Hello friends, it's the Environment Show and welcome. With many environmental problems
escalating to crisis proportions, the property insurance industry is running out of money.
Question, even if we have money for higher premiums, do we have the right to pollute or destroy
in the first place? The insurance industry goes green. Also, a living doorway to the
garden with Larry Samke and Dr. Norman Myers, one of the world's leading ecologists.
And we are now entering an era, I believe, of a different sort of security. The
threat from the sky is no longer nuclear missiles. It is becoming ozone-ladepleesion
and global warming. The Environment Show, a national production, made possible by
Heming's Motor News, the national Bible of the Old Car Hobby, monthly from Bennington
Vermont and by the JM Kaplan Fund of New York, and this is Bruce Robertson.
Your homeowner's insurance policy is paid up and you feel secure. You're covered. But
wait, read the fine print. Does your policy cover global warming? Look closely, anything
there about ozone-depleesion? Probably not. And yet millions of us around the world
are suffering the effects of these environmental conditions. Floods, hurricanes, droughts,
topsoil, loss, and so on. The problem is we are not making the connection between global
warming and the loss of our beach house or greenhouse gases and the Mississippi River flooding.
Instead, we submit our claims to the insurance company and wait for a check in the mail.
The insurance industry says it is losing billions of dollars, 18 billion in Florida alone
from Hurricane Andrew. Insurance industry representatives and environmentalists convened
at a conference recently in New York City to look at this situation and stop it. Dr. Jeremy
Leggett is scientific director of the Climate Campaign of Greenpeace International. Dr. Leggett
is also internationally acclaimed as the author of numerous authoritative works on global warming.
Dr. Leggett says the issue of global warming is no longer just a political cause of such
groups as Greenpeace. Today, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, a group of
international scientists has refocused the discussion.
And they're telling us on the very strong balance of probabilities that if we continue
putting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, at anything like the volumes we do today,
we face in the years ahead very definitely. In fact, they say certainly the prospect of
global warming. What's uncertain is exactly how much and the estimates they give us are
really very alarming. They're rates of warming that would have a whole range of adverse effects.
And among those effects will be things that of course will be directly relevant to the
insurance industry. We're talking about storm surges from sea level rise. We're talking
about the possibility of more intense, perhaps more numerous cyclones, hurricanes as a result
of warmacies and the light, increased droughts, drought related disasters, and paradoxically
also because of the additional water vapor in the atmosphere, increased inundation.
And just on that one point, if we look at recent times here in the States, we've seen
the flood of the century. If we go to Asia, we see this year the worst monsoon in a century.
And just last year in Pakistan, floods which caused more than a billion dollars worth of
damage. And it's clear really that we have to do something about it. And governments are
doing something about it more than 160 of them have find the climate convention that was
negotiated in the run up to the Earth Summit in June 1992. And they're in continuing negotiations
for improving that convention. And the message that Greenpeace has for the insurance industry
is that this is an industry that has a lot of stake. It hasn't so far been involved very
much in the debate on the threat assessment exercise of global warming. And of course,
we think it should be.
Dr. Leggett, considering this litany of events you have just mentioned or for any one of them
really, how can we say conclusively that this or that episode in fact is caused by global warming?
Might something else? Are there causes being involved?
Well, the answer is we can't. And any one disaster of that kind, of course, would weaken
the case inordinately. But if we look around the world, there is such a catalogue of floods,
droughts, warm years. In 1990 was the warmest year since records began well over a century
ago. 1991 was the third warmest despite the significant cooling effect of the Mount
Pina Tuba eruption of June of that year. If we look at the collection of these portendous
developments, it's quite clear we've got something to worry about. And the form of words
we use in green pieces that we believe we're seeing the first science of climate change.
Now that is not to say that we can 100% prove scientifically that we're seeing it. But
we're not alone in suspecting we're seeing it. And if you look in the technical literature
in recent months, there's a growing number of government scientists who are sticking their
heads out on this issue and saying it's here most notably, recently, spokesperson
from the Institute of Oceanographic Sciences in the UK, the Japanese Maritime Safety Agency,
the Russian Institute of Hydro Meteorology and others. So it's probably here that's
our conclusion. And the more important point anyway, given the long lifetimes of the greenhouse
gases in the atmosphere and the inonability to trap heat is the very strong warning that
comes for the future. That's the important point, not whether we can 100% prove that
we're seeing a signal today in 1993. Well, we're here today to talk about how all of this
impacts the insurance industry and we're fortunate to have with us on the line also Franklin
Nutherp today, who's president of the Re Insurance Association of America. Mr. Nutherp,
I wonder if you might be able to capitalize for us what you see these issues, how these issues
affect your industry? The insurance industry and government and the public
in the United States have grown complacent over the last 25 years with regard to the threat of
natural catastrophes. We did not have a major hurricane in Florida between 1965 and 1992 with
Hurricane Andrew. We have had moderate but not large earthquakes in California for many, many years.
