r/Futurology • u/RunAmbitious2593 • 2d ago
Economics Climate crisis on track to destroy capitalism, warns top insurer
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/03/climate-crisis-on-track-to-destroy-capitalism-warns-allianz-insurerThe world is fast approaching temperature levels where insurers will no longer be able to offer cover for many climate risks, said Günther Thallinger, on the board of Allianz SE, one of the world’s biggest insurance companies. He said that without insurance, which is already being pulled in some places, many other financial services become unviable, from mortgages to investments.
Global carbon emissions are still rising and current policies will result in a rise in global temperature between 2.2C and 3.4C above pre-industrial levels. The damage at 3C will be so great that governments will be unable to provide financial bailouts and it will be impossible to adapt to many climate impacts, said Thallinger, who is also the chair of the German company’s investment board and was previously CEO of Allianz Investment Management...
...Thallinger said it was a systemic risk “threatening the very foundation of the financial sector”, because a lack of insurance means other financial services become unavailable: “This is a climate-induced credit crunch.”
“This applies not only to housing, but to infrastructure, transportation, agriculture, and industry,” he said. “The economic value of entire regions – coastal, arid, wildfire-prone – will begin to vanish from financial ledgers. Markets will reprice, rapidly and brutally. This is what a climate-driven market failure looks like.”
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u/BigPickleKAM 2d ago
Actuaries know when something is a losing position in the long run. Look into life insurance back in the 50's. Those working in asbestoses related industries could not get life insurance the companies knew they would lose money.
Same thing now the insurance industry know a losing position and will continue to pull back from insuring high risk areas.
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u/Gimme_The_Loot 2d ago
Didn't insurance companies first figure out the link between smoking and lung cancer (or at least higher death rates) if I recall?
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u/solidspacedragon 2d ago
Wouldn't surprise me. Honestly, you'd think that life insurance companies would be heavily promoting healthy living in the general population, so they made more money.
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u/Silvermoon3467 2d ago
Even health insurance does to some extent. They don't actually make any money off of providing you health care, that's why they try to deny claims a lot – but most of their money is made off of people who make few or no claims, and most insurers have figured out that it's cheaper in the long run to pay for preventative care and screenings
If your doctor catches stuff early they can keep your health care costs within your deductible so you end up paying mostly out of pocket and they just get to profit off of your premiums
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u/Due_Log5121 1d ago
health insurance is just like the gym. they make the most money if you just subscribe but never show up.
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u/guareber 2d ago
Modern ones do, or at least pretend to, through incentives tied to exercise tracked with fitness trackers and mindfulness apps.....
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u/agentchuck 1d ago
The thing is, everyone dies at some point. They have to figure out the secret sauce so that you die suddenly of a hard to detect illness to avoid any costly treatments.
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u/solidspacedragon 1d ago
No no, not health insurance, life insurance. Life insurance only pays out when you do die, so they get maximum gains if you live as long as possible, regardless of your healthcare costs.
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u/pinkfootthegoose 2d ago
no, it's referenced in Herman Melville's Moby Dick so they've known for a long time.
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u/667FriendOfTheBeast 1d ago
You may be recalling actuaries discovering high blood pressure is a negative health condition, as well
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u/LucasTheLucky11 5h ago
I read somewhere that it was scientists in Nazi Germany who first figured it out, but I could be wrong.
This was around the same time they were handing out industrial quantities of pharmaceutical-grade methamphetamine to their military, though.
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u/BlindPaintByNumbers 2d ago
Modern cancer treatment is horrendously expensive.
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u/UnpluggedUnfettered 2d ago
All you gotta do is delay treatment a few months and the problem solves itself!
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u/trawkcab 2d ago
I first saw business related insurance companies talk about coverage changes due to climate change in a Loss Prevention magazine about a decade ago and thought it interesting that this wasn't part of the climate change "debates". They've been tallying the math for a while, as if money were on the line...
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u/cultish_alibi 2d ago
Yep, the insurance industry aren't climate change deniers, they can't afford to be.
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u/Sprinkle_Puff 1d ago
Imagine if they used their money to fund politicians that actually wanted to fight it
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u/West-Abalone-171 1d ago
Why do that when you can bail on holding up your end of the bargain 8 months before shit hits the fan, and then use the premiums that you kept to buy out everything when the disaster hits for pennies on the dollar only to rent it back out when the public purse pays for reconstruction.
