Climate Instability + Current Political Situation = Ruin

"WASHINGTON == Violent weather has cost the world a record $89 billion this year, more money than was lost from weather-related disasters in all of the 1980s, and researchers in a study released Friday blame human meddling for much of it.

"Preliminary estimates put losses from storms, floods, droughts and fires for the first 11 months of the year 48 percent higher than the previous one-year record of more than $60 billion in 1996.

"This year's damage was also far ahead of the $55 billion in losses for the entire decade of the 1980s. Even when adjusted for inflation, that decade's losses, at $82.7 billion, still fall short of the first 11 months of this year.

"In addition to the material losses, the report said, the disasters have killed an estimated 32,000 people and displaced 300 million == more than the population of the United States.

"The study is based on estimates from the Worldwatch Institute, an environmental research group, and Munich Re, a reinsurer based in Frankfurt, Germany, that writes policies to protect insurance companies from the risk of massive claims that might put them out of business.

"The report says a combination of deforestation and climate change has caused this year's most severe disasters, among them Hurricane Mitch, the flooding of China's Yangtze River and Bangladesh's most extensive flood of the century. (...) The most severe 1998 disasters listed in the report include Hurricane Mitch, the deadliest Atlantic storm in 200 years, which has caused more than 10,000 deaths in Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador, and caused damage estimated at $4 billion in Honduras and $1 billion in Nicaragua. (...) Central American nations have experienced some of the highest rates of deforestation in the world, losing from 2 percent to 4 percent of their remaining forest cover each year, said the study.

"Natural Disasters Kill 25,000 Worldwide in 2001
by Jan Dahinten

"FRANKFURT (Reuters) — Natural disasters caused at least 25,000 deaths worldwide in 2001, more than double the previous year, the world's largest reinsurer said on
Friday.

"Putting total economic losses at $36 billion, Munich Re said catastrophes related to extreme weather were a result of continued global climate change.

"It said the 2001 figures - with 14,000 people killed in an earthquake in India in January alone - compared with 10,000 deaths the previous year and losses of around$30 billion.

"Storms and floods dominated this year's statistics, contributing more than two thirds to the 700 major disasters and causing 91 percent of all insured natural disaster losses, Munich Re said.

"Total insured losses were at $11.5 billion compared with $7.5 billion the previous year.

"'Forest fires in Australia, floods in Brazil and in Turkey, snow chaos in central and southern Europe and a typhoon in Singapore, which was meteorologically seen as impossible, are all indications for a link between climate changes and a rise in weather catastrophes,' the company said in a statement.

"Citing World Meteorological Organization (WMO) statistics, the reinsurer said 2001 had been the second warmest year since the beginning of systematic temperature recording 160 years ago.

"Munich Re said the worst event in terms of the number of deaths was an earthquake in the densely-populated northwestern Gujarat region of India with 14,000 deaths confirmed and many more feared dead.

"It said it had counted 80 major earthquakes, burdening economies with around $9-billion losses.

"The worst weather-related disaster in 2001 was tropical storm Allison, which caused losses of some $6 billion, making it 'the most expensive tropical storm in history

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Hurricane Katrina is expected to be one of the costliest U.S. storms for insurers, but risk forecasters are deeply split about the extent of the damage while insurers say it is too soon to count their losses.

Estimates of insured losses ranged from $9 billion to $25 billion on Tuesday, meaning the bill from Katrina could top the $20.9 billion from Hurricane Andrew, which became the costliest U.S. storm on record when it struck southern Florida in 1992.

Claims estimates have gyrated since Katrina struck the Gulf Coast on Monday. The storm caused catastrophic damage in much of Louisiana and Mississippi.

Though it spared New Orleans a direct hit, a breach in the city's levee system worsened the already extensive flooding.

Hundreds were feared dead.

"It doesn't surprise me that the risk modelers are changing their estimates," said Thomas Upton, a managing director at Standard & Poor's. "Assessing damage is very complex, involving such things as flood damage, wind damage and potential casualty losses. Much of this story is still developing."

Air Worldwide Corp. of Boston on Tuesday forecast insured losses from Katrina of $17 billion to $25 billion, compared with its Monday estimate of $12 billion to $26 billion.

But even the low end of the new forecast tops a $9 billion to $16 billion forecast Monday by Eqecat Inc. of Oakland, California.

A third modeler, Risk Management Solutions of Newark, California, on Monday forecast $10 billion to $25 billion. Estimates exclude damage to uninsured property.

