Climate Change is Already Costing You Money
Take a look at your insurance bill, and see if you have a clause that covers natural disasters.
While the general public is still making up their minds about the effect of global warming on their individual lives, the insurance companies have looked at the available research data and have decided to charge you more to cover their increased risk of loss.
When it comes to insurance to shield your physical assets from weather-related damage, the insurers are assuming a general trend in number of claims - they are assuming that the occurrences of floods, droughts, storms, and other natural disasters will go up.
There are even higher insurance premiums for assets located in vulnerable areas.
Munich Re, for instance, raised its rates for insuring Gulf Coast oil rigs by 400% in the days after Hurricane Katrina struck.
While the governments of are trying to decide on how to tackle global warming and related climate change, world's largest insurance companies are united in their belief that climate change is major factor in their risk evaluation decisions.
For example - Swiss Re issued its first climate change report in back in 1994, and has extensive amount of data on climate change and the effect on their policies available.
Zurich Financial Services Group launched its global initiative on identification and management of climate related risks back in early 2008.
2005 was declared the warmest year in over a century by NASA, and the ten warmest years, since the recording of data began, have all occurred since 1980.
The shrinking polar ice caps and higher atmospheric temperature aren't the only apparent consequence: floods, storms, wildfires, droughts, and other weather-related disasters are growing more severe and more frequent.
All these have occurred after the planet has warmed only by roughly one degree Fahrenheit.
Most climate models predict a three- to eight-degree rise in global average temperatures by 2050 if current trends of increase in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases continue.
Furthermore, these climate models do not include effect of positive feedback mechanisms in the climate system such as the release of methane from melting permafrost in Canada's North, or the acidification of ocean as warmer water loses its ability to dissolve carbon dioxide.
These factors will introduce sudden, nonlinear acceleration in warming.
While many questions remain on global warming - did we cause it, how bad is it, can we fix it, and how are we going to fix it? One thing is certain - atmospheric temperatures are rising, and with it are increasing the number of climate related disasters.
And you are paying for the insurance companies to hedge their bets.
While the general public is still making up their minds about the effect of global warming on their individual lives, the insurance companies have looked at the available research data and have decided to charge you more to cover their increased risk of loss.
When it comes to insurance to shield your physical assets from weather-related damage, the insurers are assuming a general trend in number of claims - they are assuming that the occurrences of floods, droughts, storms, and other natural disasters will go up.
There are even higher insurance premiums for assets located in vulnerable areas.
Munich Re, for instance, raised its rates for insuring Gulf Coast oil rigs by 400% in the days after Hurricane Katrina struck.
While the governments of are trying to decide on how to tackle global warming and related climate change, world's largest insurance companies are united in their belief that climate change is major factor in their risk evaluation decisions.
For example - Swiss Re issued its first climate change report in back in 1994, and has extensive amount of data on climate change and the effect on their policies available.
Zurich Financial Services Group launched its global initiative on identification and management of climate related risks back in early 2008.
2005 was declared the warmest year in over a century by NASA, and the ten warmest years, since the recording of data began, have all occurred since 1980.
The shrinking polar ice caps and higher atmospheric temperature aren't the only apparent consequence: floods, storms, wildfires, droughts, and other weather-related disasters are growing more severe and more frequent.
All these have occurred after the planet has warmed only by roughly one degree Fahrenheit.
Most climate models predict a three- to eight-degree rise in global average temperatures by 2050 if current trends of increase in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases continue.
Furthermore, these climate models do not include effect of positive feedback mechanisms in the climate system such as the release of methane from melting permafrost in Canada's North, or the acidification of ocean as warmer water loses its ability to dissolve carbon dioxide.
These factors will introduce sudden, nonlinear acceleration in warming.
While many questions remain on global warming - did we cause it, how bad is it, can we fix it, and how are we going to fix it? One thing is certain - atmospheric temperatures are rising, and with it are increasing the number of climate related disasters.
And you are paying for the insurance companies to hedge their bets.
Source...