Animal-kind and plant-kind are being tortured and murdered as well. Mankind's survival depends on THEIR survival.
TRump and his psychos are loving the torture. They've added new meaning to the term "gas-lighting". They thoroughly enjoy doing it.
Three more years of windmill bullshit to listen to, another four year setback on fighting the climate crisis. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome---it is also the definition of stupidity. TRump is exhibit A.
America the Beautiful-"O beautiful for patriot dream, That sees beyond the years.....". We can and have done better. It's going to require a little socialism. Thanks for the history lesson, Thom. See you in the streets.
Trump killed a windmill project in Idaho last week. The Environmental Defense Fund states that the Trump administration's broader energy policies could result in the loss of nearly 900,000 jobs nationwide and higher electricity bills for Americans.
We can whine all we want to about industrial pollution enabled by our government, but insurance rates will continue to skyrocket because today's climate does not damage houses - it flattens them, floats them down stream, or turns them into ashes. That is mainly because US houses are made of flimsy wood topped with flammable lightweight shingles.
If you recall your last, if ever, visit to Europe, you might recall that most of the houses you passed while sitting on the bus enroute to the next castle or whatever had concrete walls and heavy, fire-resistant tile roofs located out of flood plains just like the house my spouse inherited in Bulgaria. That is also just like our house along the central Florida coast off A1A. Any native Floridian knows that hurricanes blow light roofs off houses and then the walls explode outward, leaving a pile of kindling in 60 seconds. In my town, that is about a $1.2M total loss, including furnishings.
The rigged system comes from the housing industry and their payoffs to cripple building codes. You surely recall that condo in Surfside near Miami in 2021, don't ya? It imploded. Look at LA. One wildfire wiped out thousands of houses - few were concrete with tile roofs. However, with that much heat, even the rafters supporting tile roofs can explode into flames with all the surrounding houses ablaze.
What has the US Congress done to force states to emphasize house hardening? Nothing. What have Red states like Florida, Texas, and Louisiana done to harden their building codes? LOL
My point is simple, take matters into your own hands and harden your house against climate change because our rigged political system is not coming to your rescue. Oh Yeah, Trump is shutting down FEMA too.
If I had the money, I'd print a house. I think you can do them roof and all. Also, I've seen an elevated egg shape cement one they pour over a "balloon". It's hurricane proof---air flows around it. All right out of the Flintstones.
Our house was certified hurricane-proof back around 2018. They lowered our premiums from $12K to #3.5K. Two years later, the Insurance Co went broke. Then we were with the state ins company, and went to $8.5K, then $11K, then $15K. I asked my old Insurance company from up north if they would insure without wind mitigation. They said yes. So now my premiums are $1.5K.for fire and theft (we have a burglar alarm system). Problem solved.
Life is a case of pay me now (harden your house) or pay me later. But, later will cost a lot more.
Tom, it’s happening. The Meidas Touch Network (MTN largest on Substack) just announced loss of viewership on some of its other platforms. They’re going to use the words “music festival” in place of “protests “. Also Wagihat Ali (the left hook) uses a double blink I think to indicate he’s OK. J
Actually, the South Florida Bulildiing Code is the toughest in the country.
In most of Florida, only a handfiul of insurance companies write property insurance. Some insurance companies went broke on purpose. They lay their exposure on state liquidation funds , i.e. FIGA https://figafacts.com/
The Florida Insurance Guaranty Association establishes and maintains a service-oriented operation for processing covered claims of insolvent members. FIGA is a nonprofit corporation created by the Florida Legislature in 1970. FIGA services pending claims by or against Florida policyholders of member insurance companies which become insolvent and are ordered liquidated.
FIGA’s membership is composed of all Florida licensed direct writers of property or casualty insurance. Property and casualty insurers with a certificate of authority issued by the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR) are members of FIGA. In the event of insolvency, member company claims for covered lines of business are eligible for FIGA coverage. Surplus lines insurers are not member companies and are not eligible for FIGA coverage. FIGA membership can be determined using the company search function on the OIR website and confirming the company authorization type is “Certificate of Authority”.
All pretty much true except that most of the South Florida codes are voluntary, and Florida continues to build houses statewide out of wood AND on reclaimed swampland. The fact remains that surviving climate change is really a matter of personal responsibility; not that of FEMA or other insurance companies, and not builders.
Yeahbut - I doubt that the code outlaws woodframe houses or asphalt shingles. The only house left standing on Mexico Bch after Michael was built according to Miami/Dade suggested standards.
As always Thom your information ignites what we all need to do - like Dylan Thomas’ verse that was written to ignite life in his father at death - Rage against it don’t give up for the sake of humanity.
Tom on the beach I always find your comments to be extraordinarily informative reminders of how flimsy our government is.
Poor fella, knows nothing about Thom’s well foot-noted, researched books. Knows nothing of Thom’s travels, nor his over 20 years of TV broadcasting. This “Tom”s reply totally misses the article’s subject: CLIMATE CHANGE and the billionaire’s industries causing it.
Sorry to give you the impression of being ignorant or arrogant. Clearly, you know nothing of my travels (I am in our house in Bulgaria as I type), nothing of my books and scientific journal publications, nor of my 50-year career -the last 2/3rds of which was spent in direct support of JCS, federal agency heads, and the WH.
My goal was not to refute Thom's post, but to complement it by pointing out that those same billionaires who are causing pollution are also the prime contributors to Americans' vulnerability to its devastating consequences by building flimsy houses in dangerous locales for bigger profits.