Fitch Ratings said Katrina will likely be the costliest single event for insurers since the World Trade Center attacks of September 11, 2001.

Last year's four Florida hurricanes -- Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne -- resulted in $22.8 billion of insured losses. The 1994 Northridge earthquake in California resulted in $16 billion, the Reinsurance Association of America said.

DAMAGE ESTIMATES

Big U.S. insurers, including Allstate Corp. (NYSE:ALL - News), Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. (NYSE:HIG - News) and St. Paul Travelers Cos. (NYSE:STA - News), said they likely would not have loss estimates until midweek at the earliest.

Munich Re (XETRA:MUVGN.DE - News), the world's largest reinsurer, on Tuesday estimated total insured losses from Katrina at $15 billion to $20 billion and its own share at up to 400 million euros.

Swiss Re (RUKN.VX), another reinsurer, said total claims may rival those of Andrew.

Lloyd's of London, the world's oldest insurance market, said it expects significant claims from Katrina but is well-equipped to manage the financial impact.

"Building standards in the Gulf Coast region are not as stringent as other hurricane-prone regions," said Jayanta Guin, Air Worldwide's vice president of research and modeling. "We expect this contributed to increased wind damage."

Insurers' stocks have held up well, with the S&P insurance index (^GSPINSC - News) falling less than 1 percent this week.

"Even $20 billion in insured losses would not necessarily imply a major reduction in any one company's financial strength," Upton said.

He said that would depend on whether insurers charged premiums commensurate with the risk and were sufficiently diversified and capitalized to absorb the impact of losses.

Reinsurers may pay a bigger share of claims than in the 2004 hurricanes, analysts said. This is because Katrina is a single event, so insurers will pay one deductible before reinsurance starts, compared with four deductibles last year.

"Total insured losses were at $11.5 billion compared with $7.5 billion the previous year."
more people living where there is high risk of environmental catastrophe.

"Citing World Meteorological Organization (WMO) statistics, the reinsurer said 2001 had been the second warmest year since the beginning of systematic temperature recording 160 years ago.

there is no such thing as a global mean temp. everyone complained about the heat here this summer but it was warmer in 1934, was it warming then too? tree ring science is not exact, the 15th century is represented by one tree.

it makes good fiscal sense for an insurer to blame climate change in an effort to get public subsidy.

No one is claiming that Bush is some evil genius who is causing hurricanes.

Shares of exposed insurers and reinsurers including Allstate Corp., Allmerica Financial, St. Paul Travelers and Aspen Insurance Holdings all fell for a second day on Tuesday.

Katrina's path - over an area used extensively by the oil and gas industry and much further inland than typical hurricanes - has left more uncertainty about the ultimate cost of the catastrophe to the insurance industry, analysts said.

"There are two main factors that make the effects of Katrina more unknown than typical hurricanes," Adam Klauber, an analyst at Cochran, Caronia & Co., said. "Firstly, there are going to be significant energy and marine losses and secondly, the storm moved much further inland than other hurricanes."

Klauber said the broad range of insured loss estimates published Monday by catastrophe modeling firms such as Eqecat and AIR Worldwide ($9 billion to $26 billion) illustrate the uncertainty in trying to quantify energy and marine losses and the impact of damage further inland.

AIR Worldwide said on Tuesday that insured losses from Katrina will likely come in at the top end of its original projection of $12 billion to $26 billion.

AIR now expects the hurricane to cost the industry between $17 billion and $25 billion, making it the most costly natural catastrophe in U.S. history, eclipsing Hurricane Andrew, which cost $15.5 billion when it hit Florida in 1992. (Adjusting for inflation, Andrew cost more than $20 billion in 2004 dollars though).

Katrina made landfall in southeastern Louisiana at 6.10 am central time on Monday. By 4 p.m. Central Time, Katrina had reached central Mississippi and was still classified as a Hurricane packing 75 mph winds.

"The pricing of risks is significantly different inland than on the coast," Klauber said, citing a theoretical example.

When insuring a small business 100 miles inland, a company may not charge rates with the expectation that the business will be interrupted for a week because of a hurricane. But a small business nearer the Gulf coast would have to pay a lot more for this type of business-interruption coverage, he explained.

Katrina's hurricane strength winds extended more than 200 miles inland and stretched 120 miles from the center of the storm, from near Baton Rouge, La. to east of Mobile, Ala., AIR said on Tuesday.

