Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Warren Buffet has repeated his inconvenient message from last year, that climate has not affected his insurance business – though he is concerned about future climate change.
Warren Buffett says global warming is not impacting the way Berkshire writes insurance
Monday, 27 Feb 2017 | 3:34 PM ET
Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett on Monday said he has not yet seen sufficient evidence that climate change is affecting weather events to a degree that would make him change the way his conglomerate’s insurance businesses write policies.
Events such as Hurricane Sandy have raised concerns that global warming is increasing the intensity and frequency of so-called superstorms.
“I have not seen anything yet that would cause me to change the way we look at evaluating quakes, tornadoes, hurricanes by atmosphere. Now, that may happen some day,” he told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
…
Research shows it is premature to conclude greenhouse gas emissions from human activities “have already had a detectable impact on Atlantic hurricane or global tropical cyclone activity,” according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
…
“It seems highly likely to me that climate change poses a major problem for the planet. I say ‘highly likely’ rather than ‘certain’ because I have no scientific aptitude and remember well the dire predictions of most ‘experts’ about Y2K,” he wrote in last year’s shareholder letter.
“It would be foolish, however, for me or anyone to demand 100% proof of huge forthcoming damage to the world if that outcome seemed at all possible and if prompt action had even a small chance of thwarting the danger.”
Alarmists regularly push tall tales about contemporary storms being worsened by global warming. The reality is that even the alarmist NOAA can’t definitively detect an increase in storm activity.
NOAA make wild predictions of what they expect to happen by the end of this century, but answering for the accuracy of those predictions will be someone elses problem – few of those predictions will be tested, until long after most of us are dead.
Oh Warren … throwing raw meat to both sides of the house.
paraphrasing … not in our current business model but who am i to advise the world to not take action over something that might happen
Poppycock
Buffett has been saying this for years. Interestingly none other than James Hansen showed up to the annual meeting last year to lobby for a shareholder proposal on climate change. It was soundly defeated, but there was an interesting discussion.
There has to date been no climate change.
Probably not surprising since it is doubtful that temperatures today in the Northern Hemisphere (where most of us reside) are any higher than they were in the late 1930s/early1940s, or if up then only by 2 or 3 tenths of a degree.
We are lucky to live in such benign times. It would be far worse to live in conditions seen in pre industrial times.
Not sure where he gets his info from but my insurance is skyrocketing , so yes it is affecting the insurance industry but only as an excuse to raise premiums !
Well, there is that side to it. Any excuse to charge a bit more is always welcome for some companies, regardless of actual need.
Robert from oz wrote, “Not sure where he gets his info from but my insurance is skyrocketing … ”
What kind of insurance? What is the value of the insured and has it changed? What percent constitutes “skyrocketing”?
The portion of your premiums that cover storm risks are not going up due to storm losses.
Don’t forget, Robert, the industry also changed its policy af ew years back, when after a claim was put in place, they would send a Loss-Adjuster out to assess & thus “adjust” the loss to the insurance company, on the grounds that there was some intrinsic value left in the item being claimed for, if not a total loss. Here in the UK, some insurance companies, in a marketting bid to steel a march on their rivals, decided to introduce a like for like replacement scheme, thus increasing premiums over time, & the dumping of said “loss” item(s)!
Well, Lloyds of London, Allianz, British and European Insurers associations -pretty much the whole industry – are sure that climate change is real, having more of an impact and are raising premiums and calling for assessment of climate risk as a result.
For example see:
http://evanmills.lbl.gov/pubs/pdf/climate-action-insurance.pdf
(which for me displays in an annoyingly small format, but covers the issue)
Which hypothesis seems more plausible Griff?
1. Buffet doesn’t understand the insurance industry.
2. A lot of insurers are dishonestly using non-existent climate problems as an excuse to pump up premiums?
+10
“Eric Worrall March 2, 2017 at 1:01 am
2. A lot of insurers are dishonestly using non-existent climate problems as an excuse to pump up premiums?”
Insurance companies are in the business of making money by NOT PAYING OUT ON POLICIES. They insure against climate change because they know it’s money for jam! There is no risk to the insurers paying out in the event of “climate change” driven by CO2 because they know it’s not happening.
My post was supposed to be directed at Griff.