I cut myself off from comments above. In Scripps Ranch they used shingle roofs and left large swaths of highly inflammable trees throughout. Each time I drove on the freeway that cut through I thought about fire. Sure enough someone miles away to the east shot a gun that set a fire which burned from the east all the way west to the ocean jumping from tree to tree and shingle roofs.
Everyone is insulated in these large neighborhoods and think the state and local fire departments have their back which is nearly impossible but doable if people were diligent in fire season.
Exactly. We have the same issues here in CA with regards to the fire hazard. My parents were fined out in the California high desert near Riverside when the fields filled with dry weeds if they didn’t abide by a clearing of land around buildings.
Then building went out of control in California and I did’t hear about the fire potential from those who built in huge neighborhoods
Sorry Tom, I misinterpreted your direction, Jamie. What do you think about Thom’s 2023 chapter on climate change? I hope that in Bulgaria, you have some time away from Ukraine and Russia to google Thom Hartmann.
Adam Smith wasn’t born in a spreadsheet—he emerged from the Scottish Enlightenment, steeped in moral philosophy, rhetoric, and metaphysics. Before The Wealth of Nations (1776), he wrote The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), a deeply humanistic exploration of empathy, virtue, and the invisible threads of social cohesion. Economics, for Smith, was never divorced from ethics—it was a branch of moral inquiry.
Honolulu's Lawsuit (2020): The first major climate lawsuit was filed by the City and County of Honolulu in March 2020. The case survived a bid by the oil companies to dismiss it after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear their appeal in January 2025.
State-Level Lawsuit (2025): In April and May 2025, Governor Josh Green and Attorney General Lopez announced the state of Hawaii would also file a similar lawsuit against fossil fuel interests.
DOJ Lawsuit against Hawaii (May 2025): The U.S. Department of Justice sued Hawaii and Michigan, in essence saing Federal law preempts litigation at the state level.
In 2023, California sued ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips, Chevron and the American Petroleum Institute, alleging that they misled the public about climate change. Other states filed similar suits.
On March 10, 2025, the Supreme Court declined to hear an argument from Republican-led states seeking to block climate lawsuits against oil companies by other Democratic-led states, allowing the state lawsuits to continue in lower courts. California, Connecticut, Minnesota, New Jersey and Rhode Island are proceeding against Sunoco, Shell, Chevron, Exxon Mobil and BP, many of which are headquartered in Texas.
The Republican states had argued that these climate cases were an attempt to regulate the national energy system, which they claimed was a federal responsibility. However, the Supreme Court's decision to stay out of the dispute allows the climate lawsuits, which accuse energy companies of deceiving the public about climate change, to proceed.
Catch 22. Still, you gotta love all the people and their efforts.
SCOTUS holds the cards and six of them need to be impeached, even if we don't have enough Senators to remove them. Kill their legacy---their inaction is killing us.
I've said this many times. Don't need impeachment. Since Roberts boostrapped the Judicial Code in November 2003, any of the justicies who are witnesses to corruption or know of bias have a duty to come forward. Parties before the court and their lawyers also have standing to bring allegations via motions to recuse. Under the code, the standard is merely "appearance of impropriety."
Even before the Judicial Code became applicable, 28 U.S. Code § 455 - Disqualification of justice, judge, or magistrate judge
(a)Any justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.
Roberts had referred Thomas for violations the financial disclosure requirements of the Ethics in Government Act of 1978 to the Judicial Conference but has not been asked to hold hearings re recusal.
In order to bring a charge of bias, need to file an affidavit.
OK Daniel, you keep quoting the law. well and good. But unless law is enforced it is just words on paper. So who is going to force Thomas or Alito to recuse themselves, who is going to discipline them.?
Yes, Mr. Farrar, most people continue to fail to understand the concept of power. It is the ability to control the behavior of people, even against their own will. This ability comes through the barrel of a gun. Not through statutes.
Most people confuse power and influence. They are not the same thing. Influence controls the behavior of people by getting them to agree with the authority's view of proper behavior. This is a function of propaganda, control over ideas.
He who has power does not relinquish it, not willingly, not easily,George Washington was an exception.
Trump proved that in 2020, but he has remedied that disability now.
The dust up in Texas over redistricting is all the evidence one needs
Prediction Trump wins. His will to power is greater than the Democrats will to resist.
And that is the fault of the opposition, it is weak willed, pacifistic, and too concerned with what people think.
Take the latest charge of Greg Abbott, that the Democrats are hypocrites over redistricting, putting them on the back foot, the defense. There is nothing more hypocritical in all venues than the Republican party, but why bother calling them out, they don't care, the ignore the charge and press on. Democrats go on the defense and mumble in justification.
The party of family values: hypocrites
The party of law and order: hypocrites.
So what they say, change the subject and stay on the attack.
Pacifism is not spineless, just not violent. There are several examples of nonviolent action. Admittedly they aren't all successful, but then neither are wars.
It's about ruining their legacy, because they have twisted logic and words beyond reason to favor corporations, abused women because of religious ideology, added to political corruption and they've turned bribes into tips. They deserve to be scorned, and it should be public, not buried in the records. Impeachment is THEIR equal justice under law.
There is a flaw to remediation of this issue. We seek reparations from the fossil fuel industry for their cynicism and gaslighting, something that continues to this day. While this is completely understandable and justifiable, we choose not to come to grips with WHY they have pumped so much CO₂ into the atmosphere. The WHY is us. It has arisen because of our demand (and in this case I include the world's governments, especially their militaries). Ever since the Industrial Age we have been building an economic system way out over an abyss. This has been possible solely because of access to cheap energy. We have chosen to ignore the consequences — and all actions have consequences — former considerably longer than we would wish to recognize.
