Susan Crawford
@scrawford.bsky.social
Writing about intersection between climate adaptation and finance. Substack https://susanpcrawford.substack.com Author of Charleston: Race, Water, and the Storms to Come. Learning all the time.
Curious about what it's like to be young and noticing all the climate/social issues that intersect along the Mississippi River? Join me tomorrow night to see Hollow Tree - Cafritz Hall, DC JCC, 1529 16th St. NW DC- filmmaker Kira Akerman will be there! Tickets: www.edcjcc.org/jxj/show/hol...
Want functioning insurance markets and real climate forecasts? Then you want NCAR intact. Post today - for insurance sector forwarding. Banks, too - susanpcrawford.substack.com/p/trump-targ...
Trump Targets America's Weather Nerve Center
But the National Center for Atmospheric Research underpins insurance markets as well as disaster planning and climate forecasts.
susanpcrawford.substack.com
The insurance industry—essential to US economic activity, woven into the financial plans of every home and business in the nation—sees NCAR as absolutely, concretely, crucial. @scrawford.bsky.social susanpcrawford.substack.com/p/trump-targ...
Trump Targets America's Weather Nerve Center
But the National Center for Atmospheric Research underpins insurance markets as well as disaster planning and climate forecasts.
susanpcrawford.substack.com
A September brookings.edu report, “Who Bears the Burden of Climate Inaction?”, found climate -driven changes in home insurance premiums, home energy costs, and smoke effects on mortality are $400-$900 per household per year, with much higher costs—upward of $1,300 a year—in the hardest-hit places.
Susan Crawford@scrawford.bsky.social · 8mo agoNew paper demonstrates climate inaction is already hitting U.S. households like a hidden, regressive “climate tax”--but unlike Obamacare, there’s no national coalition or business deal to turn that fact into real climate adaptation progress. Column today: open.substack.com/pub/susanpcr...
Smart: RI has a statewide document prioritizing 10,000 crucial assets—infrastructure, healthcare facilities, emergency service—for adaptation funding. Bond proceeds will finance a state revolving loan fund for multi-million-dollar resilience projects; grants will fund smaller design efforts.
Susan Crawford@scrawford.bsky.social · 8mo agoWhat if every state had a plan--and a fund--for climate resilience? Rhode Island’s about to. Read all about it in my column today: susanpcrawford.substack.com/p/a-small-st...
What if every state had a plan--and a fund--for climate resilience? Rhode Island’s about to. Read all about it in my column today: susanpcrawford.substack.com/p/a-small-st...
A small state with a big climate plan
Inside Rhode Island’s efforts to pair statewide risk ranking with a permanent resilience loan fund and bottom‑up municipal planning
susanpcrawford.substack.com
#ClimateResilience is an #affordability issue with a massive return on investment. There are plenty of shenanigans by the #NJ Legislature during lame duck; let’s do something worthwhile.
Susan Crawford@scrawford.bsky.social · 8mo agoNew paper demonstrates climate inaction is already hitting U.S. households like a hidden, regressive “climate tax”--but unlike Obamacare, there’s no national coalition or business deal to turn that fact into real climate adaptation progress. Column today: open.substack.com/pub/susanpcr...
No clear path for industry on adaptation, stresses @scrawford.bsky.social: "If you’re in business and know the climate risks are real, you’re better off kicking the can down the road until your retirement—rather than changing your business model to reflect and help shoulder climate risks"
Susan Crawford@scrawford.bsky.social · 8mo agoNew paper demonstrates climate inaction is already hitting U.S. households like a hidden, regressive “climate tax”--but unlike Obamacare, there’s no national coalition or business deal to turn that fact into real climate adaptation progress. Column today: open.substack.com/pub/susanpcr...
Failing to adapt to the physical ravages of climate change amounts to a national moral failure. These increased costs likely severely undercount what’s happening now to these households, and certainly don’t account for what is going to happen in the decades to come. @scrawford.bsky.social
Obamacare and climate adaptation have a lot in common
But the deal that made health insurance possible is far less likely in the climate arena
susanpcrawford.substack.com
I don’t know how it’s possible that @scrawford.bsky.social is an expert in my two favorite climate-risky places - Plumas County and the Jersey Shore - but she is, and I’m grateful.
