Climate change is coming for the American dream. We see it with the supercharged fires in California destroying so many homes. A lot of these folks had their home insurance canceled in the past year. How will they rebuild?
We see it in Florida where average home insurance premiums are around $11,000 a year — meaning that with insurance, a person has to be well on their way to affording two homes if they are going to buy one. America isn’t the same place if home ownership is just for rich people.
And this problem is spreading. I have a friend who lives in the Salt Lake Valley — not in Emigration Canyon or on the benches — whose home insurance was just cancelled because she lives a block away from a grassy hillside.
Yet President Trump has suspended releasing funds under the Inflation Reduction Act, which among other things, helps people reduce their burning of fossil fuels. And Congress sees how eliminating this program could be a prime way to pay for the tax cuts that they would like to pass.
We need more tools to contain our warming climate, not eliminate the ones we have. Email your members of Congress, and ask them to keep money in the Inflation Reduction Act — and the American dream — intact.
Steve Glaser, Holladay