Because losses may come from inland areas where insurers charged less for coverage, that could produce bigger losses for some companies, he added.

"Losses could range significantly because of these unknowns and the market hates uncertainty," Klauber added.

Still, Klauber and others said losses, while large, will be manageable for insurers and reinsurers.

"Katrina will have a material impact on earnings, but not on the credit profiles of most of the companies we follow," Angelo Graci, a fixed-income analyst at Merrill Lynch, wrote in a note to clients on Tuesday.

Klauber said he doesn't expect insurers and reinsurer will have to raise more money from investors to cover losses.

Company losses estimated

Only one company has estimated its exposure to Katrina so far. Munich Re, the world's largest reinsurer, said on Tuesday that it expects the hurricane to cost it as much as 400 million euros ($487 million), before taxes and reinsurance.

Analysts have been busy trying to assess the impact of the storm on other companies.

If total insurance industry losses reach $14 billion, Merrill Lynch's Graci said the companies he follows could see third-quarter earnings cut by 57% on average.

Allstate will likely suffer the largest hit, incurring more than $1.8 billion in gross losses, according to Graci's research, which was based on companies' Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi market share of personal lines and relevant commercial lines during 2004. (See table below).

That's 124% of Allstate's expected third-quarter operating profit, Graci noted.

While Allmerica's total estimated loss - at $212 million - is considerably lower, it will have a bigger impact on the company's earnings, representing 358% of forecast third-quarter operating results, Graci added.

Still, Allmerica has a catastrophe reinsurance program that will likely mitigate these losses, Clifford Gallant, an analyst at Keefe, Bruyette & Wood's, said.

Allstate shares fell 1% to 56.64 on Tuesday, while Allmerica stock slid 1% to 40.69.

Farmers Insurance, majority owned by Zurich Financial Services, St. Paul Travelers and CNA Financial may also see at least 57% of their third-quarter operating profit wiped out by Katrina, Merrill's Graci estimated.

Reinsurers

Reinsurers will likely pick up a bigger portion of losses than they did last year when four, slightly weaker hurricanes hit Florida and other parts of the Gulf coast, Susan Spivak Bernstein, a senior analyst at Wachovia Securities, said.

That's partly because insurers had to pay four separate deductibles to reinsurers last year before their policies kicked in, she explained.

Spivak Bernstein also pointed out that (unlike Florida) Louisiana and Mississippi don't have state-run reinsurance programs that would help absorb some losses.

KBW's Gallant said the Bermuda-based reinsurers he covers will probably lose no more than 5% to 6% of their current book value from Katrina, a manageable hit.

Aspen Insurance, a Bermuda-based reinsurer, could see losses from the damage Katrina caused to offshore energy assets, he said, noting that the company started underwriting these types of risks in 2005.

Aspen shares fell 3.6% to $27.54 on Tuesday, after dropping more than 1% on Monday.

The following table shows Merrill Lynch's estimate of the impact Katrina losses may have on 10 insurers' third-quarter operating earnings.

Insurer Estimated loss assuming Katrina costs industry $14 billion Loss as a percentage of forecast third-quarter operating income

Allmerica Financial $212 million 358%
Farmers (Zurich Financial) $208 million 187%
Allstate $1.82 billion 124%
Liberty Mutual $382 million 77%
Nationwide Mutual $256 million 68%
St. Paul Travelers $717 million 58%
CNA Financial $167 million 57%
Markel Corp. $50 million 57%
Safeco Corp. $125 million 43%
Chubb Corp. $183 million 30%

Source: Merrill Lynch research using Highline Data.

Note: Estimates are based on companies' share of 2004 direct written premiums in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Premiums from homeowners and relevant commercial lines were counted. Estimates exclude reinsurance assumed but do include reinsurance ceded, or purchased, when companies have disclosed this.

it wasn't a hurricane of unusual strength.

But it was very strong considering that so many hurricanes of the same strenght have formed in the last two years. It's remarkable.

See my last post.

Fuck you. Living in New York City is not very smart if the climatologists are right. And there are 8 million people there.

AIN'T IT, THOUGH!

There's plenty of stupidity to go around. Like I said on the other thread, I expect Katrina to be politicized by both the left and the right.

living below sea level on the gulf of mexico is not very smart.

Explain that to the folks in the path of the tsunami or Hurricane Mitch. It's not like they had a choice.

Global warming increses the intensity of weather, hot or cold, violent or non-violent. Again, tell me where you heard otherwise.