1) In 1824, Fourier (an eminent mathematician physicist) discovered that the Earth's atmosphere traps some infrared radiation, causing the Earth to be warmer than solar radiation alone would explain.
2) In 1856, Eunice Foote, an American amateur scientist, discovered that increased CO₂ and water vapor would cause Earth's temperature to rise. Why her discovery remained unknown is another story.
3) In 1859, John Tyndall demonstrated that CO₂ and water vapor lead to the greenhouse effect.
4) In 1896, Svante Arrhenius, a Nobel laureate, developed a formula correlating the increasing CO₂ with the increase in atmospheric temperature. that formula is still in use today. He stated that a doubling of CO₂ would lead to an increase of 5-6° Celsius. Again, Arrhenius was n't a quack (and he wasn't a woman).
5) In 1938, Callendaar demonstrated that the Earth's temperature had risen over the previous 50 years and that that increase was directly related to an increase in greenhouse gases. His research led to...
6) Keeling's work from 1958 onward on Mauna Loa, which led to the Keeling Curve, at which time the first trickles of awareness started form king in parts of the general public.
7) On to Hansen (1988), et al.
Sorry for being tedious (this has been a passion of mine for a few decades) but it is important to realize how old awareness of climate change actually is. The knowledge has been there and yet we have done virtually nothing to stop or reverse its ever-growing threat. Some of our reticence, as suggested above, is due to the petrochemical industry's gaslighting an example of which came to light in a 1978 internal memo by Exxon laying out the problem and the industry's direct involvement in it.
So here we are, 131 years after Arrhenius, and we are finally coming to accept the reality of the warnings. But it is not the petrochemical industry's responsibility alone, it its also ours, in that we increasingly rely on petrochemicals to support our (for want of a better word) profligate lifestyle. The farther up the economic ladder, the more people are responsible. The bottom rungs are pretty much guiltless but for the rest of us we unfortunately are the major part of the problem. Changing our lifestyle is going to be exceedingly difficult but if we don't do so that change is going to be made for us and it is going to be apocalyptic.
Americans largely still indulge our fantasies that technology will always bail us out at the last second. Too many harbor hopes that renewables will save the day, while Trump and the Destroyers have shut down every clean energy project they can find and put major obstacles in the way of solar installations on private homes. Some think that fusion (or is it fission?) is going to revolutionize energy production or maybe hydrogen fuel cells or some other miracle alternative fuels are coming. Many Americans also believe that some leader will materialize who will put a stop to the madness or that God will intervene. About 50% believe that none of this matters because the Second Coming is days away and they will be suddenly swept into the heavens to an eternal life of bliss, solely because they have chosen to buy into the mythology. Certainly, nationalization won't happen while the Destroyers are in power, and Trump is on the verge of declaring martial law to allow him to take total control. The belief in magic, mysticism, and miracles is deep-seated. Hell, even most of the people here are totally confident that the Great Conservative Behavioral & Indoctrination Centers for Passivity and Anti-intellectualism and Ignorance known as public schools are educating their kids and grandkids. I really hope I am wrong, because in the end, I am likewise hopelessly optimistic.
Fusion is going to. provide us with infinite power, the power of the Sun itself!!! (Etc, etc)... It is only 20 years away and has been for the last 60. I hear the Tooth Fairy is going to put it under our pillows any day, er, year, er, century now.
Mr. Herreshoff, You are correct; Fusion as a source of useful energy is a pipe dream. Yes, we have heard those silly promises for decades, all my life, in fact. I am 83. But fission is not a pipe dream It is an alternative which is already developed.
During a conference at Columbia university years ago I attended a seminar in which it was revealed that scientists at the Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago had developed a safe nuclear reactor back in the 1940s and 50s. But it was not a design Hyman Rickover regarded as appropriate for submarine and surface boats. Unfortunately Admiral Rickover was a vindictive, dangerous sociopath who went out of his way to destroy the career of the scientist who was principally responsible for the Argonne design. So, that design virtually disappeared. Rickover's preferred design was adopted.
Eventually the Chinese learned about the Argonne design. They are now prepared to market this kind of safe, efficient reactor to nations along the Belt and Road they have constructed. Dozens of nations have already ordered this reactor from the Chinese. The U.S., where it was first conceived, is still ignoring it.
I could go into some of the features of this design. But not just now.
Again, I'm just Robert. The last Mr Herreshoff died in 1986.
a
I believe f somewhere down the line, assuming we don't return to the 1300s, fusion will be commercially feasible but not with current technology and our current level of scientific competence. In 2022 Lawrence Livermore achieved a Q of 1.54 so fusion has been demonstrated to be attainable, but creating a self-sustaining reaction, let alone designing and constructing a commercially viable facility remains a pipe dream.
This is another reason I do not abandon all hope. Despite the lack of knowledge displayed by far too many people, there are significant numbers who have overcome the deficiencies of our society and institutions to study, learn, and excel. I do want to believe that fusion has the potential to work true miracles at some distant future point, and I had no idea that fission had been available as a safe energy alternative already. But the concern is that our brainiacs and technology experts will be sidelined and imprisoned or worse and all forward motion will be stopped for months, years, or generations by the lamebrain, egomaniacal, fanatics and power-hungry fools that are in the process of usurping power and undermining science and sane public policies and institutions. JD Vance may well be far more vicious and brutal than Trump with his inflated ego and psychotic delusions about reforming society and the economy. If Trump doesn't start WWIII, Vance will soon be in the driver's seat.
