Articles by David Roberts

Ceres on Katrina, insurance, and weather-related risk

Ceres, the "national network of investment funds, environmental organizations and other public interest groups working to advance environmental stewardship on the part of businesses," has just released a report on the enormous challenge to the insurance industry represented by escalating weather-related losses. You can read the executive summary here and the full report here (PDF).

An excerpt:

Yet, despite these rising insurance risks, climate change has received little attention to date from U.S. insurers, regulators and governments. Among the problem areas highlighted in the report:

• Only a small fraction of U.S. insurance companies have seriously examined the business implications of climate change and fewer still work closely with climate scientists or present their analyses publicly.
• Insurers and regulators currently do not have a comprehensive capacity to assess the cumulative weather-related risks from both catastrophic events and the growing number of small-scale events.
• The U.S. government's full financial exposure from insurance programs (flood, multi-crop insurance etc), disaster relief and other forms of weather-related assistance has never been assessed.

The report recommends the following actions, among others:

Insurers need to: collect more complete data on weather-related losses; incorporate climate modeling into their risk analyses; analyze the implications of climate change on their business and investments and share the results with shareholders; and encourage policy action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Regulators need to: include climate risks in company solvency and consumer-impact analysis; review the "standards of insurability" to identify new challenges, including climate-related hazards in the US and abroad; encourage insurers to collect more comprehensive data on losses; elevate standards for catastrophe modeling; and assess exposure of insurer investments and adequacy of capital and surplus to extreme weather events.

Government needs to: foster and participate in public-private partnership for insurance risk spreading; comprehensively assess the government's overall financial exposure to weather disasters; reduce vulnerability to disaster losses through improved early warning systems, land use planning and other measures; and take policy action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The Society of Environmental Journalists publishes its first official op-ed

As far as I know (readers, correct me if I'm wrong), the Society of Environmental Journalists has never before released an official op-ed. Now they've done so, in response to official stonewalling on the environmental damage done by Katrina. It is reprinted in full below the fold.

Klare on Katrina and foreign oil

Michael Klare writes in The Nation about Katrina's implications for our oil situation and our foreign policy (is there any difference?). A taste:

But it is not the short-term picture that we should worry about the most; it is the long-term situation. This is so because the Gulf was the only area of the United States that showed any promise of compensating for the decline of older onshore fields and thus of dampening, to some degree, the nation's thirst for imported oil. ... Spurred by the Bush Administration's energy plan, which calls for massive investment in deep-water fields, the big oil firms have poured billions of dollars into new offshore drilling facilities in the Gulf. Before Katrina, these facilities were expected to supply more than 12 percent of America's Lower 48 petroleum output by the end of 2005, and a much larger share in the years thereafter.

It is this promise of future oil that is most in question: Even if older, close-to-shore rigs can be brought back on line, there is considerable doubt about the viability of the billion-dollar deep-water rigs, most of which lie right along the path of recent hurricanes, including Ivan and Katrina. If these cannot be salvaged, there is no hope of slowing the rise in US dependence on imports, ANWR or no ANWR. This can mean one thing only: growing US reliance on oil from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Angola, Nigeria, Colombia, Venezuela and other conflict-torn producers in the developing world.

And it is this that should set the alarm bells ringing. If recent US behavior is any indication, the Bush Administration will respond to this predicament by increasing the involvement of American military forces in the protection of foreign oil potentates (like the Saudi royal family) and the defense of overseas oil installations.

Katrina has only heightened the tensions of our oil-soaked imperial project. Something's got to give.

Update [2005-9-8 16:49:30 by Dave Roberts]: More thoughts on New Orleans' geopolitical significance over on Stratfor, arguing that the city's main import is not as a hub of oil production but as a port:

The United States historically has depended on the Mississippi and its tributaries for transport. Barges navigate the river. Ships go on the ocean. The barges must offload to the ships and vice versa. There must be a facility to empower this exchange. It is also the facility where goods are stored in transit. Without this port, the river can't be used. Protecting that port has been, from the time of the Louisiana Purchase, a fundamental national security issue for the United States.

Why was there looting after Katrina?

We are entering an age when severe weather events, terrorist attacks, and other abrupt dislocations and catastrophes will be more common. It is thus to our great benefit to learn how best to marshal an effective response. Over on Reason, Jesse Walker's got a fascinating piece (via Jim Henley) on when social bonds do and do not break down after disasters, and the kinds of spontaneously arising community responses that authorities should learn to work with rather than against. Oddly comforting.