. The interior ministry did not immediately respond to requests for a comment.
The law has not yet been introduced formally in parliament, according to Reuters searches of the Duma’s database.
Since the start of its war in Ukraine, Russia has imposed a number of restrictions on foreigners from what it calls “unfriendly countries” – meaning those that have imposed sanctions on it over its war in Ukraine.
(Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne and Guy Faulconbridge in Moscow; Editing by Andrew Osborn and Nick Macfie)
COP28: What is it, who’s going and what are the key sticking points?
World leaders are set to meet at the UN climate summit in Dubai for the next two weeks to discuss tackling climate change
Rabina Khan, Contributor – November 29, 2023
Representatives from around the world will gather at Expo City in Dubai, UAE, for COP28. (AP) (Kamran Jebreili, Associated Press)
Thousands of politicians, economists, faith leaders, activists and many others are convening in Dubai for the latest UN climate conference, COP28.
This year’s event, which kicks off today, will focus on ramping up the shift to clean energy by cutting greenhouse gas emissions before 2030 in a bid to limit the impact of climate change.
But with competing priorities at play, the likelihood of consensus among the key players around the major sticking points remains in the balance.
This year, even the location of the conference has sparked some controversy.
The UAE has invested heavily in solar and wind energies, but it also remains one of the world’s top oil-producing nations.
“It is the equivalent of appointing the CEO of a cigarette company to oversee a conference on cancer cures,” said campaign group 350.org.
COP28 president-designate and the UAE’s special envoy for climate change Sultan Al Jaber has defended his country hosting the latest round of climate talks. (AP) (Kamran Jebreili, Associated Press)
COP28 agenda
As in previous years, the central issues are cutting fossil fuels and the greenhouse gases driving climate change by ramping up the shift to clean energy.
COP28 aims to prioritise securing funding for climate action in less affluent countries, fostering inclusivity, and addressing diverse issues like nature, people, health, finance and food and work towards a new agreement benefiting developing nations.
Although the hope is to continue to limit global temperature rises to 1.5֯C – the world is currently on track for 2.4-2.6C of warming – and the efforts being pursued to tackle this have been described by the UN as “nowhere near ambitious enough”.
The focus will also be on how people can best use nature and land use, moving to clean energy sources and making COP28 the “most inclusive” ever.
COP28 will focus on clean energy, aiming to cut greenhouse gas emissions before 2030, fostering inclusivity, and addressing issues like nature, people, health, finance, and food. (Source: COP28) (COP28)
Who are the key players?
King Charles III, prime minister Rishi Sunak, and foreign secretary David Cameron will be the most high-profile UK representatives.
However, their popularity among some allies remains uncertain due to Sunak’s support for North Sea oil and recent retreat on domestic net zero targets. His decision to advise against Charles attending COP27 also raised eyebrows.
The conference itself is being hosted by Sultan al Jaber – the boss of one of the world’s largest oil companies, the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) – and whose appointment was greeted with scepticism. He insists he wants to guide major oil and gas producers toward emission reduction goals, focusing on eliminating methane emissions by 2030.
However, the UAE this week had to fend off uncomfortable allegations from leaked documents that it planned to use meetings to promote deals for its national oil and gas companies to other countries. A COP28 spokesperson described the documents as “inaccurate”.
The absence of US president Joe Biden means climate envoy John Kerry will attempt to navigate disagreements on climate finance and broader US-China tensions.
His relationships with Al Jaber and Beijing’s Xie Zhenhua, the vice-chairman of China’s top economic development body, could shape the summit’s outcomes. While viewed positively, Xie’s stance on a fossil fuel “phase-out” remains a point of contention.
Pope Francis, pictured here meeting Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber at the Vatican in October, will make history as the first pope to attend the global climate summit at this year’s COP28. (Abaca Press/Alamy Live News) (ABACAPRESS, Abaca Press)
Russia, a major carbon polluter with a recent climate pledge aiming for net zero by 2060, will be represented by Vladimir Putin’s climate adviser, Ruslan Edelgeriyev.
Saudi Arabia’s stance on oil, gas, and coal will also likely pose challenges. Chief negotiator Khalid al-Mehaid will defend fossil fuels with a focus on reducing pollution, transitioning to renewables.
At the other end of the spectrum, the UN climate chief Simon Stiell, from Grenada, balances the interests of nearly 200 nations, seeking difficult answers and clear targets for climate action.
Representing the least-developed countries, Madeleine Diouf Sarr, head of the climate change division in Senegal’s Ministry of Environment will prioritise clear targets for adaptation and financial support amid growing concerns of the disproportionate impact of climate change on vulnerable nations.
The presence of philanthropist and former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates at COP28 underscores the intersection of environmental responsibility and business. (Reuters) (Leah Millis / reuters)
And Barbados prime minister Mia Mottley,willchampion climate equity, pushing for financial mechanisms benefiting vulnerable nations. Her outspoken calls for a just global financial system and debt-pause clauses have often resonated on the international stage.
