Editorial Comment
U.N. finds new way to promote Kyoto. We've long been amazed at the lengths the global warmers will go to promote their theories. They have blamed every natural malady from flooding to drought, or cold spell to heat spell on GW. Now, they're even saying it will cause the insurance companies to go bust. According to Patrick J. Michaels, senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute, the U.S. once again stands alone against the United Nations, which seems determined to impose its view of disastrous climate change. The U.N. threatens economic retaliation if the U.S. doesn't go along. They call America's position on Kyoto unilateralism. But this time, it doesn't have anything to do with rising sea levels, expanding deserts or melting glaciers, instead it concerns the insurance industry. Just a few days after the Atlantic hurricane season reached its peak, the U.N.'s Climate Change Working Group released a report called “Climate Change and the Financial Services Industry.” Are you ready for this? Climate change has the potential to destroy the insurance industry, so, the U.S. (and any others that haven't signed the protocol) has yet another reason to get in line with the U.N.'s view on climate change. Michaels says U.N. General Secretary Kofi Annan is behind the report, since he keeps criticizing the U.S. reluctance to adopt the scientifically discredited Kyoto Protocol. In fact, his recent opinion piece in the Washington Post cited the insurance issue as his number one demand. But the recent U.N. report goes Annan one further. It finally admits that Kyoto won't do much about the planet's climate, but then it demands more and more and more Kyotos. Coincidentally, this agrees with the position of scientists within the Clinton administration who estimated that we need about 19 Kyotos to stop warming. Michaels says one Kyoto will cost, conservatively, 2% of U.S. GDP per year. The U.N. report projects that climate change will lead to more frequent and severe storms, along with demographic changes (translation: more people able to afford more expensive beach houses). The result will be worldwide insurance losses totaling an additional $150 billion in the next decade. The report's authors even include an impressive graph showing purported dramatic increases in damage costs in recent years. But Michaels says what isn't apparent, except to anyone reading the fine print, is that this figure lists damages from all natural causes, and that most of the recent increase is from two big earthquakes that occurred in 1994 and 1995. While the greenies seem to blame most any oddity on global warming, we dare them to say that it causes earthquakes. Big European reinsurers (companies that insure the insurance companies), "like Swiss Re and Munich Re, have been singing the climate change dirge for years," says Michaels. It helps make a convincing argument for raising their rates, and their pro-Kyoto governments are only too happy to nod in agreement. Hurricanes are by far the most prolific producer of weather-related damage, and the U.S. East Coast has the largest exposure, in terms of insured property value. Michaels says the insured value there is roughly the same as the U.S. annual GDP. Statistics indicate that damage costs in the U.S. are going up. So, if the U.N. is right, the number or severity of hurricanes should be increasing. But this isn't the case. Michaels reports no trend at all in the number of these storms striking the U.S. In fact, he says, the 1990s appear to be especially hurricane-poor. In addition, the average maximum recorded winds have been declining for the last half-century. The new U.N. document is so audacious that it contradicts another U.N. body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Its latest compendium on the subject, called the “Third Assessment Report,” which it likes to call the consensus of scientists (actually it's the consensus of scientists picked by the U.N.), says, “There is little sign of long-term changes in tropical storm intensity and frequency,” and “recent analyses of changes in severe local weather (tornadoes, thunder days, lightning and hail) in a few selected regions provide no compelling evidence for widespread systematic long-term changes.” The U.N. climate report says that its climate models show no systematic changes in these storms. Thus, while Munich Re, Swiss Re and the U.N. Climate Change Working Group predict a climate apocalypse, don't be surprised if U.S. companies have a different idea. If there really is a free market, U.S. insurers can choose between Munich Re, with rates artificially inflated by fears of worsening climate, and some other reinsurer, whose rates are predicated on constant climate with increasing property values. Munich Re could advertise its product as more reliable, with assurance that it can survive our increasingly harsh climate. The other reinsurers will be much less expensive. Here's a prediction: Global warming hype isn't going to put U.S. (or other non-European) reinsurers out of business. But the U.N. position could be very harmful to the economic well being of their European competitors. Financial daffynitions. There is more than coincidence to the fact that the economic downturn took place about the same time that corporate gurus (especially in the energy trading business) were being led away in handcuffs. With that in mind, some old definitions may warrant an update. Here are a few we ran across lately:
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- U.S. upstream muddles along, with an eye toward 2024 (September 2023)
- Canada's upstream soldiers on despite governmental interference (September 2023)
