The damage which the Earth inflicts upon the Carbon-debtor countries is a source of consolation amidst the torrent of destruction these countries are inflicting upon this beautiful, and extraordinarily wondrous, Planet. The reason it is legitimate to celebrate the damage inflicted on the countries responsible for boosting global warming is that they are currently making no effort to limit their ecological destructiveness. Correspondingly, it is a source of sadness when those countries which have been living within their ecological means, and thus helping to moderate the destabilization of the climate, are damaged by climatic disasters.[3]

Similarly, whilst there has been an increase in the number of climatic disasters over the last few years there is no proof that these disasters have been caused by anthropogenic global warming. Once again, the increase in disasters could be within climatic variation. Given that there have been so many climatic disasters it seems far more likely that they are beyond climatic variability.[4]

The most striking evidence about the increasing frequency of climatic disasters has been compiled by greenpeace which recently published a diary of the world’s major climatic disasters since may 1990.[5] ‘The Climate Time Bomb’ provides the evidence for the arguments presented in this chapter. The next section reprints a few summaries from this work to highlight the scale of the disasters which are happening around the world and thus the seriousness of the climatic threat.

The climate disasters causing insurance bills of a billion dollar are (in chronological order):-[11]

“Between 1970 and 1992, insurance companies took more than $10 billion in premiums for property insurance in Florida. On 24th August 1992, within the few hours Hurricane Andrew took to pass over the state, they lost all of that, and another $6.5 billion besides. In the past six years the insurance industry has been hit by a succession of huge claims following devastating tropical hurricanes.

This generated from 1986 onwards sizeable overcapacity - too much money chasing too little business. In 1986 profits exceeded $1,000 million. In 1987, they were around $700 million. Then the losses began, with the high storm catastrophe payouts compounded by rocketing asbestos and pollution losses in the USA, and with balance sheets weakened by junk bond holdings, low interest rates and generally weak stock markets. In 1988 the losses exceeded $1,000 million. In 1989 they ran to $3.3 billion. Half this was borne by less than half-a-dozen syndicates, and 37% by just two. The losses devastated the market. In 1987, there were 30,000 “Names” and more than 400 syndicates. By 1991 there were 22,000 Names and 278 syndicates.”[39] This contraction has continued, “The number of syndicates has been slashed from 389 in the mid-eighties to 111 with many loss making organizations phased out.”[40]

Even during 1992 when the rio Earth summit generated widespread publicity about the threat posed by climate disasters, large numbers of the brutish establishment were still clamouring to invest in lloyd’s in the belief that they could make vast profits by ... insuring against climatic disasters, “Despite the losses from 1988 to 1991, Lloyd’s received £1 billion in new names’ money in 1992.”[41] Even in terms of their own loony, stereotaxic ideology they were acting a little bizarrely. Although tory politicians had been denouncing for over a decade or so government investments in unprofitable industries, they were willing to risk their entire life savings investing in a company which had lost $10.1 billion over the previous 4 years. They were acting even more perversely given the fact that in 1990 the world’s scientific establishment had announced, almost unanimously, that they believed the Earth’s climate was likely to change profoundly over the next century or so - especially if the totally insane, ecologically destructive, policies proposed by tory politicians were implemented. It is impossible to discern whether it is greed or stupidity, or perhaps both, which drives tory mps and members of the brutish establishment. Whilst publically they promote gatt free trade, endless economic growth, and the deregulation of the environment, which can lead only to the destruction of Earth’s life support system at an ever faster rate, privately they gamble their entire life savings on the hope that there will be no climatic disasters. Or, is this just plain, outright insanity? Perhaps it is what these politicians themselves refer to as the ‘hothouse effect’ of life in the westminster Carbon brothel - without appreciating in the slightest the geophysiological undertones of such a phrase.

For some unknown reason, the sun newspaper decided to publish a list of tory mps’ debts to lloyd’s. It showed that 39 tories owed a total debt of £2,477,600. Many of the debts were for tens of thousands of pounds which, given the wealth of tory mps’ directorships, would not have been a crippling burden. The article went on to explain that even those mps whose debts were more substantial would not be troubled because their wealth was more than sufficient to meet the bills. The only person portrayed as having been financially damaged by the debts was garel-jones, “Foreign Office Minister Tristan Garel-Jones has lost £122,250 in the Lloyd’s disaster .. even his wife is in Lloyd’s too and is thought to have lost money. Mr Garel-Jones denied the Lloyd’s crash was the reason he insisted on quitting as a Minister this week.”[42] Almost in passing the sun pointed out that these debts covered only one year. The daily mirror, which is less disinterested in environmental issues than the sun, pointed out that, “ One study by independent experts has predicted that 43 tories face a total bill of almost £2 million for two years ..”[43] Its “independent experts” mentioned here seem to be the sun!