Two other familiar faces include Pope Francis, who will make history as the first pope to attend the climate summit, and Bill Gates.
Gates will wear two hats at COP28: advocating for climate action through philanthropy and investing in green technologies. His presence underscores the intersection of environmental responsibility and business.
Watch: Barbados – Prime Minister Addresses United Nations General Debate, 78th Session
https://youtube.com/watch?v=ftHsJscUARU%3Frel%3D0
COP28: The sticky points
Differing views on the future of “unabated” fossil fuels, like coal, oil, and gas without emissions capture, are anticipated at COP28. While the UAE’s Al Jaber calls for a gradual “phase down”, the European Union is likely to advocate for a complete “phase out”.
Financial issues loom, with the unclear implementation of a “loss and damage” fund from richer to poorer countries, and the US rejecting climate reparations for historical emissions.
The EU aims to lead with a groundbreaking deal to phase out “unabated” coal, oil, and gas globally, but resistance is expected from major fossil fuel producers like Saudi Arabia and developing nations reliant on fossil fuels for economic growth.
China, the US, India and Russia are the top four polluters, according to data from Statista, China was the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2021, accounting for nearly 31% of the global emissions. The world’s top five largest polluters were responsible for roughly 60% of global CO2 emissions in 2021.
COP28’s key challenge is staying below a 1.5C temperature rise. To achieve this, there’s a push for a binding energy package—tripling renewable energy by 2030 and deploying 1.5 terawatts yearly.
Financial clarity is crucial, demanding a $200bn annual increase for the Global South, according to 350.org, an international movement of ordinary people working to end the age of fossil fuels.
“As civil society campaigners, demonstrations and protests are expected to be limited to the UN-designated zones only but we are determined to make our voices heard and that this COP28 should be one that leads to decisive action to tackle the climate crisis,” Kim Bryan, 350’s associate director told Yahoo!.
Watch COP28 climate change summit begins: Here’s what you need to know
Are the annual climate summits working? These countries are going to the courts, instead
Ella Nilsen, CNN – November 29, 2023
Few leaders paint a picture of the climate crisis as vividly as United Nations chief António Guterres. He has accused world leaders of opening “the gates of hell” and said the planet is “heading into uncharted territories of destruction” after deadly heat waves and floods.
“The current fossil fuel free-for-all must end now,” Guterres said last year. “It is a recipe for permanent climate chaos and suffering.”
Yet the UN climate summit, known as COP, is tedious. It is full of jargon, snail-paced developments and painful consensus-building that can be broken by a single country’s veto.
Now some are asking: Is the process even working? Some small island nations — countries that are facing irrevocable change from rising seas — say no.
Over the decades, these painstaking negotiations have worked to prevent several catastrophic degrees of global warming. COP’s biggest win was the Paris Agreement, widely seen as one of the most effective environment treaties, which set a goal to limit global warming to well under 2 degrees Celsius, and preferably to 1.5 — a target that climate scientists, advocates and most countries have since rallied around.
Before those talks, the world was on track for roughly 4 degrees of warming. Countries’ pledges after Paris pushed that to 2.5 to 2.9 degrees, according to recent UN figures.
But the Paris Agreement was voluntary by design, in large part due to the influence of the US, and it relies on a system of collective shaming and competitive ambition in lieu of legal consequences. It contained “very few obligations” for major polluters, said Payam Akhavan, an attorney for the Commission of Small Island States on Climate Change and International Law.
Vanuatu, Tuvalu and Antigua and Barbuda are now asking international courts to issue “advisory opinions” that could fundamentally change future COPs by compelling countries to set legally binding targets to cut climate pollution, rather than voluntary ones.
“The turn toward international litigation is an attempt to put some teeth in the toothless Paris regime, by declaring the 1.5-degree target is a binding target and not discretionary,” Akhavan told CNN.
As world leaders head to Dubai for COP28 this week, this courtroom strategy is raising eyebrows among the United States’ current and former climate negotiators, who say that while diplomacy can be stubborn and slow, it yields progress.
Even fierce climate advocates who agree COP should be more ambitious still believe the summit is a powerful and worthwhile endeavor.
“There is a lot of questioning whether this process will deliver or not,” Ani Dasgupta, president and CEO of international climate nonprofit World Resources Institute, told CNN. “However, I believe COP, or some version of COP, will remain and absolutely is needed. This is the only forum that I know where poor countries actually have a place at the table that is equal, to negotiate with rich countries across a vastly important topic.”
‘Countries move farther when they move together’
COP’s detractors and advocates alike agree it is a crucial annual meeting, but also one that is plodding and technical. An errant word or piece of punctuation can derail negotiations, and it can — and often does — take years for incremental progress to happen.
“I would say it’s necessary, but maybe not sufficient,” said Sue Biniaz, the deputy for US climate envoy and former Secretary of State John Kerry.
