Battle Of The Bloggers!

I would rarely comment on a fellow NU blogger's post, being that I have my own soap box from which to pontificate at will. But having gone through a similarly heated debate (pun intended) about global warming on this blog not too long ago, I thought I would throw in my two cents about yesterday's entry by our tech editor, Ara C. Trembly.

While playing coy about his own personal take on the subject, Ara posted an interview on his blog (www.insurancetechguru.com) from way back in 2001 with William Gray, the high-profile hurricane forecaster, slamming former Vice President Al Gore, whose highly acclaimed documentary on the subject just won an Oscar. I give Mr. Gore a lot of credit for raising awareness of this potentially catastrophic challenge, but his critics are plentiful and brutal in their counterattacks.

I personally think we're all missing the point by fixating on whether or not global warming is one of two things: Either it's an absolute fact of such monumental importance that we must turn the way we live our lives upside down overnight or risk extinction. Or it's just another cockamamie liberal hoax–much like those ridiculous theories of evolution and gravity–so we should just go on our merry way pumping out greenhouse gas until we're baking like Thanksgiving turkeys!

(My own personal opinion, by the way, is that if global warming means New York will be like San Diego in a few years, I'm all for it!)

But seriously, I think a middle ground is more sensible from a true risk management perspective. There is no need to waste time in politically-skewed debates over who is “right” or “wrong” here.

The fact is that if the vast majority of scientists are correct, and global warming is man-made and a cosmic threat to our survival, we can't afford to ignore the challenge just in case those who scoff at the notion are proven wrong. There is just too much at stake and the downside of being wrong is too costly–perhaps even fatal.

In addition, it also would make sense to take steps to lower greenhouse gas emissions from an economic, political and environmental perspective, even if global warming is proven to be a crackpot theory.

Economically, we need to ween ourselves off of oil in general. Politically, we need to lower our imports of foreign oil, in particular, to stop feeding crazy regimes like Iran and Venezuela.

Economically, we could also enjoy quite an economic boom by taking the lead on developing “green” technologies. I am with my namesake (but no relation) Thomas Friedman, the New York Times columnist and author of “The World Is Flat,” who suggests the White House (not this oil-friendly one) challenge America to cut oil consumption by 50 percent in 10 years–similar to the inspirational challenge issued by President Kennedy to put a man on the moon within the decade.

With oil bound to run low as time goes on, as well as grow more expensive, new manufacturing giants such as China and India could buy our new technology to ease their own energy supply problems, while cutting global warming at the same time.

Of course, last but not least, we would benefit environmentally from cutting oil consumption.

In all of this, the insurance industry is playing it smart by taking the threat seriously, and doing what it can to push for greater mitigation efforts. Even if we start corrective action immediately, it will take time to turn the climate problem around, and in the meanwhile, hurricane and flood damage will get even worse, costing insurers billions.

(For my previous blog entry on global warming, and the lively debate that ensued, click here.)

(In addition, check out a couple of interesting news stories related to global warming that NU ran online this week. One–click here–had to do with a report prepared in part by modeling firm Risk Management Solutions about the damage being caused by climate change, while the other–click here–was about how insurers were being pressured by shareholders to report the potential impact of climate-related losses in their financial statements.)

Fire away!