So they are raising premium. Are they losing money or making a killing? ; < )
If we look at publically traded insurance companies I am not seeing huge margins and they are not increasing. My guess, if margins we improving we would see additional companies come into the market, but I am not sure I see many new entrants.
What insurance companies pay out is based on the actual risk, so they have a very good handle on the risk. What they take in is based on the perceived risk, so they have a vested interest in making the public nervous.
Funny that you said that. Of course, insurance companies are selling half security to false or overstated threats.
They won’t sell insurance if they know they would loose. So they will make the public nervous, but the real trouble starts only when they decide not to sell insurance.
MM wrote, “What insurance companies pay out is based on the actual risk … ”
Insurance companies pay out on actual damage. They charge based on perceived risk and competition in the market.
Griff, And tobacco companies were certain, in their public statements, that tobacco was a harmless and fun habit.
Renewable energy companies learnt a lot from the tobacco giants: they employ people like Griff to tell their lies for them. Plausible deniability etc….
Griff, most everybody knew tobacco was bad. They were known as coffin nails from at least as far back as the 1930’s. Why didn’t people stop smoking ? They liked it. Tobacco which is more addicting, an excellent article from Science in 1980, than heroine. It’s still legal to buy. Heroine isn’t.
Cigarette in its present form didn’t come about until after the civil war in the US. The smoke from cigarettes has the same valiance number as oxygen. It binds readily with hemoglobin, gets sent from the lungs straight to the brain.
Of course the tobacco companies made a big fuss over it. As well as people believed it was their God given right to smoke. Health effects aside, it did have some unique properties that enhanced mental abilities. If you’d like to think it was the big bad tobacco companies controlling people, go ahead. The reality is that it was a mutual consent. And a lot of people depended on it for their living. There was a lot of invested interests to go around. The laws didn’t stop it, they just moved it to Brazil with enhanced tobacco plants.
There is a James Bond movie where the guy making cocaine, as a reward is given 2 cartons of Marlboro, ” don’t you know these things will kill you ” .
It looks like the article Griff linked to is 10 years or so old. “Insurers are among the most significant players in financial markets, with US$16.6 trillion in financial assets as of 2005.”
I was tipped off by this statement … “Allstate, for instance, has said that climate change has prompted it to cancel or not renew policies in many Gulf Coast states, with recent hurricanes wiping out all of the profits it had garnered in 75 years of selling homeowners insurance.” What recent hurricanes?
Well, it was the first one on a long, long list on google… so I guess I could have looked harder…
But are you telling me that since insurers have changed their minds? The points made stand today as they did then.
Can you tell me Allianz and Lloyds now don’t think climate change a real thing, impacting their business?
Insurers, except Mr B apparently, are telling you that climate change is causing damage they have to pay for.
Griff wrote, “Insurers, except Mr B apparently, are telling you that climate change is causing damage they have to pay for.”
1. Buffett says that he hasn’t seen any increase in weather/climate related claims in recent years.
2. Buffett says that climate change may be real and may cause increases in claims in the (distant — for some value of distant) future.
3. Buffett’s insurance is written and priced year to year. Destructive climate change, if it occurs, won’t materially effect claims in the next year.
4. A major part of Buffet’s insurance is re-insurance which covers other insurers for outsized claims beyond their willingness or ability to pay. This is a very good business because, as Buffett says, they (other insurers) know “our checks won’t bounce.”
More on supercat insurance here …
http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/021715/what-warren-buffetts-relation-supercat-insurance.asp
I suggest reading Buffett’s Letters to Shareholders, published every year since 1977. The series is better than any business book, journal or magazine I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen a lot.
http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/letters.html
I’m glad you are here Griff. It reaffirms my scepticism.
It is good to have one’s assumptions/viewpoint challenged, I would say…
Griff, you only challenge someone when you say something rational, or something based on data. It helps if you get it right at least once. You’ve taught us to reflexively smirk when we see your moniker.
Griff, I suppose you think insurance companies write policies to loose money, or that the industry is regulated. The only thing that regulates the cost of insurance is competition and the willingness of somebody to pay it. Sometimes mandated by law.
For most risk, if I have enough money I can self insure whatever. Most people would, if there is such a thing, not buy bicycle insurance. Why would you buy insurance to cover the damage to a bicycle ? There are 2 jobs that are the highest paying and you don’t need a degree, car salesman and insurance. What business is Buffet in again ?
