Ah, deduction. I've been reading a few pieces since the Calgary and High River floodings and I can say that there is some concern for the future. But let's start with the present. Homes in Canada do not have flood insurance. They have insurance for water that backs up from the ground into their basements but not for water that comes into their homes through doorways or windows - otherwise known as "overland flooding". However, with the rise in property claims against flood damage, there has been a need to make changes in the coverage insurance companies offer.
Now if you happen to be American, or exposed to American politics, you might have heard a few Republicans claim that climate change is a myth (I chose three separate links randomly, feel free to Google for many, many more). Here in Southern Alberta I have wondered for the past five years if we were, in fact, experiencing some climate changes. The majority of this area is typically dry, understated yellow-brown fields dotted with a few trees.
Four years ago I was camping out in Drumheller (where the Royal Tyrell Museum - dinosaur bones and one heck of a history lesson- is). Drumheller is usually just as brown and dry as the rest of the Southern AB but that summer it was green. It was captivating to me because I had been there many times in my life. It was beautiful. Lush. Strange. I thought we had simply been getting a lot of rain. But that has been happening each year. It's starting to look a little like Ireland out here with rolling green hills rather than brown ones. That's new.
And I am not talking about global warming, which is strictly the increase in temperatures, but a literal change in the climate. That would be a normally dry, brown, water hungry area turning to lush greenery with frequent rain. I cannot attest to the actual pattern in temperature change without more research but it sure hasn't felt all that warm here in the summers even though the winters have had their moments. And that is not the point of this segment.
Now some people are claiming that the recent flooding has caused irreversible changes to the Rocky Mountains. The flooding, of course, is seen as a result of climate change. It was referred to as "Pacific Coast weather" here in Alberta. And herein lies the future problem. If it is determined that we are indeed experiencing major climate change in Alberta (determined obviously by someone who has the credentials to say so which means that my mere observations although correct, are unscientific) then many homes will become uninsurable.
In particular, those usually coveted, generally expensive pieces of property with river banks attached to them will be "at your own risk" as no insurance will be available for either the home or its contents in case of water damage. I'm not entirely certain how the rest of the insurance would work for fire and so on, but the term used in the last linked item was "uninsurable". Plus you will see a major increase in infrastructure costs as cities or towns with water access have to restructure their current structures against future flooding. This is not an easy task, nor is it cheap. We're talking billions of dollars more than the billion plus it will take to fix what just happened last week. Yeesh.
I usually like to have a thread of optimism in these segments because I prefer to solve problems rather than just dwell on them. I'm not stumped but this is a big one. Okay, wait, maybe it's not. Alberta's carbon footprint is much higher than any other province. We know this but haven't done anything about it. There are ways. We need to go green. Or pay for it now and again and again and again. Wake up Redford, Alberta is in trouble.
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