Perhaps one of the reasons for the continued investment in lloyds at that time was the ‘climate of optimism’ (sic) which pervaded the institution. In 1993 lloyd’s losses for 1991 were provisionally estimated at $1.5 billion[44] (Lloyd’s accounts are always calculated three years in arrears). In 1994, lloyds announced that its actual 1991 losses were £2.5 billion. Peter middleton, the chief executive, dismissed this calamity by suggesting, “The outlook for 1992 is considerably better and there is every prospect of a good profit in 1993.”[45] - even though he must have known that there had been a record number of climatic disasters in 1992. It is commonly believed that meteorologists have trouble predicting tomorrow’s weather but peter middleton clearly has problems predicting what the weather was like two years earlier. There were a number of major climatic disasters in 1992, “Natural catastrophes in 1993 cost $50 billion in economic losses worldwide, compared to the record $62.5 billion in 1992. Insured losses were $10 billion in 1993 compared to the record of $24.4 million in 1992.”[46] In other words, the rest of the industry, which works on a more up-to-date accounting system, had already conceded that 1992 was one of the worst years for climate disasters.

A year after the sun’s disclosure about tory debts to lloyds, peter hain, a former ‘red guard’ in the young liberals but now a labour member of parliament, revealed that mps debts were far more substantial, “Labour MP Peter Hain has obtained a list of 51 Tory MPs from Lloyd’s insiders which shows they are facing bills totalling more than £22 million because of losses incurred by their insurance syndicates. One of the so-called “Names” could owe as much as £1,657,704 while another may be asked to repay £1,032,414.”[47]

However, hain raised an even more serious aspect of this issue. He claimed that lloyds is not insisting on the repayment of these debts, as it is doing with other names who owe similar sums of money, because if an mp is declared bankrupt they must resign their parliamentary seat. Given that the government’s majority was only 18 at the time, this could quickly have lead to a general election,[48] “Premier John Major has been given sensational evidence that Lloyd’s - the disaster-prone insurance giant - is waiving MPs’ debts to keep his Government in power. But Mr Hain claims that MPs have not been forced to stump up the cash because some would be bankrupted, forcing them to quit their seats and wiping out Mr Major’s slender majority.”[49] Lloyd’s has no intention of pushing the government over the brink not merely because some of its members are in the cabinet but because it doesn’t want a labour government which would regulate the city and put a stop to its wholesale criminal activities - e.g. bcci, barings, etc..[50]

The government has already started to help its Planetless mps reduce their liabilities by allowing lloyds’ losses to be claimed against tax, "the Budget will for the first time allow the Names to set tax against three years' losses and profits."[51] The government is therefore forcing taxpayers to pay out billions of pounds not only to save tory members of parliament from a national scandal but to rescue itself from a general election. It should be pointed out that, “A top banker explains this week that 90% of the cost of the (Piper Alpha) disaster will be met by the British taxpayer. The companies - Occidental, Texaco, Union Texas and Lasmo - can claim tax relief on all the oil they haven’t been able to get out of the North sea because the Piper Alpha has been out of action and the cost of replacing the rig. They can claim 106p for every pound spent. Piper Alpha cost the oil companies roughly £2 billion at least £1.8 billion of which must be paid by the taxpayer.”[52] The mps who are having their lloyd’s losses paid off by the taxpayers are the same ones who denounce people on the dole as spongers and seek to reduce their welfare benefits.

Lloyds has also had to change its rules to avert a repetition of this disaster in the future, “At present, there is no limit to the amount an investor can be asked to pay. But new regulations have recently come in to change the unlimited liability rule for future years”[53]

Tory mps are doing their best to cover up their financial liabilities by breaking the house of commons’ rules on the disclosure of mps’ financial interests, “Employment Secretary David Hunt, Trade Minister Richard Needham and former Premier Sir Edward Heath head a list of MPs who have failed to detail their membership of Lloyd’s. Yesterday’s release of the Register of MPs’ Interests reveals a total of nine MPs who have broken the new rule on listing the membership of individual syndicates.”[54]

The tory mps who, on the one hand, ignored the environmental implications of government policies and, on the other hand, invested in lloyd’s insurance syndicates as a quick and easy way of getting even richer, are having to pay through their pockets for the climatic disasters they have caused (assuming that is that they can’t get the taxpayer to pay off all their debts). There is a rough justice in this. These politicians, who include not merely back-benchers but government ministers and even members of the cabinet, are now even more opposed to any environmental assessment of government policies since many of them are now desperately looking for even more directorships on the world’s biggest Earth rapist’ multi-national corporations (not to mention a few privatized companies) to help pay off their enormous debts. It has been noted above that garel-jones resigned from the government because of his families’ debts to lloyd’s. His financial situation is no longer as dire because, “Ex-deputy Foreign Secretary Tristan Garel-Jones is also busy exploiting his contacts. He is an adviser to the Union Bank of Switzerland, Biwater International and British Gas.”[55] Brutish gas - now there’s an environmentally friendly industry if ever there was one.