I love these ideas. But who is there to implement them? Certainly not Trump who only has fake brains. Democrats are rolling over like sprayed flies and are almost irrelevant. A savior? Maybe but it leaves too much to chance. We need actual leaders and plans to make this happen. Otherwise, I can only visualize small pockets of survivors, a slow healing of the planet and basically starting over. Or not.
To your statement: "But these companies have not stopped buying off politicians...," I'd add that corruption is binary: it CANNOT EXIST without buyers AND sellers. Yes, the corporations are buyers with unprecedented wealth. Now, let's look at the sellers. Where do they come from?
The operatives of the two cartel parties are at least as much to blame as the corporate managers because the parties are dedicated to hand picking the candidates who are very willing sellers (like Gavin Newsom to the "health care" and pharmaceutical corporations) and demonizing the "populists" like Bernie Sanders and Zohran Mamdani who refuse to sell out the nation and its citizens.
We won't resolve climate change until we eliminate or thoroughly reform one of these two corrupt parties. Corrupt parties can only form corrupt governments. To recognize that both parties are corrupt is as easy to recognize as the fact that Israel is engaged in committing genocide, but there is limitless deflection to avoid recognizing and stating the obvious.
Ed, you are absolutely correct on all counts in your comment. When I see anyone praise Gavin Newsom for his ‘progressive’ stature, I want to throw up. In California he is known to be slick for a reason. Suddenly he is making a big show of offending Trump -that is what it is - like art of the deal to become our next president.
Newsom, Pelosi and others have made even more money with the sale of the military Presidio property in SF.
Thanks. Democratic partisan stooges try to shame Democrats who hold their own accountable, and I expected shaming rather than any validation.
Between their ENDLESS texts and emails asking for money "RUSH!" without a single iota of governance or a united specific of what this Party is FOR, I'm thinking that the only way to solve this is to have wholesale resignation as registered Independents to force out the "legacy" operatives who would rather elect some Trumpist and let Netanyahu shadow-govern and repress free-speech of us citizens by a police state than to ever support a Roosevelt type progressive Democrat.
Well, Captain my Captain great advice on what to do to stop the climate crisis we have a hand right now. Too bad the people we need to stop this are to busy enjoying their money to care about this. When will the greed stop? Never, for these Vultures, anyway. Great read though. The floods and and the cold will continue to displace and kill people. Too, bad they don’t, care at all.
FYI, the number 7 comes from a group of pedophiles and underage aggressive boys who had people willing to cover for them. Even to the extent that they were willing to record the information. Helen Jacob was married to the pedophile who molested my family, hence a cover-up, and the boys whose parents covered for them, if there is any truth to their written testimony, of which I know nothing about, until I was 55 years old. The celodon green is their code color. If everyone is going to use code for that, which I am aware of, I will call them out. Where is my day in court?
There are too many Homo Sapiens (us). Hairless, weak, fragile and clever, but, on average, not all that intelligent. We have failed to see that there is a limit to the number of us the planet can handle. Through technology we have survived and thrived. But technology is messy. So we have climate change. I believe in what some people call here are too many Homo Sapiens (us). Hairless, weak, fragile and clever, but, on average, not all that intelligent. We have failed to see that there is a limit to the number of us the planet can handle. Through technology we have survived and thrived. But technology is messy. So we have climate change. I believe in what some people call Gaia. Not some sentient being but a self regulating world system. When things get out of balance Gaia steps in. Throughout history there have been women who tried to do something about this. They have been jailed, tortured are just plan murdered even in the present century. Scientists in the 19th century such as Alexander von Humboldt began to foresee the effects of climate change*. No one paid attention. So people will die. Maybe all of us.
This is such a monstrous (sic) issue that the obvious solution of nationalizing these industries is the only conceivable one. That will lead to seizing the accumulated wealth to put toward climate repair and reconstruction following disasters. But the biggest challenge will be to turn media toward a Nuremberg sort of accounting, to place this gigantic problem in its proper perspective -- we're so pre-occupied with the everyday transgressions of sociopaths. It's not hard to agree with Milton Friedman and Naomi Klein that we need to build on each successive disaster to muster the energy for action. We need to plant "the ideas lying around" so that they are the obvious ones each time catastrophe lands. We know that more disasters are coming; prepare!
You are wonderful as a reliable reporter, where seeing how dire things are is top of the list or we won't do anything to counter what will destroy us. BUT, how about going from telling us how bad it is to organizing us to do something about it?
As I send out my pleas to move from aint it awful to becoming a force for change, I am aware that I don't have the clout to do anything but try to light fires under influential people like you. Somebody should get us into a coalition for the good so we go from being gadflies to becoming a force. How about you?????
It's about saving more than one "kind"
Animal-kind and plant-kind are being tortured and murdered as well. Mankind's survival depends on THEIR survival.
TRump and his psychos are loving the torture. They've added new meaning to the term "gas-lighting". They thoroughly enjoy doing it.
Three more years of windmill bullshit to listen to, another four year setback on fighting the climate crisis. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome---it is also the definition of stupidity. TRump is exhibit A.
America the Beautiful-"O beautiful for patriot dream, That sees beyond the years.....". We can and have done better. It's going to require a little socialism. Thanks for the history lesson, Thom. See you in the streets.
