postMigrator

Property Insurers Confront Rising Catastrophe Losses

By postMigrator July 10, 2008 July 10, 2008 RT Newswire

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“Bad weather has cost U.S. property insurers more than $5 billion so
far in second-quarter catastrophe-related claims — equal to about
three-quarters of all catastrophe claims during 2007 — and could
push the industry to an underwriting loss.”

“The Insurance Services Office defines a catastrophe as an event that causes
more than $25 million in insured losses and causes a major disruption.”
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The Wall Street Journal
June 30, 2008

Property Insurers Confront Rising Catastrophe Losses
By LAVONNE KUYKENDALL

Bad weather has cost U.S. property insurers more than $5 billion so
far in second-quarter catastrophe-related claims — equal to about
three-quarters of all catastrophe claims during 2007 — and could
push the industry to an underwriting loss.

Bill McKibben Editorial: When Words Fail

By postMigrator July 10, 2008 July 10, 2008 RT Newswire

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“We haven’t come up with words big enough to
communicate the magnitude of what we’re doing.”
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Orion Magazine
June 29, 2008

When Words Fail
by Bill McKibben

I almost never write about writing-in my
aesthetic, the writing should disappear, the
thought linger. But the longer I’ve spent working
on global warming-the greatest challenge humans
have ever faced-the more I’ve come to see it as
essentially a literary problem. A technological
and scientific challenge, yes; an economic
quandary, yes; a political dilemma, surely. But
centrally? A crisis in metaphor, in analogy, in
understanding. We haven’t come up with words big
enough to communicate the magnitude of what we’re
doing. How do you say: the world you know today,
the world you were born into, the world that has
remained essentially the same for all of human
civilization, that has birthed every play and
poem and novel and essay, every painting and
photograph, every invention and economy, every
spiritual system (and every turn of phrase) is
about to be . . . something so different? Somehow
“global warming” barely hints at it. The same
goes for any of the other locutions, including
“climate chaos.” And if we do come up with
adequate words in one culture, they won’t
necessarily translate into all the other
languages whose speakers must collaborate to
somehow solve this problem.

Update: Climate and Species Refugees

By postMigrator July 10, 2008 July 10, 2008 Uncategorized

—————————- Original Message —————————-
Subject: Update: Climate and species refugees
From:    “Lance Olsen” <lance@wildrockies.org>
Date:    Sat, June 28, 2008 6:23 am
To:      “cmcr-outreach” <cmcr-outreach@vortex.wildrockies.org>
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Among other things, an article in this week’s
issue of Science underscores Rule #1 for anyone
who leads nature walks for public education
purposes: What you see is not what you’ll get —
especially, community composition/habitat types
cannot remain as we see them now, because these
eggs are already being scrambled.

Here’s how Scientific American reviewed the
Science article. (I have the article as pdf. Feel
free to ask.)
Lance
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“The researchers found that grasses, herbs and
other short-lived species that had been through
many generations shifted the most in search of
perfect temperatures, whereas long-lived trees
stayed largely in place. According to the
authors, this is changing the composition of the
forest-mixing formerly low-altitude grasses with
high-altitude trees-which could potentially
affect the entire ecosystem, particularly the
animals that rely on specific plants to survive.”

North Pole Ice Free in 2008?

By postMigrator July 10, 2008 July 10, 2008 RT Newswire

No Ice At The North Pole: Polar Scientists Reveal Dramatic New
Evidence of Climate Change:

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/27/9920/

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