Sue Biniaz, the US deputy climate envoy, at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, on October 31, 2022. – Frances F. Denny/The New York Times/Redux
Biniaz has a lot of experience at COPs; she was the United States’ lead climate lawyer for more than two decades and was one of the key authors of the Paris Agreement.
Both Biniaz and other former top US climate negotiators told CNN that although each climate summit is often judged as a singular event, it is more important to look at the year leading up to it.
“It’s necessary because the fact that it meets annually and puts pressure on countries is a good thing, and we’re in a lot better position with the annual COPs and the Paris Agreement than we would have been without it,” Biniaz told CNN. “At the same time, it is really difficult and challenging to get agreement among everyone in the world, particularly when you have geopolitical issues, and some countries may be more motivated to reach agreement than others.”
International politics and the dynamics within countries matter to the success or failure of COP. There is no better recent example of than the shockwave that surged through the summit when former President Donald Trumppulled the US out of the Paris agreement in 2017 — a move President Joe Biden reversed upon taking office.
In this June 2017 photo, President Donald Trump after announcing his intention to abandon the Paris Agreement in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, DC. – Doug Mills/The New York Times/Redux
Still, former and current US negotiators say climate diplomacy has helped keep the world’s temperature from reaching truly alarming highs.
“If you look at those first assessments coming out of the scientific community back then, we were looking at an incremental temperature gain of about 7 degrees,” said Jonathan Pershing, a former Kerry deputy who now directs the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation’s environment program. “Seven degrees, today, is unimaginable.”
Pershing added that the fact the world’s governments are now racing to keep to below 2 degrees of warming is an “extraordinary transition.”
“The collective endeavor has fundamentally altered the trajectory of greenhouse gas emissions,” Pershing said. “I think countries move farther when they move together.”
The annual summit has also become the most visible rallying point for global climate action, former US climate envoy Todd Stern told CNN. The summits used to largely be a gathering of only government climate negotiators, but each year COP becomes much larger — drawing advocates, businesses (including fossil fuel companies) and think tanks from all corners of the globe.
In this 2009 photo, Todd Stern, US special envoy for climate change, listens to questions during a press conference in the Bella Center in Copenhagen. – Jens Astrup/AFP/Getty Images
Stern thinks the growing spectacle of COP is a positive force, impossible to ignore even for groups that used to deny climate change’s existence. Even US House Republicans have sent a delegation for the past two years.
“It’s a two-week moment in the course of the year when people around the world — or at least some meaningful subset of people around the world — are paying attention to it,” Stern said. “That needs to keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger because that puts pressure on governments.”
Too little, too slow
Attorneys for the small island nations who are rocking the boat at COP say the proof it isn’t working is in the extreme heat felt around the world this year, and the global records smashed.
The world’s governments are working to hold global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius — above which scientists say a hotter world with more severe droughts and intense storms will become difficult to adapt to.
But 1.5 degrees is no longer an abstract concept; the world briefly crossed that temperature threshold this summer, though scientists caution it will take several years above that limit to say with confidence it’s been officially exceeded. This summer was a taste of life at this threshold: Wildfires raged across Europe, mighty rivers like the Mississippi and the Amazon fell to new lows, and hot-tub-like ocean water killed coral reefs and rapidly intensified hurricanes and cyclones.
“It’s not as if 1.5 is safe in any way, but we are very much on track to cross it,” said Margaretha Wewerinke-Singh, an international lawyer representing the island nation Vanuatu in climate litigation at the International Court of Justice. “Clearly we need more mitigation ambition to make sure we don’t end up with an unlivable world.”
The potential for an unlivable world weighs heavily on young COP negotiators, who are urging swift action to cut climate pollution.
Mitzi Jonelle Tan, of the Philippines, center, participates in a Fridays for Future protest calling for money for climate action at the COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, in 2022. – Peter Dejong/AP/File
Hailey Campbell, a 25-year-old, Hawaii-based climate adaptation specialist who successfully lobbied for more official youth representation at COP, told CNN it is sometimes disconcerting to spend long hours and days at international summits debating the precise words on climate finance and ramping down fossil fuel use, then return to her Honolulu home and see climate impacts first-hand.
“You go back home and you’re like, ‘sea level rise is still here, [we] still need to do something about it,’” said Campbell, the co-executive director of advocacy group Care About Climate. “If I had to pick just one thing to come out of this year’s COP, it would be language to commit to an equitable phase-out of all fossil fuels.”
Two of the world’s highest courts are expected to weigh in on the small island nations’ cases as soon as next year. While the advisory opinions alone can’t force faster action from countries, it can “inject some urgency, some political will, some vision” into the annual climate talks and protect the “inalienable rights” — the very survival — of these disappearing nations, Wewerinke-Singh said.
“I think that the COP process has failed,” Akhavan said. “But we must make it work because we have no other choice.”
Jeff Bezos’ superyacht is in South Florida. It’s so big it has to anchor at a seaport
Madeleine Marr – November 29, 2023
Motorsport Images/Michael Potts/Motorsport Images//Sipa USA
South Florida, meet The Koru.