The fact is that the public has moved to coastal areas. They live in high risk areas.
Property values have become much greater as a result of inflationary trends in the 70s and 80s.
The industry insurance industry got a wake-up call as did government. As a result of
the earthquake, the World Series earthquake of 1989, Hurricane Hugo, Hurricane Andrew,
the Midwest floods of this year, the northeastern storm that went up the East Coast
and Mid-Atlantic states in March of this year. The losses that the industry is paying,
some $18 billion in claims in Florida alone as a result of Hurricane Andrew,
say to the industry that we need programs of mitigation, better building codes,
better enforcement of building codes. The insurance companies need to look at the concentration
of risks they have and determine whether or not they are overexposed in areas of Long Island,
Florida, a number of the coastal states in order to ensure their solvency and to make certain they
can serve other insurance markets. I don't think the industry has concluded that we have an
Armageddon on our hands, but the trend in natural catastrophes is very alarming and staying lucky,
if we can say that we've stayed lucky, is no longer an acceptable policy for government
or the industry. We are only now opening the door to the question of what is causing these changes
and weather patterns and if they are man-made, what should be done about them. Greenpeace has reached
the conclusion and they may be right. I don't know whether they're right, but they are saying,
and I think they're right, that the insurance industry has an economic interest in
something that's in the public interest and that is determining whether or not government policy
and corporate and personal practices and habits are really threatening the viability of the
insurance industry and threatening the economic conditions of our country. Both Nutter and Legit
agree, in many states, Florida, for example, building codes are in place to minimize the catastrophic
effects of floods and hurricanes and such. What is lacking, they say, is proper enforcement.
But as Dr. Legit points out, even proper enforcement of codes is not addressing the real issue.
I think the thing to focus on here is the worst case analysis and that is that the climate
scientists have got it right or even underestimated the nature of the machine gun fire of catastrophe
as one very senior person in a European insurance company put it to me and that that is what the
industry faces. I think what we're already seeing around the world is what we in Greenpeace
go a sort of climatic domino effect. If I can illustrate what I mean, in 1990, there were
in 1991, there were very bad cyclones in the Pacific and Western Samoa was one of the nations
badly affected, insurers' property insurers pulled out of Western Samoa after the second of
those cyclones, cyclone vow. Then there was a ripple effect on in Hawaii after cyclone and Niki.
There were big problems for the industry. A number of companies closed down operations or pulled
out. Same happened in Florida after Hurricane Andrew or at least companies wanted to pull out
until the state insurance commissioner issued them a retirement. Our point would be to the industry
that it's not going to stop there. That's a taste of what on the big balance of probabilities
it would face in the future. If it doesn't do something about it, now there are two ways of doing
something about it. There's the adaptation route and that's very important. All these things
must have not just been talking about it, very important for the industry building codes
and also adaptations of the market, increasing rates, putting caps on reassurance,
increasing deductible so that people have a stake in their own losses and that's an incentive
to keep claims down. All that's terribly important. But what we want the industry to do is look
beyond that and recognize the climatic domino effect. If we do face a machine gun fire of catastrophe
in the future and argue for mitigation, come to the climate negotiations, lobby governments, lobby
other components of the business community to do what's sensible and what manifestly is going to
buy security in the future for the industry and that is ultimately cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.
As we move into the future, like it says, no longer will we see an oil company but a total energy
company, Exxon Energy or Arco Energy Systems or something similar. These companies will provide
energy from a wide array of sources including solar and wind and the insurance industry will be
a motivating factor here, as solar and wind are safer to manufacture and distribute and therefore
insurance premiums will be lower and the same for homeowner insurance. A solar panel has yet to
catch fire, how many homes are burned down each year from oil or gas furnaces malfunctioning.
In the end though, it will be a question of social responsibility. Yes, as a beachfront property owner,
you do have the right to build and live right on the waterfront. But who is it that will be really
paying your insurance bill? Franklin Nutter. The insurance industry's point of view, I think the
reality is we have to accept the decisions people make about where they want to live. Thus we're seeing
dramatic increases in populations in coastal counties and in Florida and in California.