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u/wangchungyoon 1d ago
Gonna be pretty messed up when hurricane season tears through our coastal communities and they’re forced to rebuild in this tariff trade war market - god be with you all
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u/Celestial_Mechanica 1d ago edited 12h ago
Here's a recent report led by a British Institute and Faculty of Actuaries:
Page 32:
Scenario: 3 degrees
(Note we are on track for that or even more, by the way, by 2050 or so, now that it's becoming quite clear current climate models have vastly underestimated climate sensitivity and albedo loss, and completely missed how bad things are and how quickly they're going to get much worse):
"Global GDP loss >50%
Human Mortality: >=50%. Over 4 billion deaths
Breakdown of several critical ecosystem services and Earth systems.
High level of extinction of higher order life on Earth. (tldr: No bueno)
Significant socio-political fragmentation worldwide and/or state failure with rapid, enduring, and significant loss of capital and systems identity.
Frequent large scale mortality events."
Good luck everyone. Welcome to the real world. The future is so bright! We've never had it this good in all of human history! Just ignore the fact we've been living in an illusion of wealth and progress by maxing every credit card we could get our hands on, and don't think about what happens when the planetary credit card debt comes due! :)
Just remember to keep consuming, 'creating content', believing in "progress and productivity" propaganda, and serving corporate shareholders. Some sci-fi technology will magically come to save us any day now, just give those amazing billionaire geniuses and corporate suits some more money and power! They'll definitely fix and prevent all this in just a decade or two.
And if you have children or plan on having them, make sure to tell them to dream big and that everything will be just fine when they're fighting for the last apple against both their neighbours and the billions of starving refugees overrunning whatever region they'll happen to be stuck in.
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u/VoidOmatic 23h ago
It drives me absolutely mad that we have a perfectly good planet that gives us everything we could want and more. Then we destroy it for green rectangles that mean absolutely nothing. There are people alive right now that are purposefully destroying the planet to play make believe.
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u/abrandis 2d ago
Time to make insurance optional then for mortgages...
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u/Christopher135MPS 1d ago
Friendo would you take out a mortgage without insurance? Maybe the rules are different where you are, in Australia you’d just end up without a house and still on the hook for the mortgage.
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u/FormerlyUserLFC 1d ago
In the US you’d declare bankruptcy and ruin your credit for seven years but could otherwise leave the lender holding the bag in most cases.
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u/SuckMyRhubarb 2d ago
"It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism."
Sadly, I think big business would rather see the end of the world than change and jeopardise their ability to pursue infinite profit at the cost of literally everything else.
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u/leleledankmemes 1d ago
Within the capitalist hegemon, we have one delusional party that is radicalised against any sort of climate policy, and another delusional party whose attitude is very well embodied by this quote from David Shore:
I would much rather live in a world where we see a 4 degree rise of temperature than live in a world where China is a global hegemon.
It looks to me like we're likely to get both.
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u/CriticalUnit 1d ago
Wait until you see what a 4 degree rise of temperature does to the food that China depends on!
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u/BIueGoat 23h ago
Must be why China's investing so heavily in green tech and GMOs. They're developing new strains of rice that are fast-breeding and don't need much water, all the while being more nutrient/calorie dense than previous varieties. It's honestly really interesting the kinds of scientific advancements they're pushing.
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u/bitechnobable 1d ago
This is way too pessimistic. Capitalism runs wild because it served a purpose. It no longer does, rather it's detrimental effects are quite obvious.
Organized state religion used to be equally omnipresent, it no longer is.
Feudal kings used to be required. They no longer are.
I see no reasons to why we would need capitalism to remain in it's current position. Trade I think will always remain, but capitalism? Not a chance.
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u/ghandi3737 2d ago
Uh, you mean capitalism is on track to destroy the climate.
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u/frozenandstoned 2d ago
Spider-Man meme where capitalism destroys capitalism.
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u/zezzene 2d ago
Whoa that's crazy who could have possibly predicted this?
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u/xuteloops 2d ago
An economist and professor at the university of Maryland called it years ago. Basically put out a warning like “hey guys… if we don’t check corruption you’re gonna break capitalism”.