Trump killed a windmill project in Idaho last week. The Environmental Defense Fund states that the Trump administration's broader energy policies could result in the loss of nearly 900,000 jobs nationwide and higher electricity bills for Americans.
We can whine all we want to about industrial pollution enabled by our government, but insurance rates will continue to skyrocket because today's climate does not damage houses - it flattens them, floats them down stream, or turns them into ashes. That is mainly because US houses are made of flimsy wood topped with flammable lightweight shingles.
If you recall your last, if ever, visit to Europe, you might recall that most of the houses you passed while sitting on the bus enroute to the next castle or whatever had concrete walls and heavy, fire-resistant tile roofs located out of flood plains just like the house my spouse inherited in Bulgaria. That is also just like our house along the central Florida coast off A1A. Any native Floridian knows that hurricanes blow light roofs off houses and then the walls explode outward, leaving a pile of kindling in 60 seconds. In my town, that is about a $1.2M total loss, including furnishings.
The rigged system comes from the housing industry and their payoffs to cripple building codes. You surely recall that condo in Surfside near Miami in 2021, don't ya? It imploded. Look at LA. One wildfire wiped out thousands of houses - few were concrete with tile roofs. However, with that much heat, even the rafters supporting tile roofs can explode into flames with all the surrounding houses ablaze.
What has the US Congress done to force states to emphasize house hardening? Nothing. What have Red states like Florida, Texas, and Louisiana done to harden their building codes? LOL
My point is simple, take matters into your own hands and harden your house against climate change because our rigged political system is not coming to your rescue. Oh Yeah, Trump is shutting down FEMA too.
Just like the Three Little Pigs, Tom.
If I had the money, I'd print a house. I think you can do them roof and all. Also, I've seen an elevated egg shape cement one they pour over a "balloon". It's hurricane proof---air flows around it. All right out of the Flintstones.
Our house was certified hurricane-proof back around 2018. They lowered our premiums from $12K to #3.5K. Two years later, the Insurance Co went broke. Then we were with the state ins company, and went to $8.5K, then $11K, then $15K. I asked my old Insurance company from up north if they would insure without wind mitigation. They said yes. So now my premiums are $1.5K.for fire and theft (we have a burglar alarm system). Problem solved.
Life is a case of pay me now (harden your house) or pay me later. But, later will cost a lot more.
Tom, it’s happening. The Meidas Touch Network (MTN largest on Substack) just announced loss of viewership on some of its other platforms. They’re going to use the words “music festival” in place of “protests “. Also Wagihat Ali (the left hook) uses a double blink I think to indicate he’s OK. J
Actually, the South Florida Bulildiing Code is the toughest in the country.
In most of Florida, only a handfiul of insurance companies write property insurance. Some insurance companies went broke on purpose. They lay their exposure on state liquidation funds , i.e. FIGA https://figafacts.com/
The Florida Insurance Guaranty Association establishes and maintains a service-oriented operation for processing covered claims of insolvent members. FIGA is a nonprofit corporation created by the Florida Legislature in 1970. FIGA services pending claims by or against Florida policyholders of member insurance companies which become insolvent and are ordered liquidated.
FIGA’s membership is composed of all Florida licensed direct writers of property or casualty insurance. Property and casualty insurers with a certificate of authority issued by the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR) are members of FIGA. In the event of insolvency, member company claims for covered lines of business are eligible for FIGA coverage. Surplus lines insurers are not member companies and are not eligible for FIGA coverage. FIGA membership can be determined using the company search function on the OIR website and confirming the company authorization type is “Certificate of Authority”.
OIR Company Search
https://companysearch.myfloridacfo.gov/
All pretty much true except that most of the South Florida codes are voluntary, and Florida continues to build houses statewide out of wood AND on reclaimed swampland. The fact remains that surviving climate change is really a matter of personal responsibility; not that of FEMA or other insurance companies, and not builders.
SFBC NOT voluntarty for new construction and condos now must do a strututural re-evaluation by statute.
Yeahbut - I doubt that the code outlaws woodframe houses or asphalt shingles. The only house left standing on Mexico Bch after Michael was built according to Miami/Dade suggested standards.
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/10/15/us/mexico-beach-house-hurricane-trnd
As always Thom your information ignites what we all need to do - like Dylan Thomas’ verse that was written to ignite life in his father at death - Rage against it don’t give up for the sake of humanity.
Tom on the beach I always find your comments to be extraordinarily informative reminders of how flimsy our government is.
Poor fella, knows nothing about Thom’s well foot-noted, researched books. Knows nothing of Thom’s travels, nor his over 20 years of TV broadcasting. This “Tom”s reply totally misses the article’s subject: CLIMATE CHANGE and the billionaire’s industries causing it.
Sorry to give you the impression of being ignorant or arrogant. Clearly, you know nothing of my travels (I am in our house in Bulgaria as I type), nothing of my books and scientific journal publications, nor of my 50-year career -the last 2/3rds of which was spent in direct support of JCS, federal agency heads, and the WH.
My goal was not to refute Thom's post, but to complement it by pointing out that those same billionaires who are causing pollution are also the prime contributors to Americans' vulnerability to its devastating consequences by building flimsy houses in dangerous locales for bigger profits.
I cut myself off from comments above. In Scripps Ranch they used shingle roofs and left large swaths of highly inflammable trees throughout. Each time I drove on the freeway that cut through I thought about fire. Sure enough someone miles away to the east shot a gun that set a fire which burned from the east all the way west to the ocean jumping from tree to tree and shingle roofs.
