by Daniel Brouse July 29, 2025 The Soaring Real Costs of Climate Disasters in America By July 2025, the United States had already racked up $93 billion in weather-related disaster damages—the highest annual total ever recorded this early in the year, and before a single hurricane has even made landfall. This figure, which typically reflects […]
Category Archives: Energy
A Record Year of Climate Chaos Costs
Racing Toward Irrelevance: How U.S. Protectionism, Anti-Science Rhetoric, and Policy Failures Are Fueling China’s Rise in AI and EVs
by Daniel BrouseJuly 29, 2025 China has decisively surpassed the United States in both electric vehicle (EV) and artificial intelligence (AI) technology. The latest milestone came as Shanghai officially approved robotaxis for commercial operation, with Pony.ai and WeRide among the first companies to receive permits. Pony.ai now stands as the first company authorized to operate […]
Air Quality Reaches Code Red in Philadelphia and Jersey Shore: Wildfire Smoke Sparks Health Alerts
by Daniel Brouse July 27, 2025 Air quality levels reached Code Red across parts of Philadelphia and the Jersey Shore last evening and today, prompting urgent health warnings for residents. The alert, triggered by unhealthy concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM2.5), was in effect from the southern tip of Long Beach Island to Sea Isle […]
How Extreme Heat Accelerates Aging and Cuts Life Expectancy
by Daniel Brouse July 25, 2025 Extreme heat doesn’t just make you uncomfortable—it makes you age faster. Prolonged exposure to high temperatures accelerates biological aging by damaging cells and tissues, undermining human health at the molecular level. “An accelerated biological age is the ‘canary in the coal mine’ for future risk of earlier onset of […]
Global Courts Shift Climate Change from Moral Imperative to Legal Obligation
by Daniel Brouse July 23, 2025 “The ICJ opinion explicitly connects environmental degradation with the erosion of fundamental human rights, including the rights to life, health, food, water, and cultural integrity.” The International Court of Justice (ICJ), the UN’s highest judicial body, issued a landmark opinion today (July 23, 2025), declaring that states have clear […]
U.S. Halts Beach Replenishment Funding for the First Time in 29 Years, Leaving Shore Towns Exposed
by Daniel Brouse July 22, 2025 For the first time since 1996, Congress has allocated zero dollars for federal beach replenishment, halting nearly three decades of continuous support for projects that combat beach erosion along the U.S. coast. Typically, Congress sets aside $100 million to $200 million annually for these efforts, which involve dredging sand […]
The Cascading Crisis: Climate Change, Pathogens, and the Future of Human Health
By Daniel BrouseJuly 20, 2025 Disease vectors are among the most critical—and often underestimated—risk factors of climate change. Together with deadly humid heat and increasingly violent rain events, these three threats drive an exponential rise in climate-related deaths. Disease vectors, such as mosquitoes and ticks, expand their range and transmission seasons as the climate warms, […]
Climate Change, Capitalism, and the Collapse of Insurance: California as a Case Study
by Daniel BrouseJuly 19, 2025 California offers a stark preview of what to expect as the U.S. property insurance market begins to unravel under the weight of climate change. Insurers continue to withdraw from wildfire-prone and flood-prone areas, despite recent policy efforts aimed at stabilizing the market. The January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires alone generated […]
Why My Pool Is Losing Water—and What It Reveals About Climate Change
by Daniel BrouseJuly 19, 2025 One of the most fundamental principles in science is observation. For the past couple of decades, I have observed the evaporation rate from my swimming pool steadily increasing. While it may seem like a small backyard inconvenience, it’s a clear, everyday confirmation of our warming climate. As global temperatures rise, […]
Walk the Poop Before You Talk the Transition
By Daniel Brouse July 18, 2025 Now that many people are finally waking up to the collapse of the climate and social systems, I hope my background as an economist focused on risk management can help illuminate the path forward. Ideally, we would have followed sound risk management decades ago to avoid reaching this crisis […]