Words of Power: Hard Rain Journal 12-27-06: Climate Crisis Update -- Lohachara is Gone, the Bears in Spain are Not Hibernating, Wall Street Wonders What It All Means

Image: Mouths of The Ganges - NASA STS61B

Rising seas, caused by global warming, have for the first time washed an inhabited island off the face of the Earth. (Independent, 12-24-06)

Bears have stopped hibernating in the mountains of northern Spain, scientists revealed yesterday, in what may be one of the strongest signals yet of how much climate change is affecting the natural world. (Independent, 12-21-06)

Planet Earth had its sixth hottest year on record and a deluge of severe record-breaking weather....The findings come from the World Meteorological Organization's (WMO) preliminary report on global climate data for 2006... (Stop Global Warming!, 12-14-06)

Hard Rain Journal 12-27-06: Climate Crisis Update -- Lohachara is Gone, the Bears in Spain are Not Hibernating, Wall Street Wonders What It All Means

Richard Power

Four or five years ago when I began factoring global warming and the resultant climate change crisis into my briefings, it was met with murmured surprise and confusion: "Why is this man talking about the impact of rising temperatures on rice and maize yields? Is it really that serious? And even if it is, what does it have to do with security? And even if it is both very serious and has profound security implications, what could a single business or individual do about such a problem?"

But we may have turned a corner in 2006, as the Guardian reports:

Not before time, the west awoke in 2006 to the vast economic, political and social implications of climate change - and twigged that it presented as many opportunities as threats to humanity. As temperature and rainfall records tumbled, and unseasonal, intense heatwaves, droughts and floods struck many countries, local and national politicians scrambled to beef up their green policies and credentials, some businesses found they could make a packet from trading carbon, and a broad-based global social and ecological movement emerged, linking climate change to social justice, as well as to poverty and lifestyles. The year the world woke up, Guardian, 12-20-06

The response from government and industry is still too slow and too piece-meal, but there is a growing concern and a deepening cognizance among the people on the street, and it is the people that will hold those governments and businesses accountable if they fail to act responsibly in these last few years of opportunity.

The good news from the recent Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR) conference is that the business community is talking about the problem.

The bad news is how limited their perspective is, at least as reflected in this Reuters story:

"The insurance industry has historically taken on social issues. I know of no social issue that is bigger than this one," said Tim Wagner, director of insurance for the state of Nebraska.
The consensus of Wagner and others addressing the conference of the Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR) was that institutional investors are still too near-sighted to factor climate change into their investment decisions.
While there will be costs to the U.S. economy from climate change, the problem for Wall Street is that those costs are unknown and in the future. Many drew a parallel to the asbestos and tobacco industries, which were hit by lawsuits after the fact. (Reuters, 12-13-06)

The likening of the climate change to the asbestos and tobacco problems would be laughable, if it weren't so sad. They cannot seem to see beyond liability. Climate change isn't about liability. Climate change isn't simply a problem comparable to the suffering and death resulting from tobacco or asbestos; no, climate change is about the survival of the human race.

It is also bitter irony to hear insurance executives, especially ones in government like Nebraska's Walker, talking about how the industry has "historically taken on social issues."

Drive around the Gulf Coast and talk to those who lost their homes and then were told that since it was destroyed by wind their flood insurance couldn't help them or that since it had been destroyed by flood their storm insurance couldn't help them.

This post is the last climate crisis update of 2006 (links to my related writings over 2006 and 2005 are listed in reverse chronological order at the end of this post).

Here are brief excerpts from four important stories with links to the full texts:

Bears have stopped hibernating in the mountains of northern Spain, scientists revealed yesterday, in what may be one of the strongest signals yet of how much climate change is affecting the natural world.
In a December in which bumblebees, butterflies and even swallows have been on the wing in Britain, European brown bears have been lumbering through the forests of Spain's Cantabrian mountains, when normally they would already be in their long, annual sleep. Climate Change vs Mother Nature: Scientists reveal that bears have stopped hibernating, Independent, 12-21-06

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Hard Rain Journal 12-27-06: Climate Crisis Update -- Lohachara is Gone, the Bears in Spain are Not Hibernating, Wall Street Wonders What It All Means