on June 20, 2010 by admin in change, Global Warming, Socialism, system, Uncategorized, US, White House, Comments (0)
Re: Global Warming – insurer harm>>OR<>OR<
Re: Global Warming – insurer harm>>OR<>OR<
> “Transition Zone” wrote in message
> news:be435bf7-4112-498c-aab6-01854fc51d2e @&*$?%w12g2000yqj.googlegroups.com…
>> Global warming debate still steaming
>> By Paul Roberts
>> MSNBC
>>
>> Last month, subscribers to the global warming theory got yet another
>> vote
>> of grim confidence.
>>
>> At a conference in Brussels, insurance company scientists warned not
>> only
>> that climate is changing, but that the resulting storms and other
>> erratic
>> weather could bust the industry.
>>
>> As Gerhard Berz, director of Geoscience Research at the Munich
>> Reinsurance company, told anxious colleagues: “It is to be feared that
>> climate change will produce in nearly all regions of the world new
>> extreme values of many insurance-relevant parameters that will lead to
>> natural disasters of unprecedented severity and frequency.”
>>
>> Translation: We can’t afford to underwrite all the hurricanes,
>> tornadoes,
>> washouts, droughts, wildfires, coastal flooding and other predicted
>> consequences of a warmer climate, so somebody better do something.
>>
>> For observers of the global-warming debate, Berz’s words bring both
>> good
>> and bad news.
>>
>> The good news is that, if an industry as wealthy and conservative as
>> insurance is now taking global warming seriously, perhaps the rest of
>> the
>> movers and shakers will. The bad news is that if an industry as
>> wealthy
>> and conservative as insurance is now taking global warming seriously,
>> it’s probably too late to do anything about it.
>>
>> In fact, much of the recent climate news has been of similarly mixed
>> variety, with lots of bad and just enough good to keep up hopes that
>> all
>> isn’t necessarily lost yet.
>>
>> THE BAD NEWS
>> The Antarctic is definitely warming up. According to a report this
>> week
>> from researchers at the US Palmer Station on Anvers Island, the mean
>> temperature on the Antarctic Peninsula has risen 2 degrees Celsius
>> since
>> 1950. That, in turn, is causing the peninsula’s seasonal pack ice to
>> form
>> less frequently, which scientists blame for a decline in populations
>> of
>> Adelie penguins.
>>
>> “There’s some dispute about the causes of changes in species
>> populations,” concedes Palmer chief scientist Bill Fraser, of Montana
>> State Univ. “But the peninsula is melting, I don’t think there’s any
>> question about that anymore.”
>>
>> THE GOOD NEWS
>> A controversial “free-market” plan to cut so-called climate-changing
>> pollution seems to be working. For the last 5 years, utility companies
>> whose emissions fall below federal standards earn pollution credits,
>> which can be sold to companies whose emissions exceed federal
>> standards.
>>
>> While supporters hoped the system would prove that markets cut
>> pollution
>> better than regulations, early trading in pollution credits was
>> depressingly slow.
>>
>> But last week, the Chicago Board of Trade reported that the average
>> price
>> of the credits at the annual auction was up 60% over last year=92s
>> prices -
>> an indication, federal officials say, that the market is finally
>> getting
>> behind the idea.
>>
>> As importantly, officials with the US Environmental Protection Agency,
>> which started the pollution credit program, say the acidic content in
>> rainfall in the East and the mid-Atlantic regions dropped by as much
>> as
>> 1/5 in 1995.
>>
>> THE BAD NEWS
>> Critics had warned that tighter restrictions on emissions of sulfur
>> dioxide would cost companies billions of dollars.
>>
>> The US government still doesn’t take global warming seriously.
>> According
>> to Kary McGinty, chair of the White House Council on Environmental
>> Quality, the federal government has yet to grasp the “huge economic
>> significance” that climate change has for America’s future.
>>
>> McGinty’s comments followed – and seemed to support – charges by
>> environmentalists and Europeans that the United States is dragging its
>> heals on developing a plan to cut its own climate-changing pollution.
>>
>> Critics say the Clinton administration, after leading efforts toward
>> global emission reductions, has since been cowed by the energy and
>> auto
>> industries, which view such cuts as burdensome.
>>
>> White House officials say they’re treading cautiously for fear that
>> any
>> bold proposals to cut emissions would be opposed by congressional
>> Republicans, who have also been cowed by the energy and auto
>> industries.
>>
>> McGinty, Clinton’s point-person on environmental issues, largely
>> steered
>> clear of the blame, focusing instead on the consequences of doing
>> nothing.