Many of the names with huge financial losses believed their debts were caused by mismanagement or unfair practices at lloyd’s and organized themselves into action groups to take legal action against their agents.[56] They first had to win the right to have their complaint heard in court. In December 1993 lloyds attempted to head off the pending courtroom battles by offering its 21,000 Names compensation of up to £1,000,000 in a package amounting to £900,000,000.[57]  The investor groups rejected the offer and, soon after, won the right to take their claims to court, “Investors in Lloyd’s of London won a crucial court victory yesterday when they learned they could sue their agents for negligence over recent heavy losses. The Names .. have lost more than £6 billion in the past 5 years.”[58]

In the summer of 1994, an investor group won the first court case against the repayments of its debts and this has opened the way for other action groups to have their names’ debts reduced. It is hardly surprising the courts have been so accommodating to action groups’ complaints considering that many judges themselves face large debts from lloyd’s.

This whole episode, provoked by climatic disasters, has been heavily dosed with schadenfreude. It has been enjoyable watching the brutish elite losing huge quantities of money. Denis healey once promised to tax the rich ‘until the pips squeaked’ but whilst he tamely limped out of office climatic disasters have forced some names to sell their homes, pushed many into bankruptcy, and driven others to suicide. It has also been enjoyable watching the vile rich scrambling around in the mire trying to protect their fortunes firstly, by getting parliament to pass tax concessions and then grovelling to the courts in the hope that judges would relieve them of their burdens. It has been all too enjoyable listening to names, who once made huge sums of money from the insurance market and upheld lloyds as the epitome of good brutish values, suddenly denouncing this central institution for wholesale fraud and corruption.

For those people 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, have found themselves with large debts primarily because of climate disasters. Having made millions of pounds out of ecological destruction they face the prospect of having to pay for (some of) the consequences of this destruction. Even more delightful was the possibility, now long since passed, that if these mps had been forced to repay all of their debts then many would have had to declare themselves bankrupt and the government’s majority of 18 would have disappeared. 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, stood on the brink of collapse because of climatic disasters - many of which happened on the other side of the Planet? If it hadn’t been for the widescale corruption within the government, lloyd’s and the judiciary, which has enabled mps to get off the hook then these Earth-rapist shits would be out of office along with the government - and, if the Earth had any say in the matter, facing long prison sentences for their role in the destruction of the Earth’s life support system.

The alleged negligence of lloyd’s agents in losing vast sums of money was ultimately the consequence of their ridiculing of global warming and it was their clients, i.e. politicians and industrialists etc., who were responsible for undermining the credibility of scientific concerns about global warming. What other ruling class in the world would implement policies destroying the Earth and then, after the world’s leading scientists predicted the likelihood of increasing climatic disasters, invested their entire life-savings in a financial institution which insures against the damage caused by climatic disasters?

Firstly, “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.”[59]

Secondly, “One insurers' nightmare scenario is a supercyclone smashing into Manhattan or Tokyo. This could generate claims approaching, or even exceeding, the total funds available for reinsurers, which currently stand at about £160 billion. Senior executives in insurance companies believe that a complete collapse of the reinsurance industry is possible. If that happens, the direct insurance market also implodes .. And one of the world's biggest businesses - at £1.3 trillion a year turnover is more than the arms trade or the oil industry - would have shrunk to a shadow of its former self.”[60]

The insurance industry is one of the wealthiest industries in the world and its collapse 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.”[61] Ultimately, “Healthy economies are impossible without a healthy international insurance industry.”[62]

This is not an anthropogenic climatic disaster but a self-infliced ecological disaster. It was not caused by the over-industrialized nations but by the arrogance, and doubtlessly corruption, of the ghanaian ruling elite and this merits some jubilation.

Firstly, it would be erroneous to believe, of course, that Animals deliberately cause traffic accidents either in revenge for the carnage that motorists inflict on other Animals or to try and protect the Earth. Many of the Animals causing traffic accidents also end up being maimed or killed and it would be wrong to devalue their suffering by celebrating what has been done to motorists. They are unwilling victims, not heroes acting in defence of the Earth. However, it would also be wrong not to find some way of honouring those Animals whose deaths have produced some geocentric benefit. Although it does not compensate for their deaths, praising Animals for protecting the Planet's life support system means they will not die in vain.

Secondly, some motorists have been injured or even killed attempting to avoid harming Animals which have strayed onto the road. Although there is a geocentric benefit from these motorists’ demise there is no justice. It’s just a pity that their concern for Animals in their headlights doesn’t extend to the damage which the car causes to colossal numbers of unseen Animals.

Thirdly, this analysis applies only to Wildlife not to domesticated Animals. It is wrong for oomans to own Animals and it is appalling that these Animals' lives should be put at risk, "There are approximately 500,000 stray dogs in the UK. 350,000 road accidents (are) caused by dogs of irresponsible owners."[71]

Whereas there are good reasons to celebrate the deaths of oomano-imperialist, Earth-wreckers in the over-industrialized nations, the deaths of humans in Carbon surplus nations is a tragedy, a waste of that enormous potential which all humans and Animals possess.