Everyone is insulated in these large neighborhoods and think the state and local fire departments have their back which is nearly impossible but doable if people were diligent in fire season.
Exactly. We have the same issues here in CA with regards to the fire hazard. My parents were fined out in the California high desert near Riverside when the fields filled with dry weeds if they didn’t abide by a clearing of land around buildings.
Then building went out of control in California and I did’t hear about the fire potential from those who built in huge neighborhoods
Sorry Tom, I misinterpreted your direction, Jamie. What do you think about Thom’s 2023 chapter on climate change? I hope that in Bulgaria, you have some time away from Ukraine and Russia to google Thom Hartmann.
Adam Smith wasn’t born in a spreadsheet—he emerged from the Scottish Enlightenment, steeped in moral philosophy, rhetoric, and metaphysics. Before The Wealth of Nations (1776), he wrote The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), a deeply humanistic exploration of empathy, virtue, and the invisible threads of social cohesion. Economics, for Smith, was never divorced from ethics—it was a branch of moral inquiry.
Thom mentioned claims against fossil fuel companies. https://climateintegrity.org/lawsuits
Honolulu's Lawsuit (2020): The first major climate lawsuit was filed by the City and County of Honolulu in March 2020. The case survived a bid by the oil companies to dismiss it after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear their appeal in January 2025.
State-Level Lawsuit (2025): In April and May 2025, Governor Josh Green and Attorney General Lopez announced the state of Hawaii would also file a similar lawsuit against fossil fuel interests.
DOJ Lawsuit against Hawaii (May 2025): The U.S. Department of Justice sued Hawaii and Michigan, in essence saing Federal law preempts litigation at the state level.
In 2023, California sued ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips, Chevron and the American Petroleum Institute, alleging that they misled the public about climate change. Other states filed similar suits.
On March 10, 2025, the Supreme Court declined to hear an argument from Republican-led states seeking to block climate lawsuits against oil companies by other Democratic-led states, allowing the state lawsuits to continue in lower courts. California, Connecticut, Minnesota, New Jersey and Rhode Island are proceeding against Sunoco, Shell, Chevron, Exxon Mobil and BP, many of which are headquartered in Texas.
The Republican states had argued that these climate cases were an attempt to regulate the national energy system, which they claimed was a federal responsibility. However, the Supreme Court's decision to stay out of the dispute allows the climate lawsuits, which accuse energy companies of deceiving the public about climate change, to proceed.
Catch 22. Still, you gotta love all the people and their efforts.
SCOTUS holds the cards and six of them need to be impeached, even if we don't have enough Senators to remove them. Kill their legacy---their inaction is killing us.
I've said this many times. Don't need impeachment. Since Roberts boostrapped the Judicial Code in November 2003, any of the justicies who are witnesses to corruption or know of bias have a duty to come forward. Parties before the court and their lawyers also have standing to bring allegations via motions to recuse. Under the code, the standard is merely "appearance of impropriety."
https://www.supremecourt.gov/about/Code-of-Conduct-for-Justices_November_13_2023.pdf
Even before the Judicial Code became applicable, 28 U.S. Code § 455 - Disqualification of justice, judge, or magistrate judge
(a)Any justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.
Roberts had referred Thomas for violations the financial disclosure requirements of the Ethics in Government Act of 1978 to the Judicial Conference but has not been asked to hold hearings re recusal.
In order to bring a charge of bias, need to file an affidavit.
OK Daniel, you keep quoting the law. well and good. But unless law is enforced it is just words on paper. So who is going to force Thomas or Alito to recuse themselves, who is going to discipline them.?
Yes, Mr. Farrar, most people continue to fail to understand the concept of power. It is the ability to control the behavior of people, even against their own will. This ability comes through the barrel of a gun. Not through statutes.
Most people confuse power and influence. They are not the same thing. Influence controls the behavior of people by getting them to agree with the authority's view of proper behavior. This is a function of propaganda, control over ideas.
Exactly.
He who has power does not relinquish it, not willingly, not easily,George Washington was an exception.
Trump proved that in 2020, but he has remedied that disability now.
The dust up in Texas over redistricting is all the evidence one needs
Prediction Trump wins. His will to power is greater than the Democrats will to resist.
And that is the fault of the opposition, it is weak willed, pacifistic, and too concerned with what people think.
Take the latest charge of Greg Abbott, that the Democrats are hypocrites over redistricting, putting them on the back foot, the defense. There is nothing more hypocritical in all venues than the Republican party, but why bother calling them out, they don't care, the ignore the charge and press on. Democrats go on the defense and mumble in justification.
The party of family values: hypocrites
The party of law and order: hypocrites.
So what they say, change the subject and stay on the attack.
We have so much learn, but it is too late.
Pacifism is not spineless, just not violent. There are several examples of nonviolent action. Admittedly they aren't all successful, but then neither are wars.
It's about ruining their legacy, because they have twisted logic and words beyond reason to favor corporations, abused women because of religious ideology, added to political corruption and they've turned bribes into tips. They deserve to be scorned, and it should be public, not buried in the records. Impeachment is THEIR equal justice under law.
There is a flaw to remediation of this issue. We seek reparations from the fossil fuel industry for their cynicism and gaslighting, something that continues to this day. While this is completely understandable and justifiable, we choose not to come to grips with WHY they have pumped so much CO₂ into the atmosphere. The WHY is us. It has arisen because of our demand (and in this case I include the world's governments, especially their militaries). Ever since the Industrial Age we have been building an economic system way out over an abyss. This has been possible solely because of access to cheap energy. We have chosen to ignore the consequences — and all actions have consequences — former considerably longer than we would wish to recognize.