John Schwartz@jswatz.bsky.social · 8mo agoHe’s like, ‘I think I did see your house. It was the blue one, right? Yeah, it’s floating down Route 35. It’s on fire.’” A brilliant @scrawford.bsky.social story on New Jersey's endless cycle of rebuilding the shore. And yes, there is a climate angle. www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...
New paper demonstrates climate inaction is already hitting U.S. households like a hidden, regressive “climate tax”--but unlike Obamacare, there’s no national coalition or business deal to turn that fact into real climate adaptation progress. Column today: open.substack.com/pub/susanpcr...
Obamacare and climate adaptation have a lot in common
But the deal that made health insurance possible is far less likely in the climate arena
open.substack.com
He’s like, ‘I think I did see your house. It was the blue one, right? Yeah, it’s floating down Route 35. It’s on fire.’” A brilliant @scrawford.bsky.social story on New Jersey's endless cycle of rebuilding the shore. And yes, there is a climate angle. www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...
Floods and Storms Are Ravaging the Jersey Shore. Why Do We Keep Building It Back?
Floods, storms and rising seas at the Jersey Shore prompt continual beach replenishment and rebuilding. Experts say more dramatic change is needed.
rollingstone.com
This post gets to the heart of systemic questions raised by new Zillow + First Street climate risk score news. For years, floodplain management professionals (e.g., ASFPM) have highlighted a need for more funding and increased efficiencies in FEMA's FIRM...(1/6) www.floods.org/annual-legis...
ASFPM Makes Case for FEMA Flood Map Funding in Letter to OMB
The state of our nation’s flood mapping is incomplete and fails to inform innumerable critical development decisions at essentially all levels.
floods.org
Susan Crawford@scrawford.bsky.social · 8mo agoZillow’s climate score rollback is a wake-up call: build open, future‑conditions federal flood maps -- gold‑standard, trustworthy data for building codes, mortgages, and our future. Column today: open.substack.com/pub/susanpcr...
Masterclass from the great @elizkolbert.bsky.social in how to talk about climate change (and books about climate change). youtu.be/42e1qdYDw_Q?...
Elizabeth Kolbert - The Climate Crisis & “Life on a Little-Known Planet" | The Daily Show
YouTube video by The Daily Show
youtu.be
This is the conclusion that I hope we will draw from the Zillow drama... that we need a gold-standard national data source for property-level risk to climate hazards that is transparent, accessible, and legally defensible. Private companies can help build it but the public needs to own it.
Zillow’s climate risk reversal looks like a setback. It’s really a wake‑up call.
When private models sow confusion, it’s a flashing warning sign that Washington needs to fix federal flood maps,
susanpcrawford.substack.com
“We’re going to have places where only wealthy people can live,” says Peter Kasabach, executive director of New Jersey Future. Richer residents will work around the inconvenience of coastal flooding and walk away from their houses when they feel like it — if they haven’t been able to sell.
Susan Crawford@scrawford.bsky.social · 8mo agoStory for Rolling Stone about climate threats to the Jersey Shore - signals what's ahead for the East Coast: rising risks, shortage of public money to adjust, and built-in incentives to keep the status quo in place. Plus: attachment to a place full of memories. www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...
NBER@nber.org · 8mo agoHouseholds face annual costs of roughly $400–$900 from climate change—mainly from disasters, higher insurance, and energy costs—with lower-income families and certain regions hit disproportionately, from @kclausing.bsky.social, Knittel, and @cwolfram.bsky.social www.nber.org/papers/w34525
Floods and Storms Are Ravaging the Jersey Shore. Why Do We Keep Building It Back? The government has spent billions on beach replenishment over the last four decades. But with worsening climate change, experts say more dramatic change is in order. 🔗 www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...
Seas are rising more than twice as quickly off the Jersey Shore than the average. Storms are growing in intensity and by 2100, severe flooding will "be the new normal." Still, some can't stay away. "There’s only one place for me to live. My soul is here" Story: www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...
Rolling Stone@rollingstone.com · 8mo agoFloods and Storms Are Ravaging the Jersey Shore. Why Do We Keep Building It Back? The government has spent billions on beach replenishment over the last four decades. But with worsening climate change, experts say more dramatic change is in order. 🔗 www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...