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u/EllieVader 2d ago
Some german guy called it back in like 1870. I think his name was like Carl Marks or something.
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u/RunAmbitious2593 2d ago
It's a circle.
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u/EuropeanCoder 1d ago
Like u/Reasonable_Fold6492 said, the USSR polluted far more than the capitalist west for its population size.
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u/RunAmbitious2593 1d ago
Strawman argument.
That doesn't make the article incorrect, it's not advocating for communism. There's more than 2 economic systems, future ones could be even worse.
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u/EuropeanCoder 1d ago
The USSR hadn't communism.
Actually there are 2 systems, capitalism and socialism.
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u/dragonmp93 2d ago
Well, think of the Thor meme, with Hela being capitalism and then there is Surtur.
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u/ThomCook 2d ago
Yup we lost the climate change battle when trump got reelected. It's joever folks. Humans will adapt and overcome it though as we always do, just going to be a brutal transition period until then.
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u/Shishakliii 2d ago
Unironically, Trumps election may save us. If this current administration keeps getting everything increasingly wrong, the majority will wake up to how bad the current direction actually is, and finally push hard in the opposite direction and fix things once and for all
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u/ThomCook 2d ago
I hope so but I think he will push through a bunch of anti climate polices during his term and screw us. Even if the rest of the world goes net 0 the united states could keep it going and less climate restrictions will draw business from folks that don't give a shit about the climate either. Basically trumps damage is going to be a generation to repaire and we don't have a generation to address climate change.
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u/Shishakliii 2d ago
If that happens, that would be bad, and it's worth being concerned about.
My hope is that the exact opposite happens.
For instance, after the great depression, government "rushed" in measures to regulate banks and control income inequality with high taxes on the rich. This lead to America's most prosperous period in history, really turned shit around.
We need that again, with interest
My point being, there's historical precedent to a left wing backlash to right wing over reach, so I'm saying, there's a chance
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u/Netmantis 1d ago
We could glass all of Europe and North America, not just stop all combustion but destroy all life to stop respiration. It will slow the change, but won't even come close to stopping it.
China is doing its part and firing up new coal plants though. They might even hit the Paris accord target for coal if they work hard enough.
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u/GiveMeTheTape 2d ago
Right, if it was the other way around I might consider accelerating the process.
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u/Reasonable_Fold6492 2d ago
Good thing ussr never destroyed the environment. Hey do you want to talk about the Arab sea?
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u/jean85397 2d ago
While you're not wrong (you didn't even include other countries, this is a global problem) it comes off as "whataboutism" unfortunately even though it's true.
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u/Netmantis 1d ago
It isn't capitalism, but the exploitation of other planets. Like China, Central and South America, and Africa. By polluting those worlds, outsourcing all our polluting industry there, it has somehow caused our own planet to become polluted. Who knew that exploiting India and China until you can set the rivers on fire would hurt us?
But we wouldn't dare stop that exploitation. That would hurt too many people, and it isn't like pollution *there * causes global warming. Just pollution in the technological West. Pollution doesn't affect the Earth if you don't have the science to notice after all.
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u/CriticalUnit 1d ago
until you can set the rivers on fire
Yeah but to be fair, corporations weren't allowed to do that in the US any longer after the EPA.
What else were they supposed to do? Produce responsibly? And leave those profits on the table!!!
/S
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u/drewbles82 2d ago
why do you think their all trying to make as much as possible now...they know what's coming, they know what their doing us all
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u/foamyhead7 2d ago
I've been saying this! It's the only thing that makes sense
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u/drewbles82 1d ago
keeping us all divided, left and right, fighting over ridiculous things, they fuel the hate on immigrants, all this woke stuff to keep us battling each other, rather than getting together and pointing the finger at them.
These people tell us we must continue to keep taxing, and making ourselves poorer for things to one day improve...yet the richest are gaining more wealth than ever before.
They tell us to look up and be inspired by these rich people cuz if we work hard, we can too achieve the same...no we can't...they don't want you to believe their the bad guys...people defending billionaires...the amount of wealth these people have couldn't be spent in 20+ lifetimes so why even bother to keep making more, its doing literally nothing...they have enough wealth to change everything on the planet, end world hunger, end poverty, put every country on the right track against climate change and actually give the human race a chance...and they'd still be Billionaires...yet they CHOOSE not to do any of that.