>>
>> “As we see increasingly severe storms,” McGinty says, “we begin to get
>> a
>> glimpse of what a post-climate-change world would look like.”
>>
>> THE GOOD NEWS
>> Cleaning up the air isn’t as expensive as feared. According to a new
>> federal report, complying with tough, new clean-air rules enacted in
>> 1995
>> added less than 1% to operating costs for utilities – and didn’t
>> effect
>> rate payers a penny.
>>
>> Critics had warned that tighter restrictions on emissions of sulfur
>> dioxide would cost companies billions of dollars. But, in fact,
>> according
>> to the US Dept of Energy’s Energy Information Administration, the $836
>> million that utilities spent to comply with the law amounted to about
>> 0.6% of the industry’s total operating costs.
>>
>> THE BAD NEWS
>> Coastal California is going under. According to a new study, if the
>> ocean
>> level climbs 2 feet – as many scientists say will happen when global
>> warming melts the ice caps – hotels, power plants, a military base and
>> more than 4,000 homes in Ventura County, CA, would be flooded during
>> big
>> storms.
>>
>> Univ of Southern California researchers who conducted the study
>> advised
>> that unless local governments took steps – from enacting tougher
>> building
>> codes to building higher sand berms on beaches – “coastal residents
>> would
>> lose the use, perhaps permanently, of roads, structures, power lines,
>> railroads, recreational facilities, trailer parks and camping areas.”
>>
>> The USC study focused only on Ventura County, although a rise in sea
>> level would have disastrous effects worldwide.
>>
>> By Paul Roberts
>> MSNBC
>> Commentary (1997)
> .
> .
> We have natural disasters in all parts of our country.
>
> We have earthquakes in the West
> We have tornados in the Midwest
> We have floods in nearly all parts of America.
> We have hurricanes in the Entire East cost.
>
> When ever these natural disasters occurs the Federal government is
> rushed in with FEMA, the National guard, and any thing else we can
> muster to provide relief for our fellow citizens.
>
> It’s time for a mandatory National Disaster Insurance System. A
> non-profit premium funded insurance system that will deal with the
> unexpected.
MORE FORCED SOCIALISM!
From a Socialist extraordinaire.
It will work as well as Social Security, Socialism is a GIANT PONZI SCHEME.
You might as well hire Bernie Maddoff to run it for the
Socialist/Democrat party.
Tags: climate
Re: Global Warming – insurer harm>>OR<>OR<
> “Transition Zone” wrote in message
> news:be435bf7-4112-498c-aab6-01854fc51d2e @&*$?%w12g2000yqj.googlegroups.com…
>> Global warming debate still steaming
>> By Paul Roberts
>> MSNBC
>>
>> Last month, subscribers to the global warming theory got yet another
>> vote
>> of grim confidence.
>>
>> At a conference in Brussels, insurance company scientists warned not
>> only
>> that climate is changing, but that the resulting storms and other
>> erratic
>> weather could bust the industry.
>>
>> As Gerhard Berz, director of Geoscience Research at the Munich
>> Reinsurance company, told anxious colleagues: “It is to be feared that
>> climate change will produce in nearly all regions of the world new
>> extreme values of many insurance-relevant parameters that will lead to
>> natural disasters of unprecedented severity and frequency.”
>>
>> Translation: We can’t afford to underwrite all the hurricanes,
>> tornadoes,
>> washouts, droughts, wildfires, coastal flooding and other predicted
>> consequences of a warmer climate, so somebody better do something.
>>
>> For observers of the global-warming debate, Berz’s words bring both
>> good
>> and bad news.
>>
>> The good news is that, if an industry as wealthy and conservative as
>> insurance is now taking global warming seriously, perhaps the rest of
>> the
>> movers and shakers will. The bad news is that if an industry as
>> wealthy
>> and conservative as insurance is now taking global warming seriously,
>> it’s probably too late to do anything about it.
>>
>> In fact, much of the recent climate news has been of similarly mixed
>> variety, with lots of bad and just enough good to keep up hopes that
>> all
>> isn’t necessarily lost yet.
>>
>> THE BAD NEWS
>> The Antarctic is definitely warming up. According to a report this
>> week
>> from researchers at the US Palmer Station on Anvers Island, the mean
>> temperature on the Antarctic Peninsula has risen 2 degrees Celsius
>> since
>> 1950. That, in turn, is causing the peninsula’s seasonal pack ice to
>> form
>> less frequently, which scientists blame for a decline in populations
>> of
>> Adelie penguins.