That reflects public attitudes of being willing to take that risk. The question becomes whether
the general taxpayer should subsidize the cost of that through disaster assistance payments and other
kinds of federal and state aid when these people have losses. And what is the answer? Your answer
to that? The answer in our view, the insurance industry's view is that in fact people who live in
those high risk areas should bear the cost of that. That their insurance premiums should reflect
the potential losses and actual losses that they experience by those choices and that we should
have, we should require people to have insurance to protect against that. There probably needs to be
some federal backup, what we would call a re-insurance program in the event of a mega catastrophe,
but insurance policy holders and insurers should be expected to pay proportionate with the risk
that they have based upon the decisions to live where they live. Once again, the old debate of
freedom versus responsibility now taking on a new somewhat chilling meaning. Dr. Jeremy Legget,
Scientific Director of the Climate Campaign of Greenpeace International and Franklin Nutter,
President of the Re-Insurance Association of America, spoke to us from New York City,
there participating in a conference called Climate Change and the Insurance Industry,
the Next Generation, the conference was co-sponsored by the College of Insurance,
Environmental Technology, Telecommunications Limited, and Greenpeace. This is Bruce Robertson.
Larry Sompke, the Environmental Gardener, doesn't mean to lead us down the garden path or anything,
it's just that in this case he made the garden path itself worth a visit. It was not difficult to do,
in fact he wants to walk us through the project so we can do it too. Hey, Larry, the Environmental
Gardener turn carpenter today, huh? That's right. I'm putting some finishing touches here on a
trellis that we made out of some rough native wood that we found in the woods behind our house.
So we're going to use this, we've built this thing, it looks like a big tree trellis,
and we're going to stand this up and we're going to create an entryway to our back garden.
We're trying to create this natural environmental look in our back garden here in our backyard,
and this is going to be the entryway and we want to keep it looking very nice and natural.
What kind of wood is this? Well, this is called iron wood. Also people have called it muscle wood.
Very smooth, no bark on it. Right, it has a real nice texture to it though.
You know, it's brown, looks like a tree and has a very nice texture. We didn't want to get anything
with a lot of bark that would come off. This was the most unique wood that we could find. Actually,
my wife chose this kind of wood and this was basically her idea to do this thing. And we've,
we've got wood saws. We didn't get power saws or anything like that. We just have little pruning
saws and we went out into the woods behind our house, cut them down the kids, Henry and Kid.
We all went up there and did it. We've made it into a fun family activity. Okay, now tell us again
what this is going to be, where it's going to be placed as a trellis on your walkway. Yeah, an
arbor, a gateway and we're going to plant it between the house and the garage here, right,
sort of in the middle and as the people come into the house, they'll have to pass through this
gateway. And on either side of the of the arbor, we're going to have a climbing hydrangea that when
it blooms will bloom all for the early part of the summer. And then we're going to plant a
climatus, a type of climatus that blooms in the fall, have a fall blooming climatus. Then on either
side of that, we're going to put in blueberries, bushes which grow up into six foot hedge-like
bushes and it'll be part of our edible landscape. And then of course they turn a bright red in the
fall. So we've got this whole beautiful landscape all designed around this wooden structure that
we cut from the woods behind our house. And so that will be a sort of a natural entrance way into
your flowering garden and your organic garden back into our backyard. And then we'll have some more
native species like the Joe Pie wheat I've got over here and some other brush and the perennials
that will create this once you know an illusion of walking into a sort of a forest woodland is
is what I really like people to have that in their backyard so that they can attract birds and
butterflies and have a more natural look rather than something that's you know kind of clean and sparse.
Okay, well strengthen it up and we'll walk through next time, Larry. All right. Take care.
.
Larry Sampki, the environmental gardener, author of beautiful easy gardens. His newly trellised
walkway leads to his home in Honolville, New York. This is Bruce Robertson.
In Chapter 16 of his new book, Dr. Norman Myers writes,
An artillery salvo does not serve against soil erosion. Rockets will be unguided when the
opponent is acid rain. No nation can now go it alone in a world where pollutants, whether acid
rain or greenhouse gases recognize no frontiers. This amounts to as great a change for the nation's
state systems as any since the emergence of the nation's state four centuries ago.
Myers who lives in Oxford, England recently made a rare brief visit to the states.