This sounds totally made up, as all weather forecasts are, but 1000x moreso.

last i heard there were hurricanes before bush.

there hasn't been a hurricane that's hit new orleans in many years, yet the risk of a strike on new orleans was very real pre-katrina (which wasn't a direct strike, either). there is documented proof that the bush administration ignored the warning of state and local officials, as well as the army corps of engineers, as to what needed to be done to mitigate the effects of a hurricane strike on new orleans.

it wasn't a hurricane of unusual strength.

a category 4 hurricane, bordering on category 5, is unusual strength since 5 is the top of the scale.

linking individual events to alleged global warming is stupid.

perhaps.

living below sea level on the gulf of mexico is not very smart.

regardless, millions of people lived there, and if it was "not very smart" perhaps someone more enlightened should've been involved in helping them move?

the idea that climate is constant is foolish.

climate by definition is not constant so i'm not sure what point you're trying to make.

there are nearly as many studies that claim global warming would decrease strength of hurricanes.

cite, please. i would like to read them.

foremost hurricane expert, here in colorado actually, says were in the part of the forty year cycle when the atlantic is most active.

i don't mean to cast aspersions but why would a "foremost hurricane expert" be in colorado?

"Total insured losses were at $11.5 billion compared with $7.5 billion the previous year."
more people living where there is high risk of environmental catastrophe.

this isn't even a coherent thought.

"Citing World Meteorological Organization (WMO) statistics, the reinsurer said 2001 had been the second warmest year since the beginning of systematic temperature recording 160 years ago.

there is no such thing as a global mean temp. everyone complained about the heat here this summer but it was warmer in 1934, was it warming then too?

if there's no such thing as a global mean temp. then how do you know it "was warmer in 1934"?

tree ring science is not exact, the 15th century is represented by one tree.

no science is exact, but science does aim at continuously improving the means of measuring and understanding the world. what do you propose we use instead of science?

it makes good fiscal sense for an insurer to blame climate change in an effort to get public subsidy.

no, it doesn't.

Actually Keith is quoting correctly -- read an interview with the feller in the latest Discover magazine, where he more or less said that.

And why would this matter? Not all earthquake scientists are in earthquake zones...

haha isn't that obvious?

As the extent of the damage became apparent, the oil price hit a new nominal record of just under $71 a barrel on Tuesday. Though in real (inflation-adjusted) terms prices are still lower than in the wake of the Iranian hostage crisis in 1979, that reassuring mantra has worn thinner in recent months as real prices have edged closer and closer to those historical highs. Furthermore, while much of the recent oil-price increase was demand-driven, and thus expected to have relatively benign economic effects, any outages owing to Katrina could cause a supply shock—meaning the kind of sudden, negative effects that battered the world economy in the 1970s.

As a rule of thumb, every $10 sustained increase in the price of a barrel of oil is estimated to result in a loss of something like half a percentage point of GDP. In a research report from Merrill Lynch, David Rosenberg, an analyst, calculates that every one-cent rise in the price of a gallon of petrol takes $1.3 billion out of consumers’ pockets, which could trim as much as a full percentage point off consumer spending this winter. Some economists are worried that if there are extensive shutdowns of oil and gas production, this could push the economy to the brink of recession.

That is bad news abroad, where many nations, particularly in Asia, are already dangerously dependent on robust American demand for their exports. Those countries are also being hit by higher oil prices. Indonesia’s central bank was forced to tighten the money supply sharply on Tuesday, raising interest rates by three-quarters of a point and increasing banks’ reserve requirements, to stem a near-10% drop in the rupiah. Partly thanks to lavish fuel subsidies, Indonesia’s oil imports, financed in dollars, have touched off fears of a balance-of-payments crisis, driving the currency sharply downwards. While rich countries are much less dependent on oil than they used to be, thanks to increases in fuel efficiency and a shift from manufacturing to services, middle-income countries are still big energy guzzlers: India and South Korea use more oil per dollar of GDP today than they did in the 1970s.

Europe’s recovery could also be choked off in its infancy by the steady upward march of prices for petrol and heating oil. That would weaken another of Asian exporters’ main markets and leave the global economy little refuge if American demand were to stutter. If Katrina has damaged America’s capacity to pump and refine oil, forcing Americans to shop abroad for more fuel to feed their gluttonous appetites, it could be a long cold winter for everyone.

Not all earthquake scientists are in earthquake zones...

does the name iben browning mean anything to you? he was - wait for it - a climatologist!