All I hear from people is saying...well its their money they can do what they want with it...its money they won't ever do anything with, its just horded whilst the world burns
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u/Icy_Drive_7433 2d ago
The crazy thing is that they actually think they can avoid it by doubling down. And they'll be saved while others won't be.
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u/Meet_Foot 2d ago
I mean, they probably can. They’ll hoard enough water, food, and land for them and their private armies.
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u/Icy_Drive_7433 1d ago
But if there is no economic system, how are you going to pay your armies? And even if they end up with such armies, it wouldn't be long before someone decided that his "boss" is weak and so he'll have it instead.
There's no escape.
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u/Meet_Foot 1d ago
With food, water, and usable land.
You could say the same now regarding usurpation. But there are lots of ways to keep a hired gun happy. It could turn on you, but doesn’t necessarily do so.
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u/Icy_Drive_7433 1d ago
Yes it could and doesn't have to. But I suspect that in such environments it's more likely than not.
And if you have a private army, you have competition, probably not just from people who aren't in your army, such as the population.
If they have nothing, why support you? If there are no ways to grow crops due to extreme weather conditions, where is the food coming from?
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u/Meet_Foot 1d ago
Again, they are currently hoarding all the wealth. They’ll be able to buy up all the water and store it, and non-perishable food, and whatever useable land is left. They have literally all the money and power in the world to prepare right now.
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u/Icy_Drive_7433 1d ago
But that wealth is in the form of assets and if it's cash, they're promissory notes which only have the inherent value of the state bank with which it's associated.
After the collapse of the banking system the money means nothing. They can't buy or sell anything if the currency is not recognised as having value.
The only thing that would have some value would be something like gold, but even that wouldn't have real value besides what people agreed it was worth in exchange for a given item (which is why the GBP is a 'pound', as it was worth a pound of silver).
And yes they could but it up, now, but they haven't bought it and can only store a certain amount of things for a limited time.
And all the infrastructure they'd rely on would require maintenance, so unless they can do it themselves, they're going to have pay people to do that with a currency that no longer has any value.
I guess we're going to disagree on this, so that's all I have to say.
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u/ovirt001 2d ago
We're right on track for 3C, the world is going to look radically different in 2100.
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u/Ellusive1 2d ago
I’m so sick of capitalism and the exploitation of the masses to benefit a few psychopaths.
I wish we could end capitalism with out destroying the planet and the 99%
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u/JohnGillnitz 2d ago
People dying? No problem. The economy is at risk? Holey shit! We should do something!
In all likelihood, countries are going to start fighting over resources and burn through what is left. Billions are going to starve.
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u/CleanUpSubscriptions 2d ago
Billions of poor people. The assholes causing this are going to be just fine...
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u/Photofug 2d ago
So goodbye capitalism, Hello Feudalism? My children will thrive working the fields for the Baron of Edmonton, all hail King Smith, of the house of Smith
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u/CriticalUnit 1d ago
At least they will have more vacation
http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_workweek.html
"...it was very unusual for servile laborers to be required to work a whole day for a lord. One day's work was considered half a day, and if a serf worked an entire day, this was counted as two 'days-works.'"
"A thirteenth-century estimate finds that whole peasant families did not put in more than 150 days per year on their land. Manorial records from fourteenth-century England indicate an extremely short working year -- 175 days -- for servile laborers. Later evidence for farmer-miners, a group with control over their worktime, indicates they worked only 180 days a year."
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u/SolarNachoes 21h ago
They didn’t have lawn mowers and dish washers so basic stuff took up more of their time. Like hunting, food gathering and cooking. Bathing was once a week :)
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u/SpamEatingChikn 2d ago
Funny how many folks deny climate change but the companies with serious skin in the game are bean counting and seeing it won’t math. Love to hear their excuses for why that is.
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u/alotmorealots 1d ago
Yes, I feel like this has always been the most telling thing about the political situation around AGW. The military and intelligence agencies have also come to the similar conclusions to big insurance and pension money funds, not to mention the fossil fuel industry itself. It's just all of the aforementioned chose purely reactive measures and feel it's not their place to support preventative measures.
