Don't read this if you don't believe in global warming. Keep your head in the sand ... until your beach gets eaten by the sea and you have no choice to face your climate change crisis. Or perhaps where you live, climate change will lead to desertification, and then you'll have even more sand to shove your head into.
On the other hand, if you want to know about how your whole company, your top product line, or your hometown could become obsolete because of the effects of climate change, if you are concerned about the thousands of billions of dollars in conceivable exposure that could result from climate change, read on about session RMG 211.
David Dybdahl of American Risk Management Resouces LLC spoke at this Monday afternoon session titled "Global Warming Litigation's Impact on Insurance Coverage and Risk Management" with a calm that did not match the profundity of the facts, figures and notions coming out of his mouth. It was a dry wit and matter-of-fact presentation with the message: "we're screwed."
Dybdahl brought up the village of Kivalina in Alaska, which is bringing suit against 23 U.S. companies for the damage done to their community because of global warming. Why those 23 companies? Because they are putting out 22 percent of the world's CO2.
The village is demanding $50,000,000 to $100,000,000 to pay for relocation costs. The community is becoming obsolete … and not in 2100. Today. They want out of the coast.
Dybdahl talked about Topsail, North Carolina. It's already eroding into the sea, he said, and is a top 10 hurricane spot on top of it. Yet the 850 people who live there own property with $1.3 billion in appraised value. Is that the American can-do spirit at work? Gotta love it.
The effects of global warming are visible today, not decades from now as the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Global Warming contemplated in its report, said Dan Anderson, professor of risk management at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Anderson said climate change is happening and human activity is helping it along. The science is not nearly as vague as some "experts" would like you to believe. Instead, the scientific consensus points to scary stuff. The U.N. report is actual conservative in its take on global warming, Anderson said. Do you disagree with all these Ph.D.s? Why? Because your town had its coldest winter last season in years? Those arguments only show your ignorance and perhaps inability to grasp the argument. You probably also argue that evolution is only a "theory."
So risk managers, you best have listened up to Dybdahl when he listed the major risks of global warming. There are property risks (increased risks of catastrophes), but the truly scary risk is that of obsolescence -- places, towns, cities, states, all that can become impossible to sustain.
Take Atlanta and its long-lasting drought. There is no way to get water there if they run out, and they are running out. Anderson said that Atlanta has only months of water in its Lake Lanier reservoir. What happens at your company in Hotlanta when there's no water for your toilets, your fountains, your business operations? Or how is Nevada going to get its water if they don't eventually run a pipeline to Lake Michigan. Lake Mead is not bottomless.
For companies, the problem could be product line obsolescence … or legislated obsolescence.
And the question with all these risks, and the risk of global warming litigation, said Dybdahl, is: When did you know or when should you have known that you activities were causing harm? In other words, when did you start to try to reduce your CO2 emisions (the best and perhaps only way at the moment to mitigate your global warming exposure, according to Anderson).
As it stands now, we know what is happening. Some people tend to argue against global warming. They can't get their head around the idea. They don't believe the scientists. They cling to doubts about climate change that are as obsolete as their businesses and communities may soon be.
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2 comments:
I commit the heresy of believing the earth's climate revolves around the sun.
The funny thing about this whole debate is that there are ways of mitigating global warming while CUTTING energy costs. I'm associated with Recycled Energy Development, which increases energy efficiency at manufacturing plants, specifically by "recycling" their waste heat into more power. The only reason more of this doesn't happen is regulations are designed to protect utilities, which want to sell as much power as possible. Some effects of GW are already here, as you mention, but we can stop the worst of it.
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