{"id":385378,"date":"2025-06-27T10:23:56","date_gmt":"2025-06-27T08:23:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=385378"},"modified":"2025-06-27T10:23:58","modified_gmt":"2025-06-27T08:23:58","slug":"contrary-to-climate-groups-claims-the-fresno-bee-points-out-population-and-property-values-are-increasing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=385378","title":{"rendered":"Contrary to Climate Group\u2019s Claims, The Fresno Bee Points Out Population and Property Values Are Increasing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From ClimateRealism<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Linnea Lueken<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The<\/em>\u00a0Fresno Bee<\/em>\u00a0published an article, \u201cNearly half of Fresno residents will flee due to climate risks, report predicts<\/a>,\u201d covering the claims of a climate risk assessment firm, First Street. The firm claimed that over 45 percent of Fresno County\u2019s population will abandon the area by 2055, due to climate change driving rising insurance costs and lower property values. First Street\u2019s claims are pure speculation, lacking any basis in real world evidence.\u00a0The<\/em>\u00a0Fresno Bee<\/em>\u00a0offers fair skepticism of the firm\u2019s assessment. These kinds of claims are made often with little evidence. In reality, Fresno home values are increasing, and insurance rates are not driven by climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The<\/em> Fresno Bee<\/em> reported that First Street\u2019s report predicted that \u201cFresno\u2019s hot weather and poor air quality could continue to worsen, driving down the desirability of the homes and pushing up insurance rates.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Average temperatures have slightly increased in Fresno county since the beginning of the 20th<\/sup> century<\/a>, but much of this is likely due to the urban heat island effect<\/a>. Fresno\u2019s population<\/a> went from merely 12 thousand people in 1900, to over half a million by 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fresno is located in the San Joaquin Valley, which is famous for trapping air pollution from vehicle exhaust and industry. Geography dictates this, as does day to day weather. Amid recent climate change, over  the last five<\/a> years air quality has improved in Fresno, in contrast to what First Street said is happening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additionally, according to Zillow\u2019s<\/a> housing market analysis, Fresno home values have increased since at least 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the outset of its article, The<\/em> Fresno Bee<\/em> exercised fine journalistic practice by viewing First Street\u2019s claims through a critical lens. This is always good practice but especially so when the claims made by individual or organization are unusual and the person or organization making them comes at the topic with a pre-determined point of view. First Street<\/a> is not a \u201crisk\u201d analysis firm, rather its stated mission is, \u201c[c]onnecting climate and financial risk . . . to quantify and communicate the risk for every property in the country.\u201d If a risk to a community can\u2019t be portrayed as being caused by climate change, First Street doesn\u2019t care about it or ignores it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Concerning the claim that insurance is becoming more difficult to obtain and more expensive because of climate change, there is no evidence that the modest long-term rise in global average temperatures has had anything to do with rising insurance premiums, as Climate Realism<\/em> has demonstrated several times, such as here<\/a>, here<\/a>, and here<\/a>. Other factors like inflation, labor and construction costs, government regulations, increasing property values, and government subsidies in hazard-prone areas are driving rising insurance premiums. The overall global trend in losses due to weather has declined, not increased, over the past few decades. (See figure below)<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

To The<\/em> Fresno Bee<\/em>\u2019s credit, the people they interviewed about First Street\u2019s analysis were skeptical of the firm\u2019s extraordinary claims. One local professor rightly said that although climate change induced changes to weather could make people leave, \u201cpredicting the magnitude gets shaky because it includes so many factors.\u201d Other experts consulted by the Fresno Bee<\/em> also expressed skepticism about First Street\u2019s analysis, saying that it doesn\u2019t account for the wide variety of factors that greatly influence local population trends. Particularly, the ability for municipalities to adapt and \u201ccompensate\u201d for any weather changes that could occur over time; \u201cFirst Street projected out to 2055 assuming no change to modern mitigation,\u201d one expert explained. Another expert consulted by the Fresno Be<\/em>e pointed out that rather than abandoning \u201chot areas,\u201d residents are developing or installing better cooling technology. The same can be said for flooding, which is an urban planning and engineering problem, not a climate problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, the Fresno Bee<\/em>, did engage in a modest degree of unjustified alarmism, claiming that the San Joaquin Valley \u201ccould expect to see wider fluctuations in precipitation,\u201d and that it \u201cgot a taste of those fluctuations in 2023 when unusually heavy rainfall fell on the snowpacked Sierra and resurrected Tulare Lake.\u201d The implication being that the \u201cfluctuations\u201d were caused by climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, this connection is false. As this<\/a> Climate Realism<\/em> post explained at the time, this weather was not in fact unprecedented or unusual. The so-called \u201cunusually heavy\u201d rain was actually well in line with historic norms for the region. The Fresno Bee<\/em> and alarmists pushing the idea that 2023\u2019s weather was unprecedented failed to examine the long historical record demonstrating that the Valley is prone to swings between drought and deluge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite these ahistorical claims, the Fresno Bee<\/em> should be given kudos for seeking out experts who were skeptical that climate change would cause Fresno\u2019s population to shrink dramatically or the area\u2019s property values to decline sharply, and thus not allowing First Street\u2019s alarmist claims to go unchallenged. History and data tend to undermine First Street\u2019s predictions of climate change induced doom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Fresno Bee published an article, \u201cNearly half of Fresno residents will flee due to climate risks, report predicts,\u201d covering the claims of a climate risk assessment firm, First Street. The firm claimed that over 45 percent of Fresno County\u2019s population will abandon the area by 2055, due to climate change driving rising insurance costs and lower property values. First Street\u2019s claims are pure speculation, lacking any basis in real world evidence. The Fresno Bee offers fair skepticism of the firm\u2019s assessment. These kinds of claims are made often with little evidence. In reality, Fresno home values are increasing and insurance rates are not driven by climate change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":385384,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691818056,691819743,691836098,691836097,691818854,691836099,691836096],"class_list":{"0":"post-385378","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-climate-change","9":"tag-climate-propaganda","10":"tag-first-street","11":"tag-fresno-countys-population","12":"tag-government-subsidies","13":"tag-rising-insurance-premiums","14":"tag-the-fresno-bee","16":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/00Screenshot-2025-06-27-102257.png?fit=1632%2C752&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1CfM","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":204796,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=204796","url_meta":{"origin":385378,"position":0},"title":"A Review of Dr. John Christy\u2019s Book \u201cIs it Getting Hotter in Fresno\u2026or Not?\u201d","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"17\/06\/2022","format":false,"excerpt":"By Jim Steele A year ago, when passing through Huntsville, Alabama, I had the great good fortune to sit down with Roy Spencer and John Christy for a pleasant extended lunch. 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