http://www.environmentmagazine.org/Archives/Back%20Issues/July-August%202008/Bytes-ja08.html

I think it fair to say that they have alot of money at risk in climate change and are busy at work figuring out how to maximize profits by reducing the risks of potential losses.

Paddik, you sound like another liberal who doesn’t understand markets. The insurance business and reinsurance business are competitive; those who pay shop around, so projected increases mean nothing unless they are credible across all insurance sellers. An insurer who doesn’t see significant risk can, if backed by reinsurers with a similar view, can take huge chunks of market share from rivals by underpricing them.

I’m not, but I am sure that a projected increase in weather-related losses will be very good for the insurance industry. As previously stated, what a great excuse to jack up rates, with no commensurate increase in payouts.

Are you sure that a change in climate towards greater frequencies and/or intensities of extremes would be bad for the re/insurance industries?

Of course I’d like them to be honest (and no overplay the GHG/disaster link), but we are certainly seeing an acceleration of the hydrological cycle and a corresponding shift to heavier rain events (and droughts as well?), and the insurance industries, scientists, and other concerned citizens (not easily lumped as “environmentalists” have every cause for concern, as we continue to press the accelerator, with an opaque windshield, no steering wheel and no brakes.

Regards,

Tom

Thanks for these pointers. I’ve read this paper (the “burning embers” paper).

There is nothing new on disasters climate change in the paper. As you can see it references the 2007 IPCC, which we’ve discussed here at some length.

Thanks!

“Risks of Extreme Weather Events. It is now more likely than not that
human activity has contributed to observed increases in heat
waves, intense precipitation events, and the intensity of tropical
cyclones (2). There are, as well, more observations of climate
change impacts from extremes than in the TAR (5, 14). Responses
to some recent extreme climate events have also revealed
higher levels of vulnerability across the globe, producing
significant loss of life and property damage in both developing
and developed countries. The large and unexpected health
impacts due to a heat wave of unprecedented magnitude in 2003
in Europe provide one such example (15).¶ Projected increases in the intensities of tropical cyclones, droughts, extreme heat
waves, and floods would further increase risks to human life,
damage to property and infrastructure, and damage to ecosystems,
and there is now higher confidence than in the TAR in the
projected increases in these events as well as their adverse
impacts. More specifically, increases in drought, heat waves, and
floods are projected in many regions and would have adverse
impacts, including increased water stress, wildfire frequency, and
flood risks (starting at less than 1 °C of additional warming above
1990 levels) and adverse health effects (slightly above 1 °C) (2).
Risk is the product of probability and consequence. The more
extensive projections of increasing frequency and intensity of
extreme weather events with warming (5), combined with the
conclusions that severe impacts from such extreme weather
events are already apparent (12), suggest that the temperature
levels associated with yellow and red gradations of risk begin
0 °C and just below 1 °C in the second bar of Fig. 1 Right,
respectively. Lowering the yellow-to-red transition is justified in
some cases by increases in the likelihood of extreme events, by
the increased impacts at a given GMT in other cases, and by a
combination of these in other examples.

2. Core Writing Team, Pachauri RK, Reisinger A, eds (2007) Climate Change 2007:
Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fourth Assessment
Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, Geneva).
5. Solomon S, et al., eds (2007). Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis.
Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (Cambridge Univ Press, New York).
12. Parry ML, Canziani O, Palutikof JP, Hanson C, van der Linden P, eds (2007) Climate
Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group
II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(Cambridge Univ Press, New York).
14. Rosenzweig C, et al. (2007) in Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability.
Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, eds Parry ML, Canziani OF, Palutikof JP,
van der Linden PJ, Hanson CE (Cambridge Univ Press, Cambridge, UK), pp 79–131.
15. Scha¨ r C, et al. (2004) The role of increasing temperature variability in European summer
heatwaves. Nature 427:332–336.”

Despite this line in the opening paragraph:

“Threats—ranging from the destruction of coral reefs to more extreme weather events like hurricanes, droughts and floods—are becoming more likely at the temperature change already underway”

it’s unclear from the article what kind of work was actually, done. The authors’ work is described simply as updating a (spooky-colored) graph…

This quote, from on of the coauthors, makes me cringe:

“Most people thought that the risks were going to be for certain species and poor people. But all of a sudden the European heat wave of 2003 comes along and kills 50,000, [Hurricane] Katrina comes along and there’s a lot of data about the increased intensity of droughts and floods.”

Despite still having a subscription, I lost most of my faith in Sciam a while ago. Nevertheless, the dripping advocacy – at the expense of an objective viewpoint – and the unchallenged and unmediated statements by Schneider in this article still hurt.