That’s the name of Jeff Bezos’ colossal yacht that just dropped anchor in Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale. The word means “new beginnings” in Maori, the language spoken by indigenous Polynesians of mainland New Zealand, where the Amazon founder’s private jet was spotted in 2020.
How ginormous is this triple-masted behemoth? Roughly 400 feet long and 250 feet tall, it’s the size of a cruise ship. That ginormous.
The luxury schooner is so big it can’t even hang with other leisure ships; she reportedly is parked near two oil tankers. It has two pools, a hot tub, multiple lounges, dining areas and bars, and perhaps the pièce de résistance, a wooden figurehead on the prow rumored to be modeled after Bezos’ fiancée, Lauren Sanchez.
The 59-year-old billionaire shelled out about $500M for his snazzy new toy, which was built just for him in the Netherlands by Oceanco, the company that also constructed Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones’ superyacht, the Bravo Eugenia.
Get used to seeing The Koru around, especially if you set sail on a vacation. Bezos, a Palmetto High alum, lives back here full time now, after spending three decades in Seattle, busy reinventing the way the world shops.
Why the Florida homeowners insurance crisis should worry us all
Climate change is making millions of homes across the country difficult or impossible to insure
Alexander Nazaryan, Snr W.H. Correspondent – November 28, 2023
Makatla Ritchter wades through flood waters after having to evacuate her home when the flood waters from Hurricane Idalia inundated it on August 30, 2023 in Tarpon Springs, Florida. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images) (Getty Images)
Earlier this year, Chicago native Steve Swanson decided to move full-time to Sanibel Island, Fla., where he had vacationed as a child. A boomerang-shaped barrier island in the Gulf of Mexico, Sanibel was devastated by Hurricane Ian last year, but Swanson did something that would have been unthinkable anywhere in the country a few years ago: He purchased a small house but declined to purchase homeowner’s insurance, which would reimburse him in case of another disaster.
“You self-insure,” Swanson said in an interview with Yahoo News, describing how he adds each month to a rainy-day fund against natural disasters instead of paying a premium to an insurance company. “And then you just hope that it never happens.”
Swanson’s experience is becoming increasingly common. He landed on the frontline of a budding home insurance crisis that has hit coastal and inland states alike. Insurance companies are pulling out of states where evermore frequent natural disasters mean those companies have to pay out large claims after a home is destroyed in a wildfire, leveled by a mudslide or wrecked by a flood,
A firefighter points at a potential hot spot of the Rabbit Fire, which tore through Moreno Valley, Calif., in July. (Jon Putman/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images) (SOPA Images/LightRocket via Gett)
Research has shown that rising ocean temperatures are causing hurricanes to gain strength more quickly, and to dump more rain than they did in the past. When those hurricanes destroy homes, insurance companies pay for the damage. To cover those expenses, they raise premiums.
Thanks to mounting hurricane losses, home insurance premiums in Florida have risen an astonishing 300% in the last five years, according to the financial news site Benzinga. Residents there now pay an average of $4,200 per year for home insurance, more than double the national average of $1,700, a stark increase that could lead to the reversal of torrid population growth that has made Florida the third-most-populous state in the country.
The soaring rates in Florida reflect how frequently the state is battered by devastating storms. “No other state has reported sustained losses for property insurers like Florida has since its last profitable year in 2016,” Mark Friedlander, spokesman for the insurance lobby group Insurance Information Institute, recently told the New York Times.
A destroyed house is seen in Keaton Beach, Florida in August after Hurricane Idalia made landfall. (Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images) (AFP via Getty Images)
“It’s a global problem,” insurance expert Lara Mowery recently told the Associated Press.
In all, the United States saw 23 weather-related disasters in 2023 that each caused more than $1 billion of damage.
According to the First Street Foundation, which studies climate risk, 35.6 million homes across the country could see their insurance policies become more expensive, or disappear entirely, as insurers flee high-risk states. “That is crippling. Absolutely crippling,” First Street CEO Matthew Eby told CBS News. “And so those homes are not, from an investment scenario, something that you would invest in.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at Jack Trice Stadium in Ames, Iowa in September. (Jeffrey Becker/USA Today Sports) (USA Today Sports / reuters)
Governors from both parties have struggled to help homeowners with rocketing insurance costs, but critics of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is currently running for the Republican presidential nomination, say he has played politics instead of engaging in sound policy.
Home insurance costs are expected to rise by 40% in Florida in 2023; state governments have some power to limit those hikes, or to make cheaper government insurance available, but they cannot entirely halt or reverse market — or climate — forces. And when those forces descend on homeowners, it is inevitable that chief executives get blamed.
“Ron DeSantis doesn’t believe there’s a climate change crisis,” says Swanson, the recent Sanibel Island transplant. “He is ignoring the problem, by and large. And he’s not really addressing the insurance crisisf either. It is a very stark lack of leadership on his part.”