I know who he is, I'm just not following your connection.

kenan, it's well documented that the city wanted to prepare, but got no help from the federal government (whom one could postulate created much of the problem to begin with).

When the levee breaks [from www.pnionline.com]

It appears that the money has been moved in the president’s budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that’s the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can’t be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us.

-- Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 8, 2004.

This picture is an aerial view of New Orleans today, more than 14 months later. Even though Hurricane Katrina has moved well north of the city and the sun is out, the waters continue to rise in New Orleans as we write this. That's because Lake Pontchartrain continues to pour through a two-block-long break in the main levee, near the city's 17th Street Canal. With much of the Crescent City some 10 feet below sea level, the rising tide may not stop until until it's level with the massive lake.

There have been numerous reports of bodies floating in the poorest neighborhoods of this poverty-plagued city, but the truth is that the death toll may not be known for days, because the conditions continue to frustrate rescue efforts.

New Orleans had long known it was highly vulnerable to flooding and a direct hit from a hurricane. In fact, the federal government has been working with state and local officials in the region since the late 1960s on major hurricane and flood relief efforts. When flooding from a massive rainstorm in May 1995 killed six people, Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA.

Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with carrying out SELA, spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations, with $50 million in local aid. But at least $250 million in crucial projects remained, even as hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin increased dramatically and the levees surrounding New Orleans continued to subside.

Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars. (Much of the research here is from Nexis, which is why some articles aren't linked.)

In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to this Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness:

The $750 million Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Protection project is another major Corps project, which remains about 20% incomplete due to lack of funds, said Al Naomi, project manager. That project consists of building up levees and protection for pumping stations on the east bank of the Mississippi River in Orleans, St. Bernard, St. Charles and Jefferson parishes.

The Lake Pontchartrain project is slated to receive $3.9 million in the president's 2005 budget. Naomi said about $20 million is needed.

"The longer we wait without funding, the more we sink," he said. "I've got at least six levee construction contracts that need to be done to raise the levee protection back to where it should be (because of settling). Right now I owe my contractors about $5 million. And we're going to have to pay them interest."

That June, with the 2004 hurricane seasion starting, the Corps' Naomi went before a local agency, the East Jefferson Levee Authority, and essentially begged for $2 million for urgent work that Washington was now unable to pay for. From the June 18, 2004 Times-Picayune:

"The system is in great shape, but the levees are sinking. Everything is sinking, and if we don’t get the money fast enough to raise them, then we can’t stay ahead of the settlement," he said. "The problem that we have isn’t that the levee is low, but that the federal funds have dried up so that we can’t raise them."

The panel authorized that money, and on July 1, 2004, it had to pony up another $250,000 when it learned that stretches of the levee in Metairie had sunk by four feet. The agency had to pay for the work with higher property taxes. The levee board noted in October 2004 that the feds were also now not paying for a hoped-for $15 million project to better shore up the banks of Lake Pontchartrain.

The 2004 hurricane season, as you probably recall, was the worst in decades. In spite of that, the federal government came back this spring with the steepest reduction in hurricane- and flood-control funding for New Orleans in history. Because of the proposed cuts, the Corps office there imposed a hiring freeze. Officials said that money targeted for the SELA project -- $10.4 million, down from $36.5 million -- was not enough to start any new jobs. According to New Orleans CityBusiness this June 5:

The district has identified $35 million in projects to build and improve levees, floodwalls and pumping stations in St. Bernard, Orleans, Jefferson and St. Charles parishes. Those projects are included in a Corps line item called Lake Pontchartrain, where funding is scheduled to be cut from $5.7 million this year to $2.9 million in 2006. Naomi said it's enough to pay salaries but little else.

"We'll do some design work. We'll design the contracts and get them ready to go if we get the money. But we don't have the money to put the work in the field, and that's the problem," Naomi said.

There was, at the same time, a growing recognition that more research was needed to see what New Orleans must do to protect itself from a Category 4 or 5 hurricane. But once again, the money was not there. As the Times-Picayune reported last Sept. 22:

That second study would take about four years to complete and would cost about $4 million, said Army Corps of Engineers project manager Al Naomi. About $300,000 in federal money was proposed for the 2005 fiscal-year budget, and the state had agreed to match that amount.

But the cost of the Iraq war forced the Bush administration to order the New Orleans district office not to begin any new studies, and the 2005 budget no longer includes the needed money, he said.

