The UNDRR report’s Foreword and press release were opposite the report’s own findings, and spread panic when none was warranted.
German Die kalte Sonne site here presents its latest video on climate news. Today we look at the first part focusing on the UN’s assessment of “Human Costs of Disasters”.
It turns out the press release and the report’s Foreword were misleading and alarmist without warrant. Once again it appears it was all designed to spread panic.
UN claim: “rise in disasters”
The UNDRR report assessed climate disasters globally the last 20 years (2000 – 2019).
First we note the report’s Foreword, where the UNDRR states there’s been a “staggering rise in climate related disasters” and that industrial countries “are failing miserably on reducing greenhouse gas emissions”:
This dismal announcement was also passed on to the media via press release and instantly the media declared the end was nigh.
Reality: No rise in disasters
Yet, Die kalte Sonne then shows Figure 5 of the UNDRR report, and it shows a totally different picture: There’s been no rise in disasters from storms:
Figure 5 of UNDRR Report
Good news: Downward trend!
Next Die kalte Sonne shows a chart with the earthquakes removed, made by Roger Pielke Jr., professor at the University of Colorado. Earth quakes have nothing to do with climate and so a clearer picture of the climate and weather impacts emerges.
Image source: Prof. Roger Pielke Jr.
Without earthquakes, the trend for “climate-related disasters” has been clearly downward, dropping around 15%. This is good news and is not even remotely close to what was spread by the lazy and uncritical mainstream press.
The downward trend completely contradicts the claims made in the report’s Foreword and the UNDRR press release. Die kalte Sonne comments:
It’s still unclear how this reporting failure by the UN came about. The error does not reflect well on the quality assurance of UN reports.”
Funny how MunichRe sees the data very differently than Pielke.
https://www.iii.org/sites/default/files/graphs/loss_events_in_us_80-18.gif
Some people are clever enough to believe an insurance company over a distinguished OBJECTIVE scientist. Congrats to you.
Funny thing is that the insurance industry jumped on the “climate change” bandwagon rather energetically – since it’s a free lunch for them.
Just think about it. They can add in “climate change risk” assessments, and up premiums – knowing that the “climate change risks” are unlikely to materialize… and they can just pocket the vigorish. The Australian underwriters have been pretty good at this scheme…
And the “insurance industry” has funded plenty of “research” (sic) on “climate change” (sic). Remember Kerry Emanuel at MIT? Turns out his “research” (sic) was funded by the insurance industry. Gee, I wonder why?
I hope you would agree, the insurance industry is specifically in the risk management business. If you think they’re doing this just to make an extra buck on insurance, you should be able to correlate that to claims. But you don’t do that. You merely assert something you have no proof of.
Yes, I did – not my fault if you don’t want to follow up on the financials.
Raise premiums based on “climate risk” and then when the “climate risk disasters” don’t happen, well, vigorish.
Crony capitalism is ruining real capitalism.
Rob is probably the first person I know who believes insurance companies aren’t in business to make money.
“Rob is probably the first person I know who believes insurance companies aren’t in business to make money.”
Pierre… As a business, you make no money if you price your product in a manner that allows your competitors to undercut you. This is known as pricing efficiencies. Conversely, you don’t make money if you underprice your product because you don’t account for real risks and costs that drive your profits into the negative.
Pielke has been shown demonstrably wrong in his research. He’s not a climate researcher at all. He has a degree in political science. His results are ideologically motivated.
And Pierre, you should be more concerned about the fact that you’ve deprived charities of $4250 due to them from deadbeat “skeptics” who’ve not made good on their bets. You’re failing in the responsibility that you, yourself, accepted 10 years ago.
You don’t understand how reinsurers work. Ramble on, Rob.
Saying I don’t understand something isn’t a discussion, Pierre. I know how reinsurance works. But they’re like all businesses, if you overprice your product you lose to competitors. If you underprice, you lose money. That’s the whole point of capitalism.
Rob, in the insurance industry, if you spread panic about increased natural disasters, then of course clients will be more inclined to pay higher premiums – and so the whole reinsurer industry wins. It’s like the Pharma industry scaring people with heart disease and telling them they’d better insure themselves against it by taking statins. The whole pharma industry wins because demand rises, and prices along with it.
I always took you for a kind of free market thinker, Pierre. Who do you think has the greatest financial incentive to get the facts right on this topic?
“Who do you think has the greatest financial incentive to get the facts right on this topic?”
Not the insurance business — they wish to make as much as possible, and they do as so much is government mandated to have insurance. All to often during tough financial time some insurance companies just liquidate themselves pocketing the money.
