"Climate Change: Adapt or Bust"

[libertango]

That's the title of a report last year from Lloyd's of London, the household-name of the reinsurance business.

I realize I'm preaching to the choir here, but I think it's an illuminating talking point rebuttal to the "climate change is just a theory" crowd -- if so, why are very hard-nosed insurance companies taking such a strong stand on the subject, and investing hundreds of billions of dollars accordingly?

This all comes from last night's Radio Open Source, which had interviews with a variety of people about the topic, including Joel Garreau (he of The Nine Nations of North America), and a lawyer in New Orleans who's been trying to rebuild and finding obstacles from the insurance industry every inch of the way. By the end of it, akirlu was snorting about false controversies, but that's mostly because of the near uniformity coming across -- climate change is here, it's expensive, the insurance companies know it, and they don't really have the capitalization to respond on the huge scale needed.

Comments

Amazing!

[bodandra.livejournal.com]

When we bought our house, I called to ask for Water damage insurance, was told that it is not offered here - since it is unnecessary where we live ... I guess I was just imagining the fact that after two days of rains, our backyard was a lake - our street was so flooded that chose not to drive down it.
I spent two years (01-03) working for a company that does repairs for homes that have Water, Fire, and Sewer damage.
My best advice is: do not to buy a house that has a basement.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Actually, to clarify, I was snorting about false controversies because Christopher Lydon was doing this "let's you and him fight" thing between the featured guessts. Lydon was trying to create this opposition between Garreau and the attorney, by leaping on something Garreau said offhandedly -- that insurance companies are generally good about paying claims -- and the attorney's experience of many legitimate claims being falsely denied in a generalized disaster. Admittedly, Garreau could have defused that bit of idiocy by simply saying that he didn't really have any data on insurance company payout rates because that wasn't his interest. I wish he would have

But Lydon was focusing on this weird, supposed contradiction between Garreau's claim that insurance companies are very pragmatic about climate change on the one hand, and their being very callous and dishonest about paying claims on the other. But there is no contradiction between the characterizations -- they are both about maximizing insurance company profits and minimizing insurance company losses.

I just found the attempt to foment conflict annoying because I see it as a distraction from the meat of the piece, and an example of going along with the bad journalistic assumption that there always have to be two opposing and equal views that have to be placed in direct conflict. Pfui.