The Senate was seeking to restore some of the SELA funding cuts for 2006. But now it's too late. One project that a contractor had been racing to finish this summer was a bridge and levee job right at the 17th Street Canal, site of the main breach. The levee failure appears to be causing a human tragedy of epic proportions:

"We probably have 80 percent of our city under water; with some sections of our city the water is as deep as 20 feet. Both airports are underwater," Mayor Ray Nagin told a radio interviewer.

Washington knew that this day could come at any time, and it knew the things that needed to be done to protect the citizens of New Orleans. But in the tradition of the riverboat gambler, the Bush administration decided to roll the dice on its fool's errand in Iraq, and on a tax cut that mainly benefitted the rich.

And now Bush has lost that gamble, big time. We hope that Congress will investigate what went wrong here.

The president told us that we needed to fight in Iraq to save lives here at home, and yet -- after moving billions of domestic dollars to the Persian Gulf -- there are bodies floating through the streets of Louisana. What does George W. Bush have to say for himself now?

Destroying FEMA
By Eric Holdeman
Tuesday, August 30, 2005; A17

SEATTLE -- In the days to come, as the nation and the people along the Gulf Coast work to cope with the disastrous aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, we will be reminded anew, how important it is to have a federal agency capable of dealing with natural catastrophes of this sort. This is an immense human tragedy, one that will work hardship on millions of people. It is beyond the capabilities of state and local government to deal with. It requires a national response.

Which makes it all the more difficult to understand why, at this moment, the country's premier agency for dealing with such events -- FEMA -- is being, in effect, systematically downgraded and all but dismantled by the Department of Homeland Security.

Apparently homeland security now consists almost entirely of protection against terrorist acts. How else to explain why the Federal Emergency Management Agency will no longer be responsible for disaster preparedness? Given our country's long record of natural disasters, how much sense does this make?

What follows is an obituary for what was once considered the preeminent example of a federal agency doing good for the American public in times of trouble, such as the present.

FEMA was born in 1979, the offspring of a number of federal agencies that had been functioning in an independent and uncoordinated manner to protect the country against natural disasters and nuclear holocaust. In its early years FEMA grew and matured, with formal programs being developed to respond to large-scale disasters and with extensive planning for what is called "continuity of government."

The creation of the federal agency encouraged states, counties and cities to convert from their civil defense organizations and also to establish emergency management agencies to do the requisite planning for disasters. Over time, a philosophy of "all-hazards disaster preparedness" was developed that sought to conserve resources by producing single plans that were applicable to many types of events.

But it was Hurricane Andrew, which hit Florida in 1992, that really energized FEMA. The year after that catastrophic storm, President Bill Clinton appointed James Lee Witt to be director of the agency. Witt was the first professional emergency manager to run the agency. Showing a serious regard for the cost of natural disasters in both economic impact and lives lost or disrupted, Witt reoriented FEMA from civil defense preparations to a focus on natural disaster preparedness and disaster mitigation. In an effort to reduce the repeated loss of property and lives every time a disaster struck, he started a disaster mitigation effort called "Project Impact." FEMA was elevated to a Cabinet-level agency, in recognition of its important responsibilities coordinating efforts across departmental and governmental lines.

Witt fought for federal funding to support the new program. At its height, only $20 million was allocated to the national effort, but it worked wonders. One of the best examples of the impact the program had here in the central Puget Sound area and in western Washington state was in protecting people at the time of the Nisqually earthquake on Feb. 28, 2001. Homes had been retrofitted for earthquakes and schools were protected from high-impact structural hazards. Those involved with Project Impact thought it ironic that the day of that quake was also the day that the then-new president chose to announce that Project Impact would be discontinued.

Indeed, the advent of the Bush administration in January 2001 signaled the beginning of the end for FEMA. The newly appointed leadership of the agency showed little interest in its work or in the missions pursued by the departed Witt. Then came the Sept. 11 attacks and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Soon FEMA was being absorbed into the "homeland security borg."

This year it was announced that FEMA is to "officially" lose the disaster preparedness function that it has had since its creation. The move is a death blow to an agency that was already on life support. In fact, FEMA employees have been directed not to become involved in disaster preparedness functions, since a new directorate (yet to be established) will have that mission.

FEMA will be survived by state and local emergency management offices, which are confused about how they fit into the national picture. That's because the focus of the national effort remains terrorism, even if the Department of Homeland Security still talks about "all-hazards preparedness." Those of us in the business of dealing with emergencies find ourselves with no national leadership and no mentors. We are being forced to fend for ourselves, making do with the "homeland security" mission. Our "all-hazards" approaches have been decimated by the administration's preoccupation with terrorism.

