DOCTOR LEGGETT’S NOTEBOOK

This article is a review of ‘The Climate Time Bomb’ Greenpeace International, The Netherlands, June 1994. The Main Report 166pp £10 & ‘Executive Sumary’ 16pp £3.50. Both available from PO Box 10, Gateshead, Tyne and Wear NE8 1LL.

i) The All Pervasive but Furtive Nature of Global Warming.

Since the start of the industrial revolution there has been a 25% increase in the concentration of atmospheric Carbon dioxide (50% if the CO₂ equivalents of other greenhouse gases are included) and a 15-20% reduction in the Earth’s Forest cover. However, there is still no scientific proof that these changes have caused an increase in global warming. Whilst global average temperatures have increased since 1850 by 0.5C this could be due entirely to natural climatic variations. On a purely intuitive level, such a small increase in global temperatures doesn’t seem to make sense given the scale of the pollution dumped into the atmosphere and the reduction in Forest cover. One possible explanation is that the astronomic factors forcing the Earth toward a new ice age have prevented a larger increase in global temperatures. There is no scientific model, however, which indicates the start of this ice age and the degree of global cooling - although one academic has ventured that it may have started in the late middle ages (when, for example, the thames froze over on a number of occasions) but then stalled. If latent global cooling has been 2C then human induced global warming could be a powerful 2.5C rather than what seems like a feeble 0.5C. Given the scale of ecological devastation which humans have inflicted on the Earth, global warming could already have caused a latent increase in global temperatures of 0.5 - 5C - with the prospect of another 1-5C predicted for the future. It is almost as if global warming is hiding behind roadside billboards - and motorists whizzing past seem completely ignorant of the climatic battle they have provoked beyond the ‘road environment’.

There are other manifestations of an increase in global warming; a rise in sea levels; an increase in the frequency and strength of windstorms; and record breaking droughts and floods. But, just as was the case with global temperatures, none of these increases constitute proof about anthropogenic global warming. They are all within the realm of natural variablility. What is more, none of these factors have changed sufficiently to make the public concerned about the destabilization of the climate. Whilst scientists are still cautious (but increasingly agitated) about the onset of global warming, the public is entirely indifferent.

ii) Climatic Disasters.

There is, however, another criterion for assessing the increase in global warming. Since may 1990 jeremy leggett, greenpeace’s chief climate researcher, has been compiling a database of climatic disasters. The evidence he has accumulated suggests that global warming is causing an increase in climatic disasters and this evidence is far more dramatic than that concerning the rise in global temperatures or in sea levels, etc. “For the 20 year period up to October 1987, there had been no catastrophes causing losses of more than a billion dollars (in constant 1992 dollars).”[1] Since 1987 .. “there have been fifteen ‘billion dollar’ climate-related natural disasters ...”[2] - the 1987 storm in britain and north eastern europe was the first of these disasters. Although this still does not constitute scientific proof that humans have boosted global temperatures, it does demonstrate a remarkable degree of climatic destabilization.[3] The revelation was sufficiently newsworthy to be covered not merely by the guardian but by the daily mirror - a rare publicity success for global warming.[4]

‘The Climate Time Bomb’ is composed of two publications; the main report and an executive summary. Although they compose one work they are quite distinct. The main report bears the signs of having been a notebook which has been frantically tidied up into a booklet. It contains plenty of spelling mistakes, numerical errors, as well as, rather surprisingly, an incomprehensible numbering of the 15 $billion climate disasters. The executive summary is the exact opposite - a colourful, attractive, and highly polished, publication. It provides an overview of global climate change which is difficult to appreciate in the main report which presents a detailed chronology of the climatic disasters which have taken place in many countries around the world in the 1990s.

These criticisms should not detract, however, from what is an extraordinary work. The contents are so explosive they entirely negate the schizophrenic publishing format. There is a lot to be gleaned from this work. There’s the grim fascination with the colossal power which the Earth sometimes unleashes against ‘civilization’; the surprising revelation that the country which seems to have suffered the most because of global warming is not an industrializing, or disintegrating, nation but america, the main culprit of global warming - even more surprising is the climatic blitzkreig being waged against california; then there’s the delight when those industries which not merely exacerbate global warming but deny its existence are pulverized by a climate disaster. There’s also the tantalizing implication that more people are being made homeless by global warming than by poverty.

iii) Climatic Disasters and the Global Insurance Industry.