1) In 1824, Fourier (an eminent mathematician physicist) discovered that the Earth's atmosphere traps some infrared radiation, causing the Earth to be warmer than solar radiation alone would explain.
2) In 1856, Eunice Foote, an American amateur scientist, discovered that increased CO₂ and water vapor would cause Earth's temperature to rise. Why her discovery remained unknown is another story.
3) In 1859, John Tyndall demonstrated that CO₂ and water vapor lead to the greenhouse effect.
4) In 1896, Svante Arrhenius, a Nobel laureate, developed a formula correlating the increasing CO₂ with the increase in atmospheric temperature. that formula is still in use today. He stated that a doubling of CO₂ would lead to an increase of 5-6° Celsius. Again, Arrhenius was n't a quack (and he wasn't a woman).
5) In 1938, Callendaar demonstrated that the Earth's temperature had risen over the previous 50 years and that that increase was directly related to an increase in greenhouse gases. His research led to...
6) Keeling's work from 1958 onward on Mauna Loa, which led to the Keeling Curve, at which time the first trickles of awareness started form king in parts of the general public.
7) On to Hansen (1988), et al.
Sorry for being tedious (this has been a passion of mine for a few decades) but it is important to realize how old awareness of climate change actually is. The knowledge has been there and yet we have done virtually nothing to stop or reverse its ever-growing threat. Some of our reticence, as suggested above, is due to the petrochemical industry's gaslighting an example of which came to light in a 1978 internal memo by Exxon laying out the problem and the industry's direct involvement in it.
So here we are, 131 years after Arrhenius, and we are finally coming to accept the reality of the warnings. But it is not the petrochemical industry's responsibility alone, it its also ours, in that we increasingly rely on petrochemicals to support our (for want of a better word) profligate lifestyle. The farther up the economic ladder, the more people are responsible. The bottom rungs are pretty much guiltless but for the rest of us we unfortunately are the major part of the problem. Changing our lifestyle is going to be exceedingly difficult but if we don't do so that change is going to be made for us and it is going to be apocalyptic.
Robert, May I add SILENT SPRING by Rachel Carson in 1962? This, more than any thing else, informed the public.
Oh, and of course you can. We're all in this together.
I'm pretty sure Silent Spring focused on DDT.
Seems the type of tool is or would be call socialism which helped this nation 🤔.
Americans largely still indulge our fantasies that technology will always bail us out at the last second. Too many harbor hopes that renewables will save the day, while Trump and the Destroyers have shut down every clean energy project they can find and put major obstacles in the way of solar installations on private homes. Some think that fusion (or is it fission?) is going to revolutionize energy production or maybe hydrogen fuel cells or some other miracle alternative fuels are coming. Many Americans also believe that some leader will materialize who will put a stop to the madness or that God will intervene. About 50% believe that none of this matters because the Second Coming is days away and they will be suddenly swept into the heavens to an eternal life of bliss, solely because they have chosen to buy into the mythology. Certainly, nationalization won't happen while the Destroyers are in power, and Trump is on the verge of declaring martial law to allow him to take total control. The belief in magic, mysticism, and miracles is deep-seated. Hell, even most of the people here are totally confident that the Great Conservative Behavioral & Indoctrination Centers for Passivity and Anti-intellectualism and Ignorance known as public schools are educating their kids and grandkids. I really hope I am wrong, because in the end, I am likewise hopelessly optimistic.
Fusion is going to. provide us with infinite power, the power of the Sun itself!!! (Etc, etc)... It is only 20 years away and has been for the last 60. I hear the Tooth Fairy is going to put it under our pillows any day, er, year, er, century now.
Mr. Herreshoff, You are correct; Fusion as a source of useful energy is a pipe dream. Yes, we have heard those silly promises for decades, all my life, in fact. I am 83. But fission is not a pipe dream It is an alternative which is already developed.
During a conference at Columbia university years ago I attended a seminar in which it was revealed that scientists at the Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago had developed a safe nuclear reactor back in the 1940s and 50s. But it was not a design Hyman Rickover regarded as appropriate for submarine and surface boats. Unfortunately Admiral Rickover was a vindictive, dangerous sociopath who went out of his way to destroy the career of the scientist who was principally responsible for the Argonne design. So, that design virtually disappeared. Rickover's preferred design was adopted.
Eventually the Chinese learned about the Argonne design. They are now prepared to market this kind of safe, efficient reactor to nations along the Belt and Road they have constructed. Dozens of nations have already ordered this reactor from the Chinese. The U.S., where it was first conceived, is still ignoring it.
I could go into some of the features of this design. But not just now.
Again, I'm just Robert. The last Mr Herreshoff died in 1986.
a
I believe f somewhere down the line, assuming we don't return to the 1300s, fusion will be commercially feasible but not with current technology and our current level of scientific competence. In 2022 Lawrence Livermore achieved a Q of 1.54 so fusion has been demonstrated to be attainable, but creating a self-sustaining reaction, let alone designing and constructing a commercially viable facility remains a pipe dream.