Some in the insurance industry say that the diminishing number of insurers in Florida is due to the fact that it is too easy to sue insurance companies there. And those lawsuits could be especially damaging to the smaller insurers who now operate in Florida, now that larger companies such as Farmers have bailed on the state.
“This is a man-made crisis,” Insurance Information Institute spokesman Friedlander told CNN in June. “That volume of lawsuits will drive more of these regional companies out of business.”
Earlier this year, DeSantis signed a new law that makes it harder to sue insurance companies, but critics charge that he and the law’s supporters have greatly exaggerated the frequency of frivolous lawsuits. They say the power to take legal action against an insurance company is important for policyholders who do not believe they have been adequately compensated for damage caused to their properties.
Stedi Scuderi looks over her apartment after flood water inundated it when Hurricane Ian passed through the area on September 29, 2022 in Fort Myers, Florida. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images) (Getty Images)
In August, Florida residents of a retirement community in Pembroke Pines staged protests after they saw their home insurance rise. “We have no choice, we have to sell,” one resident said. “As a matter of fact, I just put my house on the market 10 minutes ago.”
Younger prospective homeowners face similar challenges. Many of them are saddled with college debt and a job market geared either toward narrow expertise or service work. To make matters worse, housing has gotten more expensive across the country.
Soaring insurance rates are the proverbial cherry on a homeownership cake nobody wants to take the responsibility for having baked.
To commemorate Munger’s monumental legacy, we’ve compiled some of our favorite Charlie quotes:
On life:
“I think life is a whole series of opportunity costs. You know, you got to marry the best person who is convenient to find who will have you. Investment is much the same sort of a process.” — 1997 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
“Another thing, of course, is life will have terrible blows, horrible blows, unfair blows. Doesn’t matter. And some people recover and others don’t. And there I think the attitude of Epictetus is the best. He thought that every mischance in life was an opportunity to behave well. Every mischance in life was an opportunity to learn something and your duty was not to be submerged in self-pity, but to utilize the terrible blow in a constructive fashion. That is a very good idea.” — 2007 USC Law School Commencement Address
“You don’t have a lot of envy, you don’t have a lot of resentment, you don’t overspend your income, you stay cheerful in spite of your troubles, you deal with reliable people and you do what you’re supposed to do. All these simple rules work so well to make your life better.” — 2019 CNBC interview
“With everything boomed up so high and interest rates so low, what’s going to happen is the millennial generation is going to have a hell of a time getting rich compared to our generation. The difference between the rich and the poor in the generation that’s rising is going to be a lot less. So Bernie has won. He did it by accident, but he won.” — 2021 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
Vice-chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Charlie Munger speaks to Reuters during an interview in Omaha, Neb., May 3, 2013. (Lane Hickenbottom/REUTERS) (Lane Hickenbottom / reuters)
On learning
“Without the method of learning, you’re like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest. It’s just not going to work very well.” — 2021 Daily Journal Annual Meeting
“In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn’t read all the time — none, zero. You’d be amazed at how much Warren reads — and at how much I read. My children laugh at me. They think I’m a book with a couple of legs sticking out.” — Poor Charlie’s Almanack
“I constantly see people rise in life who are not the smartest, sometimes not even the most diligent, but they are learning machines. They go to bed every night a little wiser than when they got up and boy does that help — particularly when you have a long run ahead of you.” — 2007 USC Law School Commencement Address
“Acquire worldly wisdom and adjust your behavior accordingly. If your new behavior gives you a little temporary unpopularity with your peer group then to hell with them.” — Poor Charlie’s Almanack
“I think value investors are going to have a harder time now that there’s so many of them competing for a diminished bunch of opportunities. So my advice to value investors is to get used to making less.” — 2023 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
“There is so much money now in the hands of so many smart people all trying to outsmart one another. It’s a radically different world from the world we started in.” — 2023 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
“What everybody has learned is that everybody needs some significant participation in the 12 companies that do better than everybody else. You need two or three of them, at least.” — Acquired podcast in 2023
“I wish everything else in America was working as well as Costco does. Think what a blessing that would be for us all.” — 2022 Daily Journal Annual Meeting
On meme stocks: “What we’re getting is wretched excess and danger for the country. A lot of people like a drunken brawl, and so far those are the people that are winning, and a lot of people are making money out of our brawl.” 2021 Daily Journal Annual Meeting