To be sure, America may well be hit by another major terrorist attack, and we must be prepared for such an event. But I can guarantee you that hurricanes like the one that ripped into Louisiana and Mississippi yesterday, along with tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, floods, windstorms, mudslides, power outages, fires and perhaps a pandemic flu will have to be dealt with on a weekly and daily basis throughout this country. They are coming for sure, sooner or later, even as we are, to an unconscionable degree, weakening our ability to respond to them.

The writer is director of the King County, Wash., Office of Emergency Management.

Katrina's real name
By Ross Gelbspan | August 30, 2005

THE HURRICANE that struck Louisiana yesterday was nicknamed Katrina by the National Weather Service. Its real name is global warming.

When the year began with a two-foot snowfall in Los Angeles, the cause was global warming.

When 124-mile-an-hour winds shut down nuclear plants in Scandinavia and cut power to hundreds of thousands of people in Ireland and the United Kingdom, the driver was global warming.

When a severe drought in the Midwest dropped water levels in the Missouri River to their lowest on record earlier this summer, the reason was global warming.

In July, when the worst drought on record triggered wildfires in Spain and Portugal and left water levels in France at their lowest in 30 years, the explanation was global warming.

When a lethal heat wave in Arizona kept temperatures above 110 degrees and killed more than 20 people in one week, the culprit was global warming.

And when the Indian city of Bombay (Mumbai) received 37 inches of rain in one day -- killing 1,000 people and disrupting the lives of 20 million others -- the villain was global warming.

As the atmosphere warms, it generates longer droughts, more-intense downpours, more-frequent heat waves, and more-severe storms.

Although Katrina began as a relatively small hurricane that glanced off south Florida, it was supercharged with extraordinary intensity by the relatively blistering sea surface temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico.

The consequences are as heartbreaking as they are terrifying.

Unfortunately, very few people in America know the real name of Hurricane Katrina because the coal and oil industries have spent millions of dollars to keep the public in doubt about the issue.

The reason is simple: To allow the climate to stabilize requires humanity to cut its use of coal and oil by 70 percent. That, of course, threatens the survival of one of the largest commercial enterprises in history.

In 1995, public utility hearings in Minnesota found that the coal industry had paid more than $1 million to four scientists who were public dissenters on global warming. And ExxonMobil has spent more than $13 million since 1998 on an anti-global warming public relations and lobbying campaign.

In 2000, big oil and big coal scored their biggest electoral victory yet when President George W. Bush was elected president -- and subsequently took suggestions from the industry for his climate and energy policies.

(article continues at link)

Even if it had, Bush's signing of the Kyoto protocol would have had exactly zero impact on the situation by now.

Also, the Leiutenant Gov of LA was just on the radio talking about how they'd been asking the feds to help rebuild the levees for 40 years.

Having said that, I believe that the Katrina aftermath is going to affect "eco-politics" somehow - probably to the detriment of everyone on all sides.

yeah, "civilization" meant quite literally, in a "find the hidden action verb" man-against-nature imperialist-swine sense, not simply "i blame SOCIETY."

Arguably, you could say that this destruction began with the initial construction of NO's levee system in 1910 which altered the natural flow of water through the Mississippi delta.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pastdec.shtml

FEATURE - As Hurricanes Loom, Many in Florida Keys Flee
KEY WEST, Florida - Spiralling living costs, lingering trauma from past evacuations and fear that one day million-dollar homes could be reduced to rubble or again flooded are driving people out of the vulnerable Florida Keys as another hurricane season looms.

While most of Florida experiences one of the country's fastest population growths, the number of people living in the low-lying 180-km (110-mile) island chain at the southern tip of the peninsula is slowly dwindling.

In the last two years, residents have been ordered to evacuate six times up a narrow, mangrove-fringed 200-km (126-mile) road, the Overseas Highway, linking the Florida Keys to the mainland.

...

The moving-out business is booming. "Clients are worried about insurance. One said, 'They only want rich folks,'" Cuevas said. "They don't want to go, but they have to."

Keys homeowners also suffer Florida's highest insurance premiums. Citizens Property Insurance, the state-run insurer of last resort, proposed a base windstorm rate of US$20.91 per US$1,000 of insured home value for this year.