He runs company which owns major stakes in companies. One market is insurance.
Insurance is where he made his money. The insurance guys all sit on the boards.
rishrac wrote, “The only thing that regulates the cost of insurance is competition and the willingness of somebody to pay it.”
Insurance (in the US) is a highly regulated industry.
Insurance regulatory law is the body of statutory law, administrative regulations and jurisprudence that governs and regulates the insurance industry and those engaged in the business of insurance. Insurance regulatory law is primarily enforced through regulations, rules and directives by state insurance departments as authorized and directed by statutory law enacted by the state legislatures. However, federal law, court decisions and administrative adjudications also play an important role.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurance_regulatory_law
Yeah, the best regulation money can buy. If you ever take an insurance class, the first thing they tell is that no insurance company has ever gone bankrupt. Where do you find an industry like that in the real world? You sort of confirmed that the market is rigged and fixed. Do you know how the lower insurance agents get paid? While insurance is regulated, who sets the rates ? When they sell an annuity, based on the stock market return, do you really think they’ve invested in an etf?
rishrac wrote, “If you ever take an insurance class, the first thing they tell is that no insurance company has ever gone bankrupt.”
Don’t believe everything they teach in insurance classes.
Although there have been almost 700 property-liability insurance company insolvencies since
1970, the number and cost of the insolvencies that occurred from 1984-1993 were particularly
significant. Over 400 property-liability insurers failed during this time period (A.M. Best, 2002) and the
majority of the $6.9 billion that has been paid by state guaranty associations from 1969-2000 were made
for the companies that failed during this same time period.
http://fic.wharton.upenn.edu/fic/papers/03/0332.pdf
The Baldwin-United Corporation, the Cincinnati piano company that borrowed heavily to move into the insurance business, filed for protection under the bankruptcy laws yesterday in one of the largest financial collapses in American history.
http://www.nytimes.com/1983/09/27/business/baldwin-a-casualty-of-fast-expansion-files-for-bankruptcy.html
rishrac wrote, ” If you ever take an insurance class, the first thing they tell is that no insurance company has ever gone bankrupt.”
BALDWIN, A CASUALTY OF FAST EXPANSION, FILES FOR BANKRUPTCY
http://www.nytimes.com/1983/09/27/business/baldwin-a-casualty-of-fast-expansion-files-for-bankruptcy.html
The Resolution of a Systemically Important Insurance Company during the Great Depression
https://www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/feds/2016/files/2016005pap.pdf
They get merged from the aforesaid laws. Much like some of the banks and investment firms. The reasoning is that if one went bankrupt that no one would buy insurance. Are you going to buy insurance on the insurance company?
It’s called re-insurance. When insurance companies insure each other.
Griff,
The article you link contains only anecdotal evidence. No facts in the article support your argument. Are they really raising premiums? If so, Buffett should call them up to give them a hearty “thank you” for allowing him to gobble up market share. As a proud owner of Berkshire Hathaway stock, I hope those folks really are raising their premiums. Since extreme weather events have not increased, and we know this from the data, it would be odd if insurance companies as a group began to increase their premiums based on such. On the other hand, it is quite easy for them to make vague claims that really don’t mean anything.
Buffett and his insurance team are likely the best at underwriting as they, unusually, earn underwriting profits just about each year. If they aren’t changing their assumptions, that is pretty much the gold standard and tells you just about all you need to know. I’ll bet on his team, and I have, to get it right every time and I’ll sleep just fine at night.
Typical, Griff, did you read your own link – the strongest thread of thought in it is that the CAGW scare is exploitable for profit, not that they ‘believe’. As a whole, actual real world observations are not supportive of more extreme weather – models of course say the future is doomed. As people get richer insurance losses will naturally increase. A house flooded in 1817 had a stone floor, bare walls, and a table and 4 chairs, all uninsured, all dried out in a week. The same house today will need 6 month’s of refurb and £50k of furniture, fittings and electronic goods replacing.
Not only that but with increased population there are people living in flood plains (which they do not recognise) or places where there was no one a generation ago. So that is one reason for the perception of increased weather incidents.