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u/Big_Wishbone3907 1d ago
If there's anything insurance companies are good at, it's risk-related statistics and probabilities.
- Workers in construction companies using asbestos couldn't get life insurance ? -> asbestos is unsafe.
- Air traffic in the Bermuda Triangle is insured ? -> the flight risk is the same as anywhere else.
Etc, etc.
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u/skoalbrother I thought the future would be 2d ago
Capitalism destroyed capitalism.. Capitalism end game is here
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u/BeneficialClassic771 2d ago
But climate crisis is due to capitalism, so does it mean capitalism is destroying capitalism?
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u/cornonthekopp 2d ago
The contradictions of capitalism lead to its own demise
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u/crazy_balls 2d ago
You're telling me a system predicated on infinite growth is unsustainable on a planet with finite resources? Shocked I tell you.
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u/FridgeParade 2d ago
And where were these insanely powerful people at every fckng climate summit? Why arent they spending billions on info campaigns and refusing to insure fossil fuel projects? They wouldnt even be doing it for the good of all, just because it’s good business for them.
They hold the power but they just whimper and bitch a bit now that it’s too late? Fckng hell.
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u/Cristoff13 2d ago
Our current civilization is fossil fuels though. Utterly dependent on them. Switching over to other energy sources is going to require entirely changing our civilization. And whatever form it takes, it will be poorer and with a far slower economic growth rate.
But of course business as usual is untenable due to global warming and that fossil fuels are a finite resource.
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u/FridgeParade 1d ago
Yeah but whats preferable here, slow growth or certain death?
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u/cynric42 1d ago
How much money are we going to make before certain death and will it happen during my lifetime? /s
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u/1IncognitoTorpedo 22h ago
You make it sound like cleaning up our energy systems is near impossible. In fact, we already have lots of clean tech that works. You'd be surprised if you knew how far things have come. The problem is that entrenched fossil fuel interests own the Republican party and some Democrats as well. There is a tremendous amount of heel dragging going on, and a lot of lies flying around.
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u/West-Abalone-171 1d ago
Not setting your money on fire is way cheaper than setting your money on fire.
Oil and coal won out in the 20th century because hydro and wind required thinking ahead ten years, doing something that benefits everyone, and caring about externalities. Not because fossil fuels are better for an economy.
Now fossil fuels are not even viable for next quarter's profits without massive subsidies and regulatory protection.
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u/-HealingNoises- 2d ago
I mean, is it really though? Until people actually rise up and overthrow it, it is just solidifying dystopian capitalism. Just because its a nightmare doesn't mean it isn't real or not capitalism.
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u/DrewzerB 1d ago
No matter your view on controversial issues you can always find a thread of truth in insurance company strategies.
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u/RunAmbitious2593 2d ago
Excerpt:
The world is fast approaching temperature levels where insurers will no longer be able to offer cover for many climate risks, said Günther Thallinger, on the board of Allianz SE, one of the world’s biggest insurance companies. He said that without insurance, which is already being pulled in some places, many other financial services become unviable, from mortgages to investments.
Global carbon emissions are still rising and current policies will result in a rise in global temperature between 2.2C and 3.4C above pre-industrial levels. The damage at 3C will be so great that governments will be unable to provide financial bailouts and it will be impossible to adapt to many climate impacts, said Thallinger, who is also the chair of the German company’s investment board and was previously CEO of Allianz Investment Management...
Thallinger said it was a systemic risk “threatening the very foundation of the financial sector”, because a lack of insurance means other financial services become unavailable: “This is a climate-induced credit crunch.”
“This applies not only to housing, but to infrastructure, transportation, agriculture, and industry,” he said. “The economic value of entire regions – coastal, arid, wildfire-prone – will begin to vanish from financial ledgers. Markets will reprice, rapidly and brutally. This is what a climate-driven market failure looks like.”
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u/Haelphadreous 2d ago
The best part is that the group of ultra wealthy profiting off this have known about the problem for well over 100 years. But rather than doing anything about an issue that could literally lead to the collapse of civilization as we know it, they have instead spent money on suppressing the info and spreading disinformation about the problem to prevent any actions to address the issue. They literally deemed future chaos and death on a global scale more palatable than giving up even a tiny scrap of their obscene wealth and influence.