Every business wishes to make as much as possible.
Pierre… I have to ask if you even read the report you’re commenting on here. It clearly states, “Overall, the number of disaster events per year and the distribution of disaster sub-groups has remained relatively stable between the year 2000 and 2019, with an average of 367 recorded events per year (Figure 5).”
And I highly question YOUR figure for “dropping around 15%.” That looks suspiciously like a trend line that’s not calculated and just drawn in after the fact.
You complain about much more minor infractions from climate scientists. If you’re going to complain, hold yourself to at least as high standards.
In my experience insurance companies always seek ways to reduce or not pay-up when a claim is made.
Is the “Act of God” clause still being used? Yet another unproven condition (prove God exists?) leading to non-payment. Now they have another get out of payment clause “climate change”.
Life insurance — an each way bet that you will die!
I would have thought a reasonable problematic outcome from burning the vast quantities of fuels of all types, say over the last two hundred years or so, would be a reduction in the quantity of oxygen available in the atmosphere. Co2 is added and oxygen is removed. All we hear about is the addition of Co2 and not the removal of oxygen. Could it be, we live in a brilliantly constructed environment where this all balances out, all by itself?
Falling O2 levels are also an indicator that rising CO2 levels are a function of burning fossil fuels. This has been studied.
https://static.skepticalscience.com/images/CO2_vs_oxygen.gif
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/icdc7/proceedings/abstracts/keeling.rFF328Oral.pdf
“Falling O2 levels are also an indicator that rising CO2 levels are a function of burning fossil fuels. This has been studied.”
Not sure how that concusion is arrived at?
The more CO2 cauues more greening of plsnts.Plsnts use the CO2 for photosysnthesis which ceates more growth, more plants snd the by product is O2 and water vapour. So more green also = more o2, Suggest the skepticalscience fools need to reclibrate their oxygen sensors.
There is no evidence that CO2 is a function of burning of fossil fuels either. When there were CO2 levels of over 5000ppm in the Cambrian period some 500-600 million years ago there were no vehicles or SUV’s or humans or that matter to burn fossil fuels, yet there were high levels of CO2. – pull te other one Honeycutt
Have you tried to read any of the research on this topic?
Apparently not.
Skeptical Science Blog…
https://motls.blogspot.com/2010/03/john-cook-skeptical-science.html
http://www.populartechnology.net/search?q=skeptical+science
…LOLOLOL
Robert Folkerts,
It’s a carbon cycle, the exchange of CO2 for oxygen. CO2 has risen not because of man and burning fuel but that since we have come out of the LIA oceans and the defrosting tundras are venting more CO2 to the atmosphere. Humanity’s contribution to atmospheric CO2 is minor compared to nature.
The planet is greening and the more toxic oxygen levels will eventually rise slightly, not that it will be readily seen as atmospheric oxygen, and like CO2, is controlled by its solubility in the oceans.
Please note that nature’s timetable for change (any change) is something human’s barely understand.
No kidding Tomo,
a carbon cycle!!
Guess what, that was my point.
Such a clever system, one could almost consider it was designed that way.
Really nice comeback Pierre. Congrats to YOU.
[…] by P. Gosselin […]
It is worth noting that an insurance company can justify raising rates when an authority such as the UN says more of this and that.
If, in fact, there is less of this and that, the new rates send money to the bottom line.
I’m shocked, I tell you. Shocked!
Same applies to you as I posted above. If this were true you should be able to associate that data to claims. What you might not understand is the insurance industry is also highly regulated and can’t just make stuff up to justify claims.
In addition, the insurance industry is highly competitive. The incentive is to get the numbers right so you can charge the lowest rates while not placing your business at risk of excessive claims.
Do you guys just not bother to think these things through?
You must take into account all investments that have been made over the years, ie that the total value of what is insured has increased over time.
Thus, there will also be a flat or slightly downward trend.
Do not forget that P. Gosselin uses global data and you use (insurance losses) only from the U.S.
Pierre and John,
Thanks for letting a little bit of light shine through.
An interesting thing – here in the Scottish Gulag – but presumably all over, is that an outfit called SEPA (Scottish environmental protection agency) comes out with ridiculous prognostications about sea level rises.
This in turn allows mortgage providers to increase their insurance premiums on poor sods trying to buy a house anywhere near the seaside.
This quango bases their figures on the corrupt UN statements rather than on the scientific evidence that Scotland is in fact rising up from the last ice age.
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