>>
>> “There’s some dispute about the causes of changes in species
>> populations,” concedes Palmer chief scientist Bill Fraser, of Montana
>> State Univ. “But the peninsula is melting, I don’t think there’s any
>> question about that anymore.”
>>
>> THE GOOD NEWS
>> A controversial “free-market” plan to cut so-called climate-changing
>> pollution seems to be working. For the last 5 years, utility companies
>> whose emissions fall below federal standards earn pollution credits,
>> which can be sold to companies whose emissions exceed federal
>> standards.
>>
>> While supporters hoped the system would prove that markets cut
>> pollution
>> better than regulations, early trading in pollution credits was
>> depressingly slow.
>>
>> But last week, the Chicago Board of Trade reported that the average
>> price
>> of the credits at the annual auction was up 60% over last year=92s
>> prices -
>> an indication, federal officials say, that the market is finally
>> getting
>> behind the idea.
>>
>> As importantly, officials with the US Environmental Protection Agency,
>> which started the pollution credit program, say the acidic content in
>> rainfall in the East and the mid-Atlantic regions dropped by as much
>> as
>> 1/5 in 1995.
>>
>> THE BAD NEWS
>> Critics had warned that tighter restrictions on emissions of sulfur
>> dioxide would cost companies billions of dollars.
>>
>> The US government still doesn’t take global warming seriously.
>> According
>> to Kary McGinty, chair of the White House Council on Environmental
>> Quality, the federal government has yet to grasp the “huge economic
>> significance” that climate change has for America’s future.
>>
>> McGinty’s comments followed – and seemed to support – charges by
>> environmentalists and Europeans that the United States is dragging its
>> heals on developing a plan to cut its own climate-changing pollution.
>>
>> Critics say the Clinton administration, after leading efforts toward
>> global emission reductions, has since been cowed by the energy and
>> auto
>> industries, which view such cuts as burdensome.
>>
>> White House officials say they’re treading cautiously for fear that
>> any
>> bold proposals to cut emissions would be opposed by congressional
>> Republicans, who have also been cowed by the energy and auto
>> industries.
>>
>> McGinty, Clinton’s point-person on environmental issues, largely
>> steered
>> clear of the blame, focusing instead on the consequences of doing
>> nothing.
>>
>> “As we see increasingly severe storms,” McGinty says, “we begin to get
>> a
>> glimpse of what a post-climate-change world would look like.”
>>
>> THE GOOD NEWS
>> Cleaning up the air isn’t as expensive as feared. According to a new
>> federal report, complying with tough, new clean-air rules enacted in
>> 1995
>> added less than 1% to operating costs for utilities – and didn’t
>> effect
>> rate payers a penny.
>>
>> Critics had warned that tighter restrictions on emissions of sulfur
>> dioxide would cost companies billions of dollars. But, in fact,
>> according
>> to the US Dept of Energy’s Energy Information Administration, the $836
>> million that utilities spent to comply with the law amounted to about
>> 0.6% of the industry’s total operating costs.
>>
>> THE BAD NEWS
>> Coastal California is going under. According to a new study, if the
>> ocean
>> level climbs 2 feet – as many scientists say will happen when global
>> warming melts the ice caps – hotels, power plants, a military base and
>> more than 4,000 homes in Ventura County, CA, would be flooded during
>> big
>> storms.
>>
>> Univ of Southern California researchers who conducted the study
>> advised
>> that unless local governments took steps – from enacting tougher
>> building
>> codes to building higher sand berms on beaches – “coastal residents
>> would
>> lose the use, perhaps permanently, of roads, structures, power lines,
>> railroads, recreational facilities, trailer parks and camping areas.”
>>
>> The USC study focused only on Ventura County, although a rise in sea
>> level would have disastrous effects worldwide.
>>
>> By Paul Roberts
>> MSNBC
>> Commentary (1997)
> .
> .
> We have natural disasters in all parts of our country.
>
> We have earthquakes in the West
> We have tornados in the Midwest
> We have floods in nearly all parts of America.
> We have hurricanes in the Entire East cost.
>
> When ever these natural disasters occurs the Federal government is
> rushed in with FEMA, the National guard, and any thing else we can
> muster to provide relief for our fellow citizens.
>
> It’s time for a mandatory National Disaster Insurance System. A
> non-profit premium funded insurance system that will deal with the
> unexpected.
MORE FORCED SOCIALISM!
From a Socialist extraordinaire.
It will work as well as Social Security, Socialism is a GIANT PONZI SCHEME.
You might as well hire Bernie Maddoff to run it for the
Socialist/Democrat party.
Tags: climate
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