Country has experienced 23 extreme weather events costing $1bn or more already this year, passing previous mark of 22 in 2020
With four months of 2023 still left, the US has set a record for the most natural disasters in a single year that have cost $1bn or more, as fires, floods and ferocious winds were among deadly events experts warn are being turbo-charged by the climate crisis.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) announced on Monday that there have already been 23 extreme weather events in the US this year that have cost at least $1bn. The current figure surpasses the record of 22 such events set in 2020.
So far, the total cost of disasters in 2023 is more than $57.6bn, according to Noaa.
I saw someone starting this thought exercise just yesterday - imagine Al Gore became president, say for two terms. Then the boat swung back into two terms of McCain, followed by Obama. No Iraq war. No Benghazi. Possibly no 2006 Housing Crisis. Maybe Covid would still have happened. But anyway, wouldn’t that have been a much happier timeline?
Back to no Iraq War, maybe Saddam would have gotten toppled over locally. The Arab Spring would still have happened, but then also maybe no ISIS?
the housing collapse was pretty inevitable, because so few people saw it coming. definitely no one in government. whichever party had been in power would have worn it around their neck like a dead pelican.
Didn’t the housing crisis start with bad policies and market deregulations? I’m not sure which government undid which regulations though