An anecdote: 40 years ago we were farmers. One day, riding through scrub we came upon a circular area about 50metres across where all the trees were laid over in a circular pattern. In a region where we did not know of any tornadoes type events this must have been something similar. We usually called them willy-willy or dust devils that spun across land in hot weather. If no one knows about something does it happen?
You know ‘If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it does it make a sound’?
That means a 3.2% annual average increase in losses from extreme events. And that’s for an annual increase in atmospheric CO2 partial pressure of ~1%. Powerful stuff. Or Allianz is simply going for the money in an absolutely dishonest manner.
Griff is dishonest so you would thing he could answer the question.
Allianz stock has been on a tear since last summer. Statistically there has been no increase in insurance losses from extreme weather according to the IPCC. So stockholders obviously think that these insurance companies that are raising rates due to extreme weather are going to be making greater profits.
GREAT example of how “follow the money” leads to the truth, Lowell.
Yes, and my barber says I need a haircut.
Reblogged this on Climatism and commented:
Hasn’t he changed his tune since admitting that catastrophic climate predictions are great for the reassurance business:
From a previous post:
Climate change alarmism is big business for ‘reinsurance’ billionaire Warren Buffett. But he doesn’t believe in it:
– Warren Buffett: “The public has the impression, because there has been so much talk about climate, that the events of the last ten years have been unusual…they haven’t!
– Warren Buffett: “We’ve been remarkably free of hurricanes in the last five years [Now eleven years or 4003 days]. If you’ve been writing hurricane insurance it’s been all profit.”
– Warren Buffett: “I love apocalyptic predictions, because … they probably do affect rates…”
– Warren Buffett: “we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them.”
https://climatism.wordpress.com/2014/03/05/climate-change-alarmism-is-big-business-for-billionaire-buffett/
Patrick MJD, not quite true. Insurers like to pay out some money so that you can see that there are real risks. If they never had to pay out then there would obviously be no need for insurance.
And they like to pay small sums, but will fight hard if the damages are enormous.
If the damages are enormous, they pay out nothing and declare bankruptcy instead.
Insurance companies, especially auto insurers, love to pay out money to their policy holders. The more the better. Then periodically, they go to the State Insurance Board and request a Premium increase of say 5% because they had to pay out for say 4,000 claims. And the SIBs always OK that rate increase request.
And the insurance company then increases the Premium by 5% on each one of their 35,000 Policy holders resulting in 5 times more in “new” revenue than they paid out in accident claim expenses.
There is no need for insurance at all. It’s a scam! Try getting an insurance pay out for an “act of god” (Read climate change). Ain’t happening, unless you have unlimited amounts of money, time and lawyers.
Patrick MJD wrote, “Try getting an insurance pay out for an “act of god” (Read climate change). Ain’t happening, unless you have unlimited amounts of money, time and lawyers.”
In legal usage throughout the English–speaking world, an act of God[1] is an event outside human control, such as sudden natural disasters, for which no one can be held responsible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_of_God
My insurance company paid to have my roof replaced after it was damaged in a hail storm. A hail storm is an act of god and no lawyers were involved.
It would be great if this report were true. It would mean that householders in the UK could get household insurance which had been unaffected by the spate of floods in recent years. As it is, many can’t get the insurance at any reasonable price.
Climate has very little if anything to do with recent flooding in Britain. Authorities have been neglecting waterways and drainage, thanks to the catastrophic consequences of the misconceived European Water Framework Directive.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/12/28/british-officials-blame-climate-change-for-floods/
Eric, it is true to say that we cannot say for certain that the frequent floods which have devastated the UK are linked to climate change. On the other hand it is equally correct to say for certain they are not.
Austerity in the UK has been linked to many issues, not just waterways. After all, if you wants to give large tax cuts to those who have no need of them, you must make savings at every opportunity.
Gareth, we can say with certainty that the floods are not related to climate change.
Building on flood plains and bare hillsides above rivers also don’t help.
Read more closely Gareth. Buffet is saying that he is not experiencing large losses. The UK floods, caused by negligent government action and inaction regarding flood control and infrastructure has caused your local problems.
No, the UK floods were caused by a change in the UK climate, which now sees more intense and slow moving rain events in winter and flash flooding from summer storms.
UK floods were not cause by lack of dredging or failure to provide flood defences… but by an increase in severe weather.
Take Carlisle, which has since 2000 seen two events, each higher than all previous records, which last century would have been 1 in 100 year events.