Berkshire Hathaway chairman and CEO Warren Buffett, left, and vice chairman Charlie Munger briefly chat with reporters May 3, 2019, one day before Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholders meeting in Omaha, Neb. (Nati Harnik/AP Photo, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
On investing
“One of the inane things [that gets] taught in modern university education is that a vast diversification is absolutely mandatory in investing in common stocks. That is an insane idea. It’s not that easy to have a vast plethora of good opportunities that are easily identified. And if you’ve only got three, I’d rather it be my best ideas instead of my worst. And now, some people can’t tell their best ideas from their worst, and in the act of deciding an investment already is good, they get to think it’s better than it is. I think we make fewer mistakes like that than other people. And that is a blessing to us.” — 2023 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
“I find it much easier to find four or five investments where I have a pretty reasonable chance of being right that they’re way above average. I think it’s much easier to find five than it is to find 100. I think the people who argue for all this diversification — by the way, I call it ‘deworsification’ — which I copied from somebody — and I’m way more comfortable owning two or three stocks which I think I know something about and where I think I have an advantage.” — 2021 Daily Journal Annual Meeting
“If you’re going to invest in stocks for the long term or real estate, of course there are going to be periods when there’s a lot of agony and other periods when there’s a boom. And I think you just have to learn to live through them. As Kipling said, treat those two imposters just the same. You have to deal with daylight and night. Does that bother you very much? No. Sometimes it’s night and sometimes it’s daylight. Sometimes it’s a boom. Sometimes it’s a bust. I believe in doing as well as you can and keep going as long as they let you.” — 2021 Daily Journal Annual Meeting
“Mimicking the herd invites regression to the mean (merely average performance).” — Poor Charlie’s Almanack
“I think that the modern investor, to get ahead, almost has to get in a few stocks that are way above average. They try and have a few Apples and Googles or so on, just to keep up, because they know that a significant percentage of all the gains that come to all the common stockholders combined is going to come from a few of these supercompetitors.” — 2023 Wall Street Journal interview
“There are huge advantages for an individual to get into a position where you make a few great investments and just sit on your ass: You are paying less to brokers. You are listening to less nonsense. And if it works, the governmental tax system gives you an extra 1, 2 or 3 percentage points per annum compounded.” —Worldly Wisdom by Charlie Munger 1995-1998
American billionaire investor Charles Munger poses for a portrait with his arms folded in Los Angeles, March 9, 1988. (Bonnie Schiffman/Getty Images) (Bonnie Schiffman Photography via Getty Images)
“I have a friend who’s a fisherman. He says, ‘I have a simple rule for success in fishing. Fish where the fish are.’ You want to fish where the bargains are. That simple. If the fishing is really lousy where you are you should probably look for another place to fish.”— 2020 Daily Journal Annual Meeting
“The world is full of foolish gamblers and they will not do as well as the patient investors.” — 2018 Weekly in Stocks interview
“It takes character to sit with all that cash and to do nothing. I didn’t get to be where I am by going after mediocre opportunities.” — Poor Charlie’s Almanack
“Understanding both the power of compound interest and the difficulty of getting it is the heart and soul of understanding a lot of things.” — Poor Charlie’s Almanack
On new technologies
“The electric vehicle is coming big time, and that’s a very interesting development. At the moment, it’s imposing huge capital costs and huge risks, and I don’t like huge capital costs and huge risks.” — 2023 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
“I am personally skeptical of some of the hype that has gone into artificial intelligence. I think old-fashioned intelligence works pretty well.” — 2023 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
On Big Tech regulation: “I would not break them up. They’ve got their little niches. Microsoft maybe has a nice niche, but it doesn’t own the Earth. I like these high-tech companies. I think capitalism should expect to get a few big winners by accident.” — 2023 “Acquired” podcast
“We now have computer algorithms trading with other computers. And people buying stocks who know nothing, being advised by people who know even less. It’s an incredibly crazy situation … All this activity makes it easier for us.” — 2022 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting
“We are going to miss these newspapers terribly. Each newspaper… was an independent bastion of power. The economic position was so impregnable … and the ethos of a journalist was to try to tell it like it is. And they really were a branch of the government — they called them the Fourth Estate, meaning the fourth branch of the government. It arose by accident. Now about 95% of [newspapers are] going to disappear and go away forever. And what do we get in substitute? We get a bunch of people who attract an audience because they’re crazy ….
