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PaulFarrell<> Opinion: 1,000-year biblical floods: Sell Big Oil, buy insurers

Published: Oct 9, 2015 2:31 p.m. ET

6 new climate-risk megatrends that are changing industries, policies

Not long ago insurers talked of 100-year megafires, 100-year megafloods, 100-year droughts and all manner of 100-year climate disasters that were supposed to happen once a century, with costs in the billions. All hard rules-of-thumb.

But then recently, 100-year climate disasters began hitting the news media every 100 days. Today, the frequency continues accelerating: Meteorologists are now reporting powerful once-in-a-1,000-year “biblical” disasters every year, as costs keep skyrocketing.

USA Today headlines captured the unique power of the latest climate disaster: “1,000-Year Storm Slams S.C.” The next day it was: “Biblical flooding becoming more common.” Get it? Climate disasters are now more frequent, more costly:

“Biblical flooding in South Carolina is at least the sixth so-called 1-in-1,000 year rain event in the U.S. since 2010, a trend that may be linked to factors ranging from the natural, such as a strong El Niño, to the manmade, namely climate change,” says the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Yes, six once-in-1,000-year disasters in six years, annually.

Worse, looking back on breaking news from the past decade tells an even bigger global story of disasters ... remember the Arizona megafires, killed 19 firefighters ... the recent megafires sweeping Oregon, Washington ... Oklahoma tornadoes ... earlier Jersey Shore’s Superstorm Sandy ... the Yosemite Rim Fire ... out of control Colorado flooding... hurricanes in Mexico ... Africa floods ... Japan’s typhoons ... India’s monsoons ... China’s earthquakes ... California Central Valley farm economy ground water disappearing. Climate-disaster news is relentless, increasing, we tune it out to keep our sanity.

Disaster after disaster, billions on top of billions. Our world is being hit with an accelerating barrage of bigger, more powerful, costlier natural disasters. Yet in a parallel fantasy universe Big Oil, conservative billionaires and their GOP lobbyists remain with their heads in the sands, trapped in their predictable irrational denial of the increasing negative impact of climate change.

Worldwide, the insurance industry is waking up the public, creating a new paradigm shift. Until now, climate-science-denying capitalists, Big Oil, Koch billionaires and the entire fossil-fuel industry all assumed the American taxpayer will just keep picking up the tab forever ... that climate change is not manmade ... assumed America is a self-insurer ... that climate disasters are really acts of God, his fault, so the public had to foot the bill.

Warning, folks, that’s all changing: Insurers are capitalists. They’re in business to make a profit, just like Exxon and the Kochs. Insurers are no longer relying on 19th century rules of thumb and outdated formulas. Nor can they let the myopic rhetoric of today’s science deniers, whether Congress, fossil fuel giants or GOP state governors set insurance rates and policies. Things are changing with the new insurance industry players on the offensive.

Insurers profits: make money forgetting old 100-year cycle rules of thumb

cont for full http://www.marketwatch.com/story/1000-year-biblical-floods-sell-big-oil-buy-insurers-2015-10-09?siteid=rss&rss=1