Subject:  Viridian Note 00021:  The World Is Becoming
Uninsurable, Part 1

Key concepts:  Weather violence,  insurance costs

Attention Conservation Notice:   Grimly accurate, can
cause feelings of despair; comes in multiple parts; is
mostly about insurance, one of the world's dullest topics

Links:  http://www.munichre.com/
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/warnings/waterworld

Entries in the "Big Mike" Viridian Design Contest:
http://www.pinknoiz.com/graphics/bigmike.gif
http://www.spaceways.de/BigMike/Mike.html
http://weber.u.washington.edu/~r1ddl3r/bigmike.html
http://powerbase-alpha.com/bigmike
http://rampages.onramp.net/~jzero/
http://www.well.com/conf/mirrorshades
http://www.57thstreet.com/viridian/
http://www.ioc.net/~bini/bigmike.htm
http://www.pcnet.com/~thallad/mike.htm

The "Big Mike" contest will end in one week.

Source:  Associated Press wire service,
Austin American Statesman page A7.
Saturday, November 28, 1998

"World's Weather Losses Will Set Record This Year"
"Much damage is human-inflicted, report says, citing
deforestation as key factor"
by Donna Abu-Nasr, Associated Press


"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.

     "The costliest disaster of 1998, according to the
report, was the flooding of the Yangtze River in the
summer.  It killed more than 3,000 people, dislocated
about 230 million people, and incurred $30 billion in
losses.   (...)

      "Figures include infrastructure losses and crops but
not long-term effects such as increased health costs and
environmental damage.  Prices in 1998 dollars."

Bruce Sterling remarks:

     This is, needless to say, a remarkably grim report.
The year is not yet over, but the evil weather of 1998 has
already caused more global havoc than was created in the
entire 1980s.  Worse yet, it's a fifty percent jump from a
mere two years ago.  The trend for two years hence, and
ten years hence, is anything but reassuring.

     Still, it's pleasant to have some stark facts and
figures on the subject of just how badly off we are.  "A
decade's worth of weather damage in a single year" --
that is a  useful and provocative soundbite.

     This is not armageddon. We will not be suddenly
rendered extinct because of our misdeeds with C02. Thirty-
two thousand dead people are a remarkably modest number of
dead, considering that the planet boasts about 6 billion
people now.  Even a country with the limited
organizational resources of China lost a mere 3,000 lives
when floods displaced a full 230,000,000. Even $89 billion
dollars is a modest sum compared to the wealth destruction
entailed in the Asian financial crisis.

    But flooding is expensive.  Hence the concentrated
interest of Munich Re, the German insurance group.  Munich
Re were first brought to my attention by David Light
(dhlight@mcs.net^^^^^*).  Munich Re, also known as
Munchener Ruck, would seem to be a remarkably interesting
enterprise, for an insurance firm.

    In the next Viridian Note, we will examine some of
Munich Re's analytical tools, and the company's expert
conclusions on the subject of global warming.  Then we
will speculate on what this means and how it feels.

Bruce Sterling (bruces@well.com)