One of the major themes of this work is the impact of climate disasters on the global insurance industry. The insurance industry is one of the wealthiest industries in the world.[5] It used to be one of the most profitable. The recent series of climatic disasters have not merely cost the global insurance industry a fortune[6] but have raised the spectre of a single climate disaster which could bankrupt the entire industry, .. “if Hurricane Andrew had been twenty miles further north, the insurance bill would have been $75 billion, not $16.5 billion. If Andrew had continued west, maintained strength, and hit New Orleans as well as Miami, the total bill would have been in excess of $100 billion. Yet the total global resources available for catastrophe losses of all kinds at any one time are only around $160 billion.”[7]

The collapse of the global insurance industry would have a profound impact on the world economy, “One very senior source in Lloyd’s painted a desperate picture for me of tens of thousands losing their jobs in the labour-intensive industry, of many millions finding themselves without home insurance, of construction of new homes and businesses coming to a halt in the same manner Caribbean and Pacific economies are now beginning to experience, of knock-on impacts on pensions and life insurance, and even, due to company defaults, a squeeze on motor insurance.”[8] Ultimately, “Healthy economies are impossible without a healthy international insurance industry.”[9]

Greenpeace’s focus on the insurance industry is a novel tactic with a number of benefits.

Firstly, whilst calculations of the economic cost of a natural disaster are pure conjecture and can thus be dismissed, insurance costs can be calculated to the last penny.

Secondly, whilst the economic costs of a climatic disaster are usually confined to those living in a disaster area, insurance costs tend to affect more people living outside the disaster area e.g. those paying higher insurance premiums and insurance company shareholders. Huge numbers of people, not just those living in ‘disaster prone regions’ thereby acquire a stake in averting climatic disasters. It is all very well for taxpayers to enjoy taxcuts but if they’ve got to keep paying higher insurance premiums every year they aren’t going to be any better off.

Thirdly, whilst nearly all other industries have a vested interest in disparaging global warming, the insurance industry has a vested interest in combatting global warming.

Most of greenpeace’s efforts to highlight the connection between climate disasters and the insurance industry have been devoted to lobbying the chief executives of the world’s major insurance companies rather than campaigning amongst insurance policy holders. This has involved organizing seminars/conferences for institutions which had not previously shown a great deal of interest in saving Whales and reducing pollution, “I gave a seminar based on the report at Lloyd’s of London in January 1993, and Greenpeace UK subsequently organized a conference in the City of London during May, where most of the speakers were from industry.”[10] Leggett is trying to persuade the industry

* to participate in post-Rio negotiations over global warming, (currently dominated by the coal, oil, gas, and car, industries);

* to use its enormous economic clout to lobby governments to take action against global warming; and,

* to set insurance premiums to favour renewable energy, “There is much that the insurance industry could do to help foster the transition (to a sustainable future). Insurance capital is one of the world’s largest reservoirs for investment. It would behove the industry to look very closely, seeking legislative help from government as necessary, at where all capital is invested. Fossil-fuel-related operations should be eschewed, and solar energy and energy-efficiency projects favoured.”[11] Quite whether solar energy and energy-efficiency are solutions to global warming is another issue.[12]

This tactic raises a number of questions. Firstly, what are the chances of convincing the global insurance industry about global warming?[13] Secondly, even if the insurance industry became convinced that it had a vested interest in opposing climate change would it be powerful enough to counteract the influence of the major multi-national corporations which condone global warming? Thirdly, should greenpeace focus solely on the chief executives of the insurance industry or develop campaigns aimed at the large number of homeowners with insurance policies? Fourthly, is it right to try and save the insurance industry especially if its collapse could bring down the entire economic system? In turn, this is related to the question of whether there is a need for green insurance in a sustainable world? Only the first question will be explored here.

iv) Lloyd’s Climatic Disasters.

The recent climatic disasters have caused catastrophic financial losses for lloyd’s of london.[14] ‘The Climate Time Bomb’ mentions lloyd’s losses but does not go into their political implications which are heavily dosed with schadenfreude. For those of us who have been sickened by 15 years of tory governments financing and promoting ecological destruction, it is a source of considerable pleasure that 51 tory members of parliament, all of whom invested their entire life savings in lloyd’s in the expectation of huge profits, currently find themselves with debts totalling £22 million and are, in effect, paying for the damage they helped to cause. Even more delightful, is that if these mps are forced to repay their debts then many would have to declare themselves bankrupt and the government’s majority of 18 would disappear.[15] Who would have thought that this government which, over the last 15 years, has ridiculed environmental issues, refused to carry out any meaningful environmental assessments of its policies, and caused widespread ecological devastation, stands on the brink of collapse because of climatic disasters - many of which have happened on the other side of the Planet?