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u/Outside-Car1988 2d ago
It won't stop the wealthy. They'll continue to take premiums for insurance policies, receive an obscene salary, and let the company go bankrupt when it can't pay out claims. Then they start a new insurance business and repeat the whole process. That's what they do today (not just insurance)
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u/Kindly-Guidance714 2d ago
This should be number 1 really.
The brutal reality is gonna gut everyone like a truck packed with dynamite.
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u/Boymoans420 2d ago
Well, let's speed it up then. I'm done trying to preserve the Billionaires playground.
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u/whymeimbusysleeping 2d ago edited 1d ago
Personal opinion here, but I'm ok with insurers pulling from high risk positions. Not only it's bad for them, but bad for other product customers, as the risks are usually spread to other areas. Governments need to be proactive, and if an area gets hit with a natural disaster recovery year, there should not be any rebuilding. People need to be relocated elsewhere. It's expensive, but it'll be less costly than a once a year event
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u/cynric42 1d ago
Easier said than done. Small scale, like rebuilding houses in a valley that got flooded, sure that's possible. Large scale though, moving cities with millions of inhabitants will be a challenge and globally the migration will reach epic proportions and very likely lead to a lot of really scary emotions and lots of suffering.
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u/whymeimbusysleeping 1d ago
I agree, it's not easy, but which country can absorb a yearly disaster in the same area?
It's not about putting houses on a truck and moving them, but about slowly de-risking.
You could manage that insurance payouts are tied to moving location, you can make it so that houses cannot be passed on to the next generation, and so on. All expensive, difficult and slow, but what else are we going to do
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u/cynric42 1d ago
what else are we going to do
I fear finding someone to blame and really ruining their day isn't out of the question once our current systems are starting to really feel the cracks that are already developing.
I really hope I'm wrong and we will actually find a reasonable way to deal with a shitty situation, but I'm kinda losing hope on that one.
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u/RunAmbitious2593 2d ago
The insurance industry underpins all industries.
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u/RunAmbitious2593 2d ago
Insurance, in one form or another, dates back thousands of years. Sure, the world will keep turning, but the point of this article is that capitalism won't be able to function. What will come next could be better, or could be feudalism or hydrolic despotism.
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u/IntergalacticJets 2d ago
Okay not to downplay the point that some areas will become uneconomical… why does that mean Capitalism is going to be destroyed?
The article seems to be arguing that climate change disasters will happen everywhere just as much and just as severely as the most prone to climate change.
Now, a board member of an insurance company isn’t a climate scientist, but neither am I. However there should be areas that are less prone to disasters than others, shouldn’t there? Surely lots of areas would still be safely insurable?
The article mentions “ The economic value of entire regions – coastal, arid, wildfire-prone – will begin to vanish from financial ledgers.” But didn’t establish a connection to areas that aren’t like those listed.
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u/RunAmbitious2593 2d ago
The upset to world economies will be huge, supply chain disruption will mean starvation for millions. That'll create huge numbers of climate refugees in "safe" areas, which will then not be able to cope with the influx. As he points out, "cities can't move"... But people can and will. I'm in Ireland and already worried about the amount of people who will want to come here.
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u/sleeptightburner 1d ago
🎶Caaaause Mom’s gonna fix it all soon, Mom’s coming round to put it back the way it oughta beeeee🎶
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u/DeadWaterBed 2d ago
You don't need a functional state or predictable climate for capitalism to persist.
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u/generalmandrake 1d ago
You do for industrial modern capitalism as we know it to exist. There may be markets and people selling things for profit in the future, but that’s not exclusive to capitalism.
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u/nooshdog 2d ago
Capitalism can't die. People can though. Even in the dystopia, someone will try to make profit on human suffering.
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u/pinkfootthegoose 2d ago
I don't believe this. I believe the rich and powerful will privatize the profits, socialize the losses as usual.
Bail outs will come but only the rich be able to meet the conditions to get them.
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u/EgoDefeator 2d ago
boy I sure hope so. something has to break humanity from this dismal path assuming we survive it.
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u/ciphoned_mana 1d ago
It might be time to run for your lives.