This is another reason I do not abandon all hope. Despite the lack of knowledge displayed by far too many people, there are significant numbers who have overcome the deficiencies of our society and institutions to study, learn, and excel. I do want to believe that fusion has the potential to work true miracles at some distant future point, and I had no idea that fission had been available as a safe energy alternative already. But the concern is that our brainiacs and technology experts will be sidelined and imprisoned or worse and all forward motion will be stopped for months, years, or generations by the lamebrain, egomaniacal, fanatics and power-hungry fools that are in the process of usurping power and undermining science and sane public policies and institutions. JD Vance may well be far more vicious and brutal than Trump with his inflated ego and psychotic delusions about reforming society and the economy. If Trump doesn't start WWIII, Vance will soon be in the driver's seat.
I love these ideas. But who is there to implement them? Certainly not Trump who only has fake brains. Democrats are rolling over like sprayed flies and are almost irrelevant. A savior? Maybe but it leaves too much to chance. We need actual leaders and plans to make this happen. Otherwise, I can only visualize small pockets of survivors, a slow healing of the planet and basically starting over. Or not.
Kudos, Thom! This selection was one of your best.
To your statement: "But these companies have not stopped buying off politicians...," I'd add that corruption is binary: it CANNOT EXIST without buyers AND sellers. Yes, the corporations are buyers with unprecedented wealth. Now, let's look at the sellers. Where do they come from?
The operatives of the two cartel parties are at least as much to blame as the corporate managers because the parties are dedicated to hand picking the candidates who are very willing sellers (like Gavin Newsom to the "health care" and pharmaceutical corporations) and demonizing the "populists" like Bernie Sanders and Zohran Mamdani who refuse to sell out the nation and its citizens.
We won't resolve climate change until we eliminate or thoroughly reform one of these two corrupt parties. Corrupt parties can only form corrupt governments. To recognize that both parties are corrupt is as easy to recognize as the fact that Israel is engaged in committing genocide, but there is limitless deflection to avoid recognizing and stating the obvious.
Ed, you are absolutely correct on all counts in your comment. When I see anyone praise Gavin Newsom for his ‘progressive’ stature, I want to throw up. In California he is known to be slick for a reason. Suddenly he is making a big show of offending Trump -that is what it is - like art of the deal to become our next president.
Newsom, Pelosi and others have made even more money with the sale of the military Presidio property in SF.
Thanks. Democratic partisan stooges try to shame Democrats who hold their own accountable, and I expected shaming rather than any validation.
Between their ENDLESS texts and emails asking for money "RUSH!" without a single iota of governance or a united specific of what this Party is FOR, I'm thinking that the only way to solve this is to have wholesale resignation as registered Independents to force out the "legacy" operatives who would rather elect some Trumpist and let Netanyahu shadow-govern and repress free-speech of us citizens by a police state than to ever support a Roosevelt type progressive Democrat.
Well, Captain my Captain great advice on what to do to stop the climate crisis we have a hand right now. Too bad the people we need to stop this are to busy enjoying their money to care about this. When will the greed stop? Never, for these Vultures, anyway. Great read though. The floods and and the cold will continue to displace and kill people. Too, bad they don’t, care at all.
Captain. Not one bit. Money, it’s money.
FYI, the number 7 comes from a group of pedophiles and underage aggressive boys who had people willing to cover for them. Even to the extent that they were willing to record the information. Helen Jacob was married to the pedophile who molested my family, hence a cover-up, and the boys whose parents covered for them, if there is any truth to their written testimony, of which I know nothing about, until I was 55 years old. The celodon green is their code color. If everyone is going to use code for that, which I am aware of, I will call them out. Where is my day in court?
I see your timestamp number, and '7' is a lie regarding code about me, so is three, as in 3 marriages.
There are too many Homo Sapiens (us). Hairless, weak, fragile and clever, but, on average, not all that intelligent. We have failed to see that there is a limit to the number of us the planet can handle. Through technology we have survived and thrived. But technology is messy. So we have climate change. I believe in what some people call here are too many Homo Sapiens (us). Hairless, weak, fragile and clever, but, on average, not all that intelligent. We have failed to see that there is a limit to the number of us the planet can handle. Through technology we have survived and thrived. But technology is messy. So we have climate change. I believe in what some people call Gaia. Not some sentient being but a self regulating world system. When things get out of balance Gaia steps in. Throughout history there have been women who tried to do something about this. They have been jailed, tortured are just plan murdered even in the present century. Scientists in the 19th century such as Alexander von Humboldt began to foresee the effects of climate change*. No one paid attention. So people will die. Maybe all of us.
Note: From Wikipedia
Start with nationalizing our prison system.
This is such a monstrous (sic) issue that the obvious solution of nationalizing these industries is the only conceivable one. That will lead to seizing the accumulated wealth to put toward climate repair and reconstruction following disasters. But the biggest challenge will be to turn media toward a Nuremberg sort of accounting, to place this gigantic problem in its proper perspective -- we're so pre-occupied with the everyday transgressions of sociopaths. It's not hard to agree with Milton Friedman and Naomi Klein that we need to build on each successive disaster to muster the energy for action. We need to plant "the ideas lying around" so that they are the obvious ones each time catastrophe lands. We know that more disasters are coming; prepare!
You are wonderful as a reliable reporter, where seeing how dire things are is top of the list or we won't do anything to counter what will destroy us. BUT, how about going from telling us how bad it is to organizing us to do something about it?
As I send out my pleas to move from aint it awful to becoming a force for change, I am aware that I don't have the clout to do anything but try to light fires under influential people like you. Somebody should get us into a coalition for the good so we go from being gadflies to becoming a force. How about you?????
See what I said here about you and a coalition:
Something is stirring in the land
Could an upswing be underway?
https://suzannetaylor.substack.com/p/something-is-stirring-in-the-land