If money were no barrier and political crosswinds didn’t exist, wise public policy steps would include stopping development in risky places like the Jersey Shore, helping people gradually move out of harm’s way. That's not on the table. Story: www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...
Rolling Stone@rollingstone.com · 8mo agoFloods and Storms Are Ravaging the Jersey Shore. Why Do We Keep Building It Back? The government has spent billions on beach replenishment over the last four decades. But with worsening climate change, experts say more dramatic change is in order. 🔗 www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...
We humans have such a hard time letting go... and an equally hard time with abstract risk. There is no saving places like this, we will see bigger storms and higher seas, so it is either find a way to transition or suffer abrupt, too often cataclysmic shifts. Great article.
Susan Crawford@scrawford.bsky.social · 8mo agoStory for Rolling Stone about climate threats to the Jersey Shore - signals what's ahead for the East Coast: rising risks, shortage of public money to adjust, and built-in incentives to keep the status quo in place. Plus: attachment to a place full of memories. www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...
I can check “Get quoted in Rolling Stone magazine” off my bucket list. Thanks to @scrawford.bsky.social for a sobering assessment of the challenges we face to address the accelerating impacts of climate change at the Jersey Shore. www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...
Floods and Storms Are Ravaging the Jersey Shore. Why Do We Keep Building It Back?
Floods, storms and rising seas at the Jersey Shore prompt continual beach replenishment and rebuilding. Experts say more dramatic change is needed.
rollingstone.com
Story for Rolling Stone about climate threats to the Jersey Shore - signals what's ahead for the East Coast: rising risks, shortage of public money to adjust, and built-in incentives to keep the status quo in place. Plus: attachment to a place full of memories. www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...
"When buyers can’t see the risks up front, they may take on more exposure than they can afford — homes that become too expensive to insure, with costs families didn’t anticipate, and, worst of all, natural disasters they hadn’t yet thought of in personal terms." www.nytimes.com/2025/12/05/o...
Opinion | What Zillow Won’t Tell You
nytimes.com
"But the whole [Jersey Shore], every square foot of which has fulfilled someone’s American dream of living right on the beach, is sailing toward disaster." Great work by @scrawford.bsky.social: www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...
Floods and Storms Are Ravaging the Jersey Shore. Why Do We Keep Building It Back?
Floods, storms and rising seas at the Jersey Shore prompt continual beach replenishment and rebuilding. Experts say more dramatic change is needed.
rollingstone.com
We need probabilistic, future-conditions, multi-peril mapping data that is public and subject to norms of oversight and transparency. @scrawford.bsky.social susanpcrawford.substack.com/p/zillows-cl...
Zillow’s climate risk reversal looks like a setback. It’s really a wake‑up call.
When private models sow confusion, it’s a flashing warning sign that Washington needs to fix federal flood maps,
susanpcrawford.substack.com
When private models sow confusion, it’s a flashing warning sign that Washington needs to fix federal flood maps @scrawford.bsky.social susanpcrawford.substack.com/p/zillows-cl...
Zillow’s climate risk reversal looks like a setback. It’s really a wake‑up call.
When private models sow confusion, it’s a flashing warning sign that Washington needs to fix federal flood maps,
susanpcrawford.substack.com
Just spent my lunch break with an engineer trying to sort out a neighborhood-wide stormwater problem caused by aging infrastructure and 10yr rainfall events that occurred multiple times per month last summer. It’s wild how inadequate current tools are for handling the no longer extreme.
Susan Crawford@scrawford.bsky.social · 8mo agoZillow’s climate score rollback is a wake-up call: build open, future‑conditions federal flood maps -- gold‑standard, trustworthy data for building codes, mortgages, and our future. Column today: open.substack.com/pub/susanpcr...
Completely agree with @kellyhereid.bsky.social's take on @scrawford.bsky.social's excellent article. The potential for private sector firms to discontinue providing critical info has been long recognized in the climate services space (of course, now this Administration is doing the same thing).
Kelly Hereid@kellyhereid.bsky.social · 8mo agoThis is the correct take on the whole Zillow fiasco (and fire maps, and hurricane maps) 2023 PCAST report essentially called for this as well - it's been a recognized gap in capacity for years bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/u...