Take Cockermouth, flooded despite new flood defences and recent dredging.
Griff,
Inwardly digest.
“Contrary to Government reporting on “Desmond” the flooding of Carlisle was not principally caused by a storm blown in by “climate change” but as a direct result of long term lack of river maintenance and poor management causing the build-up of accumulated gravels and thereby forcing rivers to flow higher in their channels than they used to. This is likely to also be the case for the lower reaches of the Kent and Derwent catchments.”
http://www.carlislefloodaction.org.uk/images/docs/CFLAGFloodReport_12MonthsOn.pdf
So you don’t think that some of the heaviest rainfalls ever recorded, slow moving storms and frequent 1 in a 100 year storms have anything to do with the flooding? I suspect the UK insurance companies would disagree.
In our village the floods have eroded areas of land and exposed artefacts not seen for hundreds, if not thousands of years. And that is despite regular maintenance of the stream channels. Flooding across the fields is common, furious torrents due to record rainfall eroding banks and roads is somewhat different.
A 1 in 100 storm has nothing to do with global warming.
Probably no development upstream in centuries, either, eh?
Man-caused flooding is a very real thing, but it usually has little or nothing to do with man-made climate change.
A 1 in 100 storm has nothing to do with global warming.
===========
It has much more to do with the faulty application of statistics. Uncommon weather is much more common than we expect.
The term 1 in a hundred year event, storm or flood is frequently misunderstood.
In the U.S. civil engineering field the term “hundred year flood” is know as the Base Flood. According to FEMA it is defined as “A flood having a 1% chance of being equaled or exceeded in any given year.”
https://www.fema.gov/national-flood-insurance-program/definitions#B
Some think it means it should happen once in a hundred years but that’s not quite right.
If there are a hundred localities in the UK at least one will have a one in one hundred year storm, every year.
Leon Smith, I concur 100% as a retired civil engineer. Those who screech about 100 year storms or even 1000 year storms know nothing about statistics and probability. Especiallt for areas where records are less than 100 years old. Some think that those type of storms should never occur, unless of course CAGW is occurring. Hogwash!
That isn’t anything to do with climate change. It is what happens when companies are allowed to build on flood plains without having to build in any defensive measures.
In response to an earlier point here is a quote from Lloyds website regarding MET office data.
“•Lloyds’ modelling finds that these correlations were not substantial enough to warrant changes to the amount of capital it holds to cover extreme weather claims;”
Even with direct access to the MET office data Lloyds are not changing anything. I think that speaks volumes
Sorry Andrew for hi-jacking, but typical Grif seems to have closed off comments. Suffice to say he hasn’t aclue what it means statisically what a1 in 100 year event means! It does not mean those event only occur once in any one hundred period, only statisically, so it isn’t “real”! One in theory could get 2 or 3 such events in a 50 year period, but they would still fall inside the 1 in a 100 year projection!
Neither does Gareth. Then again, I’ve yet to meet an alarmist who has anything past the most basic understanding of statistics.
But the changes called for by the Paris agreement can, at most, only slightly moderate the danger defer it by a few years.
The danger has been vastly over hyped and the Paris Accord will do nothing to impact the frequency or effect of weather events.
100% proof is not possible. However the alarmists have yet to reach the 10% proof level.
100% proof is only possible by falsification, proving only that CAGW is not a problem and this has been done many times.
Thus, ol’ Buffett (with a folksy, crooked, grin) hauls out the old Precautionary Fallacy.
Take our pills — just in case.
Buffet could have made a real difference by speaking to the documented data and integrity issues of the climate consensus promoters.
Buffet will be excomunicated from the Democratic Brotherhood for saying this.
Don’t know about that. Million dollar donations cover a lot of sins in the Democrat party.
Best way to find out how much insurance company’s are paying out is look at what their stocks are worth , up means bugger all down means big payouts .
I find the graph unclear. Not sure what it is showing.
Each column represents a major storm. Chronological order is left to right. The taller the column, the more days since the previous storm. So if the columns get taller from left to right, the number of days between storms is increasing.
So the climate is neither affecting nor impacting the insurance business. Doubly safe.