I have my favorite crazies, and you have your favorite crazies, and we get together and all become crazier as we hire people to tell us what we want to hear. This is no substitute for Walter Cronkite and all those great newspapers of yesteryear. We have suffered a huge loss here. It’s nobody’s fault. It’s the creative destruction of capitalism, but it’s a terrible thing that’s happened to our country.” — 2022 Daily Journal Annual Meeting
Berkshire Hathaway vice chairman Charlie Munger arrives to begin the company’s annual meeting in Omaha May 4, 2013. (Rick Wilking/REUTERS) (Rick Wilking / Reuters)
On crypto
“A cryptocurrency is not a currency, not a commodity, and not a security. Instead, it’s a gambling contract with a nearly 100% edge for the house, entered into in a country where gambling contracts are traditionally regulated only by states that compete in laxity.” — 2023 Wall Street Journal op-ed
“I am not proud of my country for allowing this crap — well, I call it crypto shit. It’s worthless, it’s crazy, it’s not good, it’ll do nothing but harm, it’s antisocial to allow it.” — 2023 Daily Journal Annual Meeting
“I think the people that oppose my position are idiots. And so I don’t think there is a rational argument against my position.” — 2023 Daily Journal Annual Meeting
“When you’re dealing with something as awful as crypto shit, it’s just unspeakable. I’m ashamed of my country that so many people believe in this kind of crap and the government allows it to exist.” — 2023 Daily Journal Annual Meeting
“I’m proud of the fact that I avoided it. It’s like some venereal disease. I just regard it as beneath contempt. Some people think it’s modernity, and they welcome a currency that’s so useful in extortions and kidnappings [and] tax evasion.” —2022 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
“When you have your own retirement account and your friendly adviser suggests you put all the money into bitcoin, just say no.” — 2022 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
“I hate the bitcoin success and I don’t welcome a currency that’s useful to kidnappers and extortionists, and so forth. Nor do I like just shuffling out a few extra billions and billions and billions of dollars to somebody who just invented a new financial product out of thin air. So, I think I should say modestly that I think the whole damn development is disgusting and contrary to the interests of civilization.” — 2021 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting
On the US economy and business:
“What makes capitalism work is the fact that if you’re an able-bodied young person, if you refuse to work, you suffer a fair amount of agony, and because of that agony, the whole economic system works … You take away that hardship and say, ‘You can stay home and get more than if you come in to work,’ that’s quite disruptive to an economic system like ours. The next time we do this, I don’t think we ought to be so liberal.” — 2022 Daily Journal Annual Meeting
“Usually, I don’t use formal projections. I don’t let people do them for me because I don’t like throwing up on the desk, but I see them made in a very foolish way all the time, and many people believe in them, no matter how foolish they are. It’s an effective sales technique in America to put a foolish projection on a desk.”—2003 Herb Kay Undergraduate Lecture, University of California, Santa Barbara Economics Department
Berkshire Hathaway chairman and CEO Warren Buffett, right, and his vice chairman Charlie Munger, left, speak during an interview in Omaha, Neb., Monday, May 7, 2018. (Nati Harnik/AP Photo, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
On mental models and decision-making frameworks:
“We’ve had enough good sense when something is working very well to keep doing it. I’d say we’re demonstrating what might be called the fundamental algorithm of life — repeat what works.” — 2010 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
“I spent a lifetime trying to avoid my own mental biases. A.) I rub my own nose into my own mistakes. B.) I try and keep it simple and fundamental as much as I can. And, I like the engineering concept of a margin of safety. I’m a very blocking and tackling kind of thinker. I just try to avoid being stupid. I have a way of handling a lot of problems — I put them in what I call my ‘too hard pile,’ and just leave them there. I’m not trying to succeed in my ‘too hard pile.’” — 2020 CalTech Distinguished Alumni Award interview
“Charlie and I think pretty much alike. But what it takes me a page to explain, he sums up in a sentence. His version, moreover, is always more clearly reasoned and also more artfully — some might add bluntly — stated.
Here are a few of his thoughts, many lifted from a very recent podcast:
• The world is full of foolish gamblers, and they will not do as well as the patient investor.
• If you don’t see the world the way it is, it’s like judging something through a distorted lens.
• All I want to know is where I’m going to die, so I’ll never go there. And a related thought: Early on, write your desired obituary — and then behave accordingly.
• If you don’t care whether you are rational or not, you won’t work on it. Then you will stay irrational and get lousy results.
• Patience can be learned. Having a long attention span and the ability to concentrate on one thing for a long time is a huge advantage.
• You can learn a lot from dead people. Read of the deceased you admire and detest.
• Don’t bail away in a sinking boat if you can swim to one that is seaworthy.
• A great company keeps working after you are not; a mediocre company won’t do that.
Warren Buffett (L) and Berkshire-Hathaway partner Charlie Munger address members of the press May 5, 2002, in Omaha, Neb. (Eric Francis/Getty Images) (Eric Francis via Getty Images)
• Warren and I don’t focus on the froth of the market. We seek out good long-term investments and stubbornly hold them for a long time.
• Ben Graham said, ‘Day to day, the stock market is a voting machine; in the long term it’s a weighing machine.’ If you keep making something more valuable, then some wise person is going to notice it and start buying.
• There is no such thing as a 100% sure thing when investing. Thus, the use of leverage is dangerous. A string of wonderful numbers times zero will always equal zero. Don’t count on getting rich twice.
• You don’t, however, need to own a lot of things in order to get rich.
• You have to keep learning if you want to become a great investor. When the world changes, you must change.
• Warren and I hated railroad stocks for decades, but the world changed and finally the country had four huge railroads of vital importance to the American economy. We were slow to recognize the change, but better late than never.
• Finally, I will add two short sentences by Charlie that have been his decision-clinchers for decades: ‘Warren, think more about it. You’re smart and I’m right.’
And so it goes. I never have a phone call with Charlie without learning something. And, while he makes me think, he also makes me laugh.”