Furious Keys officials threatened to sue the state, and a grass-roots organisation, Fair Insurance Rates in Monroe, or FIRM, met with Governor Jeb Bush, brother of US President George W. Bush, in April to seek support.

Florida insurance regulators rejected the rate filing on Monday and Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty froze Keys' windstorm rates at the 2005 level of US$20.58 per US$1,000, still the state's highest and two to three times as high as the rates in other hurricane-hit counties.

The population of Monroe County -- the entire Florida Keys -- dropped 2.16 percent to 76,329 in the year to July 2005. In the last five years, the county's population has shrunk 4.1 percent at a time when most areas in Florida are growing rapidly, according to a US Census report in March.

"These are people who've lived here 20 to 25 years," said John Strong, owner of Pak Mail, a packing and crating franchise. "They're going to Arizona, North Carolina and Central America, seeking no hurricanes."

The problem is acute for teachers, nurses and police officers. An increasing number of Monroe County sheriff's employees commute from Miami. Sheriff Rick Roth is adding 18 bunks at a detention centre which could be used by the commuters in an emergency.

A recent Monroe County School District poll found that 7 percent of families with school-aged children planned to leave when the school year ends in May.

"We can't get nurses, we can't get doctors," said John Dolan-Heitlinger, an advocate for affordable housing for working professionals.

On Big Pine Key, resident Pam Henry said she is struggling to pay US$16,000 a year in property taxes and home insurance, and is moving to central Florida.

When the next hurricane wipes out the island, the same rich people will run crying to the state for financial relief.

My gut reaction: abandon the entire Florida keys. Either live there at your own risk with no state services, or just make the whole works a National Park.

Last year my retired parents left the barrier island where they had lived because they got tired of evacs.

they could privatize the infrastructure, which is what the rich folks all really want anyway (no taxes).

How Much Would You Save Under the Plan?
Income, in 2005 dollars
	
Average tax saving
$10,000-20,000     $2
$20,000-30,000     $9
$30,000-40,000     $16
$40,000-50,000     $46
$50,000-75,000     $110
$75,000-100,000    $403
$100,000-200,000   $1,388
$200,000-500,000   $4,499
$500,000-1 million $5,562
>$1 million        $41,977

SOURCE: Tax Policy Center"

Isn't there a Georgia island that's done that already? Either St. Simons or Tybee... I can't remember.

It's basically an off-shore gated community.

Tagline: "They call carbon dioxide pollution; we call it life." Maybe trying to hitch their wagon to the self-described Culture of Life folks?

Ads here

megarofflez

The loudest warning was sounded by Lloyds of London, the world's oldest, largest, and most well-known insurance exchange, which this month issued a report urging insurers "to take climate change seriously or risk being swept away." With new weather patterns, exposures are changing and insurers need to act now, says the new Lloyd's report, titled Climate Change: Adapt or Bust (download-PDF).

The report is fascinating reading, given its frank, candid tone -- something not often heard from any business sector, let alone one with such conservative roots. For example, consider the report's conclusions:

We don't know exactly what impact climate change will have. But we do know that it presents society and the economy with an increasing level of uncertainty as it seeks to manage its risk.

We believe that it is time for the insurance industry to take a more leading role in understanding and managing the impact of climate change.

This means that the industry can no longer treat climate change as some peripheral workstream, simply to tick the regulatory and compliance box, or to support its public relations strategy.

Instead, understanding and responding to it must become "business as usual" for insurers and those they work with. Failure to take climate change into account will put companies at risk from future legal actions from their own shareholders, their investors and clients.
Climate change must inform underwriting strategy -- from the pricing of risk to the wording of policies.

It must guide and counsel business strategy -- including business development and planning.

And it must lie at the heart of a new impetus to engage with the wider world through meaningful, tangible partnerships to mitigate risk -- bringing corporate and social responsibility plans to life.

The insurance industry must now seize the opportunity to make a difference, not just to the future of our own industry, but to the future of society.

I don't quite take their rhetoric seriously yet, but the shift in tone is interesting.

Senator James Inhofe, chairman of the Senate Environment & Public Works Comm., going on at length about how the climate crisis is nothing but media hype and liberal hollywood backing al gore, etc etc etc.

we have five years
― gabbneb, Wednesday, May 16, 2007 2:26 PM (6 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Also RIP EARTH http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/mar/18/climate-change-world-risk-irreversible-changes-scientists-aaas

xpost -- huh, my brain DOES hurt a lot.

lol