If one is going to talk about likelyhood then one needs some sort of mathematical justification but most often none is given. Saying that it is 90% likely that Mankind is the cause of global warming but without any mantematical justification realy means that Mankind’s effect on climate is uncertain. One has to translate wishfull thinking into reality.
Decreasing the meridional temperature gradient by warming the highest latitudes the most causes less extreme weather….for many types of weather.
Heavy rains from a warmer atmosphere in some events are one exception but think about what a planet with uniform temperatures would be like vs one with an iextreme variation from north to south.
The atmosphere does not need to work as hard to redistribute/balance the heat.
That is standards global warming theory. But after the “pause”, the warmists decided to say the opposite so to still have something to kvetch about. Storms were very severe during the LIA. We are enjoying milder weather since we fully came out of it.
“We are enjoying milder weather since we fully came out of it.”
I would say that the last few years are some of the mildest years I have experienced. This, during the supposedly “hottest years evah!”
Roger Pielke Jr. was documenting the dearth of severe weather until Hillary’s friends made it too uncomfortable to continue.
It is interesting that Warren Buffet’s remarks were published in the mainstream media. He has a huge audience. Because of Pielke’s work, we all know that there haven’t been many hurricanes and tornadoes. Now, because of Buffet’s comments, a big group of other people know it too. He is commonly referred to as the Oracle of Omaha and many people listen to his every word.
If it’s not having any noticible effect on the insurance business, then it’s not having any noticible effect, period.
Well said, Mr. Briscoe.
Only by artificial market constraints can AGW have any “effect” — ever. For AGW simply is not.
‘noticeable’ PLEASE
As a relative newcomer to WUWT (about one year) I am still wondering if this GRIFF character are for real, or just someone who has a peculiar sense of humor? I can’t for the best of me understand such Level of cognitive dissonance.
You’ll now have to excuse me – there are some fairies in the bottom of my garden that needs some more cake.
NorwegianSkeptic, my theory is that “Griff” is a paid shill.
If he is as seriously deluded as he seems, why subject himself to daily attacks from folks who know more about the subject than he does? Anybody with any sense would have learned a bit by now.
There is a “Griff” comment early on in almost every article’s comment section. It is nearly always an attempt to “debunk” the main article. With questionable “facts” from unreliable sources like Wikipedia or a trivial Google search. The classic one was when he commented on one of Susan Crockford’s article about Polar Bears, calling her unqualified. He got taken to the cleaners on that one but still came back next article.
If he isn’t getting paid he is going through a lot of trouble for nothing.
The only other remotely plausible theory is that Anthony himself or an associate is throwing in a “Griff” comment on every article just to stir the pot. Not too likely, the pot boils pretty fast on its own around here.
I have a sneaking suspicion that Griff might be a sceptic who is trying to make climate alarmists look stupid. If true, he is succeeding admirably.
+1
The left has planted a Griff on every internet forum with a conservative following of more than a couple hundred views a day or so. They have different names but oddly enough, they are all humorless, and seem to fall into only two personalities, the angry personal attacking Griff and the Know-It- All Griff. Griff Central probably has things set up so every post goes to a central location so artificial intelligence can quickly come up with standard lefty boilerplate reply in the personal attacking or know-it-all Griff style, watever is more appropriate. This could explain the consistent lack of humor, as computers are no good with humor. It then just takes a human to make a few minor edits to taylor the response to the post and then push the reply button. It used to be an effective operation to keep the Establishment agenda in constant view but doesn’t work anymore.
+10
Some of these trolls are AI programs attempting to pass the “Turing Test”.
For the Turing Test, nobody said that the program needed to beat Gary Kasparov at chess, or beat all the Jeopardy champions.
As the Data character in Star Trek found out, coming up with a credible sense of humor is very difficult.
I’ve noticed the same thing recently. Some articles on WUWT are being flooded by warmist boiler plate responses to try and hijack the conversation. Wikipedia certainly is monitored by bots, that will quickly undo any edits that question climate change. It seems likely WUWT is similarly monitored.
It is a relatively straight forward thing to program a bot that will automatically monitor blogs and type in boiler plate from a template. With grammar rules the bot replies can vary from site to site while all conforming to a single master narrative.
“Wikipedia certainly is monitored by bots, that will quickly undo any edits that question climate change. It seems likely WUWT is similarly monitored.”