Looking out the window of his hotel room high over the busy streets of New York City below,
Myers talked about his new book titled Ultimate Security, the Environmental Basis of Political
Stability. What I think is distinctively different about my book is that it's
during the attention of John and Jane Doe's citizen and political leaders, I hope,
to a fundamental change that is overtaking our world, our politics, our economics, our relations
to each other, the relationships between one country and another, in relay concerning security.
Security were one of the most fundamental values and concerns we have. And we are now entering
an era, I believe, of a different sort of security. The threat from the sky is no longer
nuclear missiles. It is becoming ozone-led pollution and global warming.
We should note the nationalist leader of whom there are lots around the world who proclaims
he won't give away one square yard of national territory to a foining Vader, but at the same time
allows hundreds of square miles of topsoil to wash away from his country's lands over a year.
Environmental security addresses the foundations of our economies, that is climate, vegetation,
foes, fisheries, soils, which make very major contributions to our material welfare.
And this foundation is now being depleted at rates which are far far in excess than what we've
ever known in the past. It's pretty much a worldwide phenomenon, no nation is feared. If we give
attention to these environmental and appinings of our daily lives, I believe we shall gain more
enduring, more real, more all-round security that we will buy the traditional means of fighter planes
and tanks. Part of the challenge facing us, the challenge of how to raise funds for clean-up and
restoration of the environment, part of the challenge is deciding where to start. Everyone has a
top 10 list of priorities. For Myers, the list should be ordered in just this way.
The main focus for attention and for support funds should be the environmental crisis overall.
That means global warming and those are in legislation and loss of top soil and spread of desert,
sand shrinking forest, sand mass extinction, or all those put together because this crisis overall
has been described by a good number of political leaders by Jimicata, Chancellor Kohl of Germany,
President Miteo Ronders, the Hologram line of them including Bob McNamau of your country.
As a single biggest threat to our future, short of a nuclear exchange is on that sort of a scale.
But if you want Miteo to pick out, I wanted to, global warming will cause fearful damage to our
economies right around the world. It will impose, it's likely to impose massive droughts in
American Midwest. It may even cause your great grain belt to come and buckled. Parts of Florida,
Louisiana, your eastern coast would despair under the waves permanently. In some countries like
Bangladesh, huge chunks of national territory would be eliminated permanently. Bangladesh might
lose as much as one quarter of its territory to a sea level rise. This is a loss, greatly,
whatever stuff at the hands of a foreign invader. So I'd put global warming top. The second I would
put mass extinction of species because this is the one environmental problem that is inherently
irreversible when a species gone is gone for good. Whereas in the case of soil erosion,
well we can always allow natural processes to restore the soil cover. It might take a few centuries,
but it could be done. We could always fix up the ozone layer in a few centuries. We can stabilize
climate in a few centuries. We can push back the deserts. The length of time it will take evolution
to repair the damage done to the planetary stock of species will not be a few centuries. It'll be
several million years. It'll be at least 20 times longer than humans have been humans as an
individual species. The number of people who will live an impoverished world if we allow this mass
extinction to proceed will be at least 100 trillion. What we're doing now is a bigger decision taken
on the unconsulted behalf of other people, much bigger decision of that sort than any of that
has ever been taken in the whole course of human history. While he is eloquent in cataloging the
problems, he is also quick to counter the criticism that he is all gloom and doom. The rate of
destruction and loss of environmental stability that he describes, he says, presupposes that we
will not slow or even reverse our policies of destruction. In fact, he notes, in recent years,
there has been a tremendous upsurge of concern, expertise, and action on behalf of environmental
protection. We should give ourselves credit. However, there is one area where we should not give
ourselves credit, and this he says is really the keystone to it all. We'll find out more about
this next week as we continue our conversation with Dr. Norman Myers, author of Ultimate Security,
the Environmental Basis of Political Stability. It is newly available from WWW Norton, New York,
until next time, this is Bruce Robertson.
And that's our report on the Environment Show this week. Thanks much for joining us. Be
sure to tune in next week. We'll do it all again. For a cassette copy of the program, call 1-800-767-1929,
ask for the Environment Show Program Number 196. The Environment Show is a presentation of national
productions solely responsible for its content. Dr. Ellen Shartock executive producer, this is
Bruce Robertson. The Environment Show made possible by the JM Kaplan Fund of New York,
and by Heming's MotorNews, the National Bible of the Old Car Hobby, monthly from Bennington, Vermont.
