This is a direct result of failed government recognition of the problem and huge voids in policy.

September 28, 2021
By Jeffery Ball

Six years ago, (click here) Liz Babb and her husband, Angelo Aloisio, retired financial services executives and new empty nesters, sold their place in San Francisco and moved to the woods. They bought a 1970s house on a steep slope in Portola Valley, an enclave of forested canyons minutes from Silicon Valley’s center that boasts a bohemian history, a reputation for moneyed discretion, and jaw-dropping views. It was an iconic—if, by local standards, modest—northern California dream home: wood construction, picture windows, multiple decks, and, everywhere, trees.

Lush vegetation blanketed the property: oaks, redwoods, and all manner of shrubs and bushes. They enveloped the house, but not only that. Soaring through the center of the structure—rising from the dirt, through the first-level floor, up three stories, and out the roof—stood a massive oak, its trunk encased by interior glass and its branches and leaves canopied over the house. “We were ready for our rural adventure,” said Babb, an avid hiker. When she first saw the shelter-magazine-worthy aerie, she recalled, “I fell in love with it.”...

This level of deceit and manipulation will probably be common within the climate crisis because government policy is grossly absent in all aspects of American life.

October 5, 2021

A federal jury (click here) in Los Angeles awarded $6.3 million to actor Shannen Doherty on Monday in a lawsuit alleging that State Farm failed to pay sufficiently for damage to her house in a 2018 California wildfire.

The jury found that the insurance giant’s failure to pay policy benefits for Doherty’s Malibu home were “unreasonable and without proper cause.”

The verdict covers damages to Doherty’s house and property, emotional distress and attorney’s fees....

The Paradise fire is an insurance companies nightmare. It is densely laced with increased premiums across all sorts of risk, not just high risk. No one would have classified Paradise as a high risk insurance issue. It is time such devastation be defined by the climate crisis. The climate crisis can no longer be ignored and must be part of government priorities.

Homes (click here) leveled by the Camp fire at the Ridgewood Mobile Home Park retirement community in Paradise, Calif., in 2018.

Paradise is an absolute failure of federal policies to embrace the climate crisis and rise to the occassion of protecting American lives, property and the American Dream.