In 2008, the world economic system was rocked by a financial crisis that stemmed from risky mortgages being securitized and sold as safe investments to unknowing investors. Misaligned incentives, unpriced risk, deceptive selling practices, and a lack of regulatory scrutiny throughout the financial industry led to the Great Recession, the consequences of which we're still feeling in a variety of ways today.

While somewhat different from what preceded the 2008 financial crisis, there are clear parallels with what's happening in the home insurance and mortgage markets in areas most at risk to damage from climate-worsened storms. As large, traditional insurance companies are leaving states like Florida, California, and Louisiana because the damages from hurricanes, floods, and wildfires have become too large, new insurance companies are replacing them. These companies are smaller, less diverse, and rely on a ratings agency known to provide good ratings to underserving companies. Unsurprisingly, when climate catastrophes hit, these insurers often go bankrupt, leaving home owners and their banks with a destroyed home and asset without the funds to rebuild or even repair. And the implications of this aren't isolated to the local level, because most of these mortgages are securitized and sold at the national level.

This week, Prof. Pari Sastry joins the show to discuss her recent paper "When Insurers Exit: Climate Losses, Fragile Insurers, and Mortgage Markets". This paper explains how the home home mortgage, insurance markets, and global economy are interconnected and how the climate crisis is impacting all three. As the world is still recovering from the 2008 financial crisis, it's shocking to see the early stages of what appears to be some of the same causes play out today. And we know that the climate crisis is only going to increase the number of severe weather events, which will put an even greater strain on insurance and mortgage companies, further worsening an already fragile relationship.

Prof. Pari Sastry is an Assistant Professor of Finance at Columbia Business School where she focuses her research on climate finance.

Read "When Insurers Exit": https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4674279

As always, follow us @climatepod on Twitter and email us at theclimatepod@gmail.com. Our music is "Gotta Get Up" by The Passion Hifi, check out his music at thepassionhifi.com. Rate, review and subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and more! Subscribe to our YouTube channel! Join our Facebook group.

Bad actors continue to push fake talking points to obscure the truth on climate change and slow down action. So how we combat these common myths and inspire people to do more? That's the focus of today's show and a new book by our guest, Dr. Genevieve Guenther. In her new book, The Language of Climate Politics: Fossil-Fuel Propaganda and How to Fight It, Guenther argues that climate leaders should use sharper language that argues for transformative action and a windfall of benefits in the face of the massive, destructive threat of climate change. She joins the show to discuss how we talk about the costs of clean energy, why the "India and China" excuse needs to stop in American climate discource, and why dramatic drops in clean energy costs have lead some to be complacent on climate.

Genevieve Guenther s the founding director of End Climate Silence and affiliate faculty at The New School, where she sits on the board of the Tishman Environment and Design Center. Her research has appeared in both scholarly journals and media outlets such as Scientific American, The New Republic, and MSNBC. You can purchase The Language of Climate Politics: Fossil-Fuel Propaganda and How to Fight It here.

As always, follow us @climatepod on Twitter and email us at theclimatepod@gmail.com. Our music is "Gotta Get Up" by The Passion Hifi, check out his music at thepassionhifi.com. Rate, review and subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and more! Subscribe to our YouTube channel! Join our Facebook group.

For 70 years, building out and expanding American highways have been core parts to the entire US transportation project. But the initial effort to connect cities and states has created gigantic problems in the subsequent decades. Instead of fixing many of these critical issues, too often we see cities and states double down on the problem and make our transportation system worse. And carbon emissions from the transportation sector are a huge part of the climate fight. So what do we do about highways as these roads continue to expand and draw investment?

Our guest, Megan Kimble, has been looking for the answers. In her new book, City Limits: Infrastructure, Inequality, and The Future of America's Highways, she both looks back at the origins of the American highway system and examines today's fight to determine what is happening and how decisions are being made that design our transportation system. We discuss the "freeway fighters" that are working to remove highways and prevent highways from being expanded, how federal investments favor highways over transit, how highways have been used to exacerbate racial inequities, and why climate activists are helping to make change.

Megan Kimble is an investigative journalist and former executive editor at The Texas Observer. She has written about housing, transportation, and urban development for The New York Times, Texas Monthly, The Guardian, and Bloomberg CityLab.

Check out City Limits: Infrastructure, Inequality, and The Future of America's Highways

As always, follow us @climatepod on Twitter and email us at theclimatepod@gmail.com. Our music is "Gotta Get Up" by The Passion Hifi, check out his music at thepassionhifi.com. Rate, review and subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and more! Subscribe to our YouTube channel! Join our Facebook group.