I am always amazed by the ease with which we can be led to
believe almost anything. All it takes is a well designed campaign
and enough money to repeat it a few times.
I am always amazed by the ease with which we can be led to believe almost anything. All it takes is a well designed campaign and enough money to repeat it a few times. Take, for example, the attractive advertisements for Nutella. They feature a mother taking care of her children and she talks about the hazelnuts with a “touch of chocolate.” Of course the two main ingredients are sugar and palm oil, but how do you sell anyone on the good feelings you would get from that.
Another example is all of the insurance company ads that promote the ease with which they happily settle claims and, go paraphrase a BP chairman, “give you your life back.” We all know that it is not necessarily in the interest if insurance company profitability to pay those claims quickly, if they pay them at all. So, for all of the publicity surrounding the gas line explosion in San Bruno, why are some of those without a home still waiting for their insurance companies to pay anything?
One insurance company is now advertising that you should ask a neighbor about their services. I hope someone asks me, because I always felt that they were on the side of getting claims settled cheaply and never on the side of getting the story right. At least that was my experience.
So what happens when we are confused about what to believe about weather and climate?
At times, it does not even take a well funded campaign to get us all confused. Consider the fact that almost every day for the past several weeks, we have had daily reminders of the cold and snow that had gripped the eastern United States while we enjoy relatively warm weather here … and local news anchors continue to remind us of how lucky we are. What we don’t hear, or see, is that large areas of North Eastern Canada and Greenland are experiencing daily temperatures as much as 30 degrees above normal.
What we get is a one-sided view that climate change is not happening because we are not experiencing it here in America … while major areas of the rest of the world are feeling it’s effects daily. In point of fact, ABC Nightly News did one story making the point that increased outbreaks of abnormally hot and cold weather, along with precipitation deluges and droughts are all to be expected on a warming planet.
But, if we really want to understand that story, maybe we need to turn to the insurance industry and see what they think of climate risk to business. Zurich Re, one of the world’s largest and most diversified reinsurers, has probably done more actuarial work on this question than any other. Their assessment is that the long term costs to business from extreme weather events is significant and that this should shortly start showing up in the rates that business pays. It is notable that they no longer question the facts of climate change, but rather are organizing to help their clients assess and mitigate the risks.
It makes me wonder what risk is associated with San Francisco’s attempt to develop Treasure Island into something special. It would seem to me that most of this reclaimed land is very vulnerable to sea level rise. It is also clear that the IPPC’s earlier estimates of the amount of sea level rise by 2100 will most likely be seen before 2050, and maybe by 2030.
I know that I would not want to insure any Treasure Island project that had a long term payback.
What is this most likely to mean for Morgan Hill? Even the most radical estimates of sea level rise would not flood the Santa Clara Valley any time soon. However, it is clear that the Delta is very threatened, and with it much of California’s Agricultural Economy as well as the drinking water for a major portion of California’s population. Not only would the Delta’s infrastructure be damaged, many of the pump inlets would now have saline water for extended portions of the year.
It may be that Don Gage is the most important official that we have now. He has been elevated to the role of Chairman of the Board of the Santa Clara Valley Water District. I would hope that Gage takes a fresh look at the long term needs of our area and forces the State to protect what is there now rather than spending billions on new ways to divert the water, abandoning the Delta and it’s residents to their own fates, possibly uninsurable for climate risk.
As always, you know it will be California’s taxpayers who will shoulder cost of paying for bad judgment. We all need to minimize that risk at every opportunity.
Wes Rolley is a Morgan Hill artist and concerned citizen. He is co-chairman of the EcoAction Committee, Green Party.
