>-- FORWARD ---
>From: Patricia Dines, 73652,1202
>Date: Wed, Jan 22, 1997, 2:04 AM
>Subject: Climate change; and list definition
>
>Hi all -
>
>Those interested in the facts about climate changes and its real costs
>might be interested in an article in the Jan/Feb 1997 issue of World Watch
>magazine, p.10-11. On top of the world scientists saying there are real
>changes happening because of human pollution, are those ever-radical
>insurance guys!
>
>Certainly, I'd consider these about the most fact-based conservative people
>you could find, the least "radical". This article discusses the real costs
>the increasing weather damage is costing them, how they're cutting back
>coverage to certain areas ("Areas of southern Florida and the Caribbean,
>for example, have become virtually uninsurable.), etc. Franklin Nutter,
>President of the Reinsurance Association of America is quoted as saying
>"The insurance business is first in line to be affected by climate
>change... [It] could bankrupt the industry." As the article says, insurers
>set their rates based on past experience and the law of averages. When an
>increase in frequency of occurence occurs, higher payments of huge sums
>amount, and this really messes with their income levels!
>
>The chart shows a clear and dramatic upward trend in economic losses from
>weather-related natural disasters worldwide from 1980-95, with variance,
>but clearly and dramatically increasing highs:
>- from 1980-4 (inclusive), two years are over $5 billion (at about $6 and 8
>billion)
>- from 1985-9, 3 are (at about $6, $9, and $10 billion)
>- from 1990-5, all are, to a startling level ($15, $26, $36, $22, $22, $38)
>Them's facts folks, and it's not a pretty sight! (Looks like it might be a
>log curve or worse!)
>(note: includes insured and uninsured losses, which says to me the
>insurance companies are doing pretty good at not carrying all these losses
>- but someone else is certainly paying them! Causes me to reflect on the
>Lloyds of London crisis too, and wonder if it was related to these types of
>losses ...)
>(note: figures are approximate - I'm reading them from a graph.)
>
>The insurance companies are so concerned about this that 13 large
>re-insurance companies formed a new Risk Prediction Initiative to be run by
>the Bermuda Biological Station for Research in 8/96, which "will allow
>insurers to work with scientists to better understand the historical storm
>record and to develop improved tools for forcasting the effects of future
>climate change." I doubt such conservative folk as this would go to this
>effort and expense if they felt there was no real crisis going on and it
>was just invented by some radical flakes or whatever derogatory term people
>use to not have a decent conversation.
>
>"More signficantly, at the July 1996 Conference of the Parties to the
>Convention on Climate Change in Geneva, a large delegation of insurers
>turned up for the first tie.[time] Under the auspices of the U.N.
>Environment Programe, some 60 insurers, including multi-billion dollar
>companies... signed a statement calling on government to substantially
>reduce emissions of climate-altering greenhouse gases."
>
>Those crazy radicals!
>
>P. Dines
>
>P.S. For more info, contact World Watch, 1776 Massachusetts Ave. NW,
>Washington DC 20036 (202) 452-1999, worldwatch@worldwatch.org. If you
>don't know this group, I recommend checking the out. Their mags are often
>at newstands and the have a great yearly periodical called State of the
>World. I find their quality of both research and relevant cogent writing
>to be some of the "best in the business."