New report reveals 98% of world population experienced alarming trend this summer: ‘Virtually no one on Earth escaped’
Leo Collis – November 27, 2023
A new study by Climate Central has revealed the impact of rising temperatures on the planet in 2023 and the role of humans in exacerbating the problem.
The findings are eye-opening, and they remind us of the role we can all play in mitigating the causes of overheating the planet.
What did the study find?
According to research group Climate Central, a peer-reviewed study summarized by Euronews Green and Reuters found that 98% of the global population witnessed higher than usual temperatures between June and August this year — and these temperatures were twice as likely because of human-caused pollution.
The research examined global heat events and used modeling to remove the influence of pollution to determine the possible high temperatures without the influence of humans.
Data from 180 countries and 22 territories helped to estimate that 6.2 billion people experienced at least one day of high average temperatures that would have been difficult to achieve without the effects of carbon pollution. Those temperatures were five times more likely because of human impact.
“Virtually no one on Earth escaped the influence of global warming during the past three months,” Climate Central’s vice president for science Andrew Pershing told Euronews Green and Reuters.
The study found that July was the hottest month on Earth since records began, while August saw a 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit higher average temperature compared to the same month before the prevalence of industrial activity.
Why is this so concerning?
“In every country we could analyze, including the Southern Hemisphere, where this is the coolest time of year, we saw temperatures that would be difficult — and in some cases nearly impossible — without human-caused climate change,” Pershing said.
It’s a worrying statement, especially considering the devastating heat waves and wildfires in the United States and southern Europe in 2023.
When looking at isolated heat waves, climate scientist Friederike Otto from the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment noted that these events were made “infinitely more likely” by the overheating of the planet, reported Euronews Green.
What can we do to mitigate human climate impact?
The study consistently points to human-caused pollution as the driver of these worrying heat trends.
With that in mind, reducing the harmful gases we release into the atmosphere is crucial to prevent further shocking temperature rises.
Making lifestyle alterations such as walking, biking, or using public transport to travel instead of using dirty fuel–powered vehicles is a great start.
Cutting down on meat in your weekly diet can also benefit the planet, as agriculture relating to the beef, pork, and chicken supply chain significantly contributes to global pollution and deforestation, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Since 98% of the global population experienced increased temperatures in 2023, it’s beneficial to everyone to prevent the causes of this phenomenon.
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Arizona is building the first solar canal in the US. What are they and how do they work?
Euronews Green – November 27, 2023
Arizona is building the first solar canal in the US. What are they and how do they work?
The first solar-covered canal in America is set to be completed within a couple of years.
Arizona is getting the pioneering renewable project after a historic agreement between leaders of the Gila River Indian Community and the US Army Corps of Engineers earlier this month.
The panels will supply clean energy while also helping to reduce water evaporation in the arid state, which is currently experiencing drought conditions.
“This is the type of creative thinking that can help move all of us toward a more sustainable future,” said Tom Buschatzke, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR).
“Leveraging existing infrastructure such as the Level Top Canal to help provide sustainable, dependable energy – and to do so as part of cooperative partnership like this one – constitutes a win all around.”
The southwestern state of Arizona isn’t the only one eyeing up the solar technology.
A similar project has been in the works in California for years, but is reportedly still in the planning stages. This puts the Arizona project, with its budget of $6.74 million (€6,165 million), on the verge of being a US-first.
It takes inspiration from the Canal Solar Power Project in Gujarat, India, which launched in 2012. This was an early example of solar over canal success, though SunEdison, the company overseeing the project, filed for bankruptcy in 2016, their ambitions not fully realised.
If rolled out effectively, experts say there is huge potential for both energy and water saving.
Writing about the California plans in The Conversation, engineering Professor Roger Bales, estimated that, “Covering all 4,000 miles [6,437 kilometres] of California’s canals with solar panels would save more than 65 billion gallons of water annually by reducing evaporation.”
How will the Arizona solar canal technology work?
Solar photovoltaic shades will first be installed along a 305 metre stretch of the 1-10 Level Top canal.
Facing upwards, they catch the abundant sunlight in Arizona while acting as a barrier to limit the amount of water evaporating in the desert heat.
The water below the panels also helps to cool the panels down, and so keep them operating at a more efficient temperature.
Phase one of the project is expected to produce around 1 MW of renewable energy which will benefit the tribal farmers.
Gila River Indian Community (GRIC) Governor Stephen Roe Lewis sat under the Arizona sun to sign the deal with the US Army Corps of Engineers on 9 November.
The ‘Project Partnership Agreement’ (PPA) he signed is a legally binding agreement between the federal government and a non-Federal sponsor – here a Native American Tribe. PPAs typically involve the construction of a water resources project, and they lay out the shared responsibilities of the parties regarding costs and workload.
An advocate for renewable and green technologies, Governor Lewis oversees the implementation of the Community’s Water Settlement of 2004 (at that time the largest water settlement of its kind in US history).
The GRIC people trace their history to circa 300 BC, when the Huhugam people constructed some 500 miles of large canals from the Gila River to water their farmland.