Or buy some property inland and await mass refugees from florida moving next door
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u/Kaladef9 1d ago
Maybe the climate deniers will smarten up now that the money is showing its impacted.
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u/Wob_Nobbler 21h ago
Capitalism is on track to destroy human society more like, unless we do something about the parasites leading our society to calamity.
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u/Honest_Chef323 21h ago
If only we were warned ahead of time before something like this could happen
What were our scientists doing?
Oh well
Well wishes and all that
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u/avaslash 1d ago
Dude look at the fallout universe, even after getting nuked to ash capitialism was still alive and well in the wasteland and given what I've seen from humanity of late... i think thats a pretty accurate depiction.
Capitalism thrives in chaos
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u/Christopher135MPS 1d ago
It’s high time for governments to move to humanitarian socialism, where government spending is focused on maintaining a functioning society, instead of creating legislation, paying subsidies, and straight up propping up huge companies.
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u/voodoofaith 1d ago
Yes, humans and their economic systems do change the climate. There is no doubt about that. At the same time, the climate has changed before humans came to existence. We will never be able to control it. Our human institutions are unable to cope with the mass immigrations that follow.
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u/Theoretical_Action 1d ago
These are some of the slow-burn long term effects of the ways that climate change begins destroying the planet, not capitalism. This is what people mean when they say you "won't see the end of the world but your kids will." We'll see economic downturn and increased homelessness and unemployment. But that's about it, we'll just see "statistics".
Our kids, on the other hand, will witness the complete and utter breakdown of modern society. The insurance industry (aside from probably medical) won't exist by the time our kids are full grown adults. And the extreme weather that is induced by this climate change will, eventually ravage enough homes to decimate the economy. Couple that with rising temperatures + power grid instability and rising ocean levels resulting in mass displacement, and it makes total sense how modern society could break down pretty quickly and easily, and that's even before we start talking about the inevitable water wars and overfishing/ocean ecosystem breakdown resulting in a deficit of oxygen for the planet.
Our planet has so much more concerns than the destruction of capitalism lol
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u/OriginalCompetitive 2d ago
This makes no sense. Why wouldn’t insurers just increase rates to account for the increased risk exposure? That’s how insurance works.
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u/RunAmbitious2593 2d ago
It explains that in the article- the payouts will exceed the intake, and governments won't be able to afford the payouts either. This will leave large areas uninsurable, and cities can't just up and move.
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2d ago edited 2d ago
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u/Murranji 2d ago
When the Paris Agreement was signed the global average temperature for the previous 12 months was about 0.9C. In the last 12 months it’s been 1.55C. Thats over 10 years and reflects a massive acceleration in warming particularly since reductions in sulfate in fuel since 2020 have removed the masking effect that the unintentional cloud seeding was doing.
Best estimates are that the 12 month average at 2C could happen by 2040-2045. Faster if Trump and the republicans succeed in pumping out the 4 billion extra tons of CO2 they want to, though if we are lucky his attempts to crash the American and global economy will help reduce emissions like in 2020.
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u/stahpstaring 2d ago
Lol sorry but the title.. really? So people won’t be living in sweltering places anymore. Biggie. Capitalism will just move to the next best place. Who are we fooling here?
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u/RunAmbitious2593 2d ago
The point is insurance underpins every industry.
At 3C of global heating, climate damage cannot be insured against, covered by governments, or adapted to, Thallinger said: “That means no more mortgages, no new real estate development, no long-term investment, no financial stability. The financial sector as we know it ceases to function. And with it, capitalism as we know it ceases to be viable.”
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u/ThimeeX 2d ago
Yes really.
Where do you think Capitalism will move to when there are no places left? When the entire planet becomes in hospitable because humans have completely consumed everything? When there are mass scale refugee crisis from humans fleeing inhospitable cities?
You seem to think that Capitalism is some unstoppable juggernaut when in reality it's an extremely flimsy house of cards that will collapse when environmental conditions change for the worse.
Who are we fooling here?
I think I know who's been fooled. Your logic is like those first class passengers on Titanic who returned to their cabins after they struck the ice berg. "Pah this is an unsinkable ship, what nonsense are you talking about getting into a lifeboat in ice cold water". You have a couple of hours to ignore the initial warning shouts calling it "foolish logic" if you like.
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