Therein lies the political limitations of greenpeace’s tactics. Lloyd’s has no intention of pushing the government over the brink not merely because some of its members are in the cabinet (not to mention the royal family, the house of lords, the military, and the rest of the brutish establishment)[16] but because it doesn’t want a labour government which would regulate the city and put a stop to its wholesale criminal activities. In the past greenpeace has confronted the tory government in public over global warming and got nowhere. What it now seems to be doing is basically confronting the tory party at work.[17]

The second major problem in persuading the insurance industry to take a stand against global warming is the competitive nature of the industry. Whilst some insurance companies might want to fix their premiums to take into account the risks posed by global warming, other companies are bound to continue ignoring the risks, or might be willing to take on the risks, and offer smaller premiums - thereby putting the former out of business. In the short run what matters is who offers the cheapest insurance premium.

Leggett’s rallying cry to the global insurance industry is, “In buying insurance for its own future markets, the insurance industry would be buying insurance for the planet, and the wider risk-community thereon.”[18]. For some reason the idea that ‘what is good for lloyd’s is good for the Earth’ lacks plausibility. After earlier such claims by other multi-national corporations, it should be blatantly obvious that the world’s leading multi-national corporations are Earth rapists incapable of doing anything but representing their own short term interests. Lobbying the insurance industry to take action against global warming is a bit like supporting the nuclear power industry for its opposition to global warming. Greenpeace’s tactic is also vulnerable given that whenever radicals start lobbying multi-nationals they invariably become infected by the exchange. It is slightly worrying, therefore, when leggett talks about the integrity of lloyd’s. Other, more objective, commentators tend to point out, “the blatant insider dealing, massive graft and breathtaking corruption involving billions of pounds ...”[19] which goes on in this self-regulated institution.[20]

v) Climate Politics.

The chronology of climate disasters presented in the main report is interspersed with details of the latest scientific reports about various aspects of global warming which should help to illuminate the complex nature of global warming.[21]

Presentationally ‘The Climate Time Bomb’ is disappointing in many ways. It could have presented:-

* a league table of the hottest years since records began - most of the hottest occurred since 1980;

* a list of the $1 billion climate disasters;

* a list of the climate disasters which have hit each country;

* the number of people who have been made homeless by climatic disasters;

* the area of Forest destroyed by climate disasters;

* a fuller list of the insurance companies going broke because of climatic disasters; the areas of the world which have lost insurance cover; and the areas threatened by the loss of insurance cover.

This summarization would have involved only cross referencing data but would have added considerably to the impact of this work.

The fundamental achievement of this work is to show why climatic disasters should be put at the centre stage of green politics. The database is the best source of information about what is happening to the Earth’s climate. Although the information has been used by greenpeace to adopt some questionable tactics, it can also be used to develop far more radical ones. This work also exposes the amateurishness, ecological ignorance and intellectual poverty of the ‘green’ party. It is more than a coincidence that virtually at the same time as greenpeace published this major work, the green party’s newspaper published an article encouraging members to believe there were many voters around the country who would vote green in the forthcoming local, and euro, elections. The message was, “The political climate is changing.”[22] The green party is more concerned with the political climate than it is with the Earth’s climate. It is so preoccupied with the political climate it just doesn’t know what is going on with the Earth’s climate. Whilst it keeps pretending that the political climate is changing it is oblivious of the changes in the Earth’s climate and unwilling to use climatic change to shift public opinion about green issues. It seems to be an impossibility to get green party members to take the Earth’s climate seriously. The green party refuses to accept that the reason the Earth’s climate is getting worse because the political climate is getting worse. And, as if to confirm this xenophobic ignorance of the torrential scale of the ecological disasters currently happening around the world, econews’ post-elections’ disaster issue contained an editorial which pronounced, “The Green party simply cannot afford to have a strategy which relies on waiting for and reacting to ecological disasters to boost our vote.”[23] - as if there haven’t been any environmental disasters since chernobyl and the disovery of a hole in the ozone layer!!! One wonders whether even greenpeace’s 166 page booklet full of the latest, up to date, ecological disasters will be enough to wake up the disaster prone, disaster myopic, disasterously ignorant, green party.

‘The Climate Time Bomb’ is compulsory reading for anyone with the slightest interest in, or concern about, global warming. Hopefully greenpeace will update its database, polish away the blemishes, and present some hard hitting tables for the second edition. Let’s hope ‘The Climate Explosion’ won’t be an obituary for the human race.