I read an article the other day about how bots are now editing other bots work on Wikipedia.
griff is a well known shill or troll – never sure which – who has been stalking various peole in the climate change/renewable energy blogosphere. He used to be egriff in the Daily Telegraph, (Disqus) until they closed all comments.
The name of the game is that when a post such as thiss appears, a group of networked shills will arrive and upvote each others posts and support each other to give the impression that they are a large majority. This is a technique that goes back to basic soviet agitprop techniques laid down in the 60s. by the New Left.
+1 Leo
As a long time shareholder of Berkshire Hathaway, after reading this year’s Annual Letter, I re-read last year’s letter and was glad I did. I’d forgotten Mr. Buffett’s observation that there has been no discernible increase in climate-related events or catastrophic claims.
If ever there was an observer with “skin in the [climate] game,” it’s Buffett and his fellow shareholders.
Naturally, the completely dishonest print and broadcast media won’t report his statement.
For those that are interested, the UAH Feb data is out. It is up a little now at the +0.35degC anomaly level 9p from +0.3degC in January)..
According to the ENSO metre, the ENSO range is again warming. It may be that we will have a double El Nino with El Nino conditions developing in the summer.
I have been watching the Indian Ocean and I think the cooling there is moderating which will hopefully spike another full blown El Nino.
If so, that will mean a huge amount of heat has been and will be dumped from the oceans.
Look for future cooling.
Richard, I think the connection between ENSO and global T is eroding with the development of the Cold Blobs replacing the Warm Blobs. California rain is usually a La Nina condition but the cold patches in the Pacific NH are doing this duty.
Funny how he doesn’t believe the “weather is getting worse” fairy tale, but does believe in the CAGW fairy tale. I guess it’s because the former, if true, could affect the bottom line. Not sure what he gets out of the CAGW fairy tale belief though.
I don’t think he ‘believes’ in the CAGW fairy tale as much as believes that it might be true based on the overstatement of effect, scaremongering about effects and his lack of understanding about physics. He’s hedging his bets and probably wants to avoid being denigrated by his Democratic friends. After all, the ‘belief’ in CAGW is just emotion bolstered by politics and the first line of defense used to support emotionally driven (left leaning) politics is to angrily denigrate the other side.
I don’t think he believes in anything but: MONEY.
Pushing CAGW (and also, AGW, for that is a necessary part of CAGW) doesn’t require a belief in the lies about human CO2. To be an enviroprofiteer requires only a cunning ability to take advantage of the envirostalinist’s propaganda.
Janice: EXACTLY right. I’ve been saying that there are two prongs to the AGW scare – those that promote it, and those that exploit it. Some do both.
… but, Berkshire sure would like it to …..
Janice, don’t forget that in many States the Insurance Industry is regulated,
Premiums are adjusted to allow the industry to make a target percentage profit.
This produces the counter-intuitive circumstance that things like multiple large catastrophes are a good thing for Insurance Companies.
First, they can increase premiums to recoup losses.
Secondly, they get to make an increased profit on top of the higher premiums collected.
As they say – It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good.
Thanks for the reminder, Walt D..
And by pushing the Climate Hu$tle about human CO2 the Berkshire H.’s of the world hope to influence those regulators. “MORE TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE, DISASTER IS COMING!!! Due to GLOBAL WARMING!!!!!!. So increased premiums are absolutely necessary! Or we won’t be able to take care of you…..”
While the property and casualty industry may be regulated (primarily by the states), its premiums are not.
As a former resident of Florida, the insurance companies have been ripping off the property owners for the last decade on the Hurricane Insurance rider on property insurance policies. They all, and I mean ALL use one company’s proprietary actuary program that incorporates the “potential future effects” of Global Warming. The application of this program is singularly responsible for the outrageous cost of property insurance in Florida. For those who are unfamiliar with costs of property insurance in Florida and other Gulf Coast states, annual property insurance rates are equal to annual property taxes. If you are paying $1,500 to $3,000/yr for property tax you are also paying the same for property insurance based on this proprietary program.
It used to be that insurance rates were based on historical claims, not so since insurance companies adopted the use of this proprietary actuarial program. It’s fraud and only because of political correctness are the property owners continued to be over charged without legal recourse. In fact, Charlie Crist, former governor Florida at the time squashed an investigation into this actuarial program…
Don’t know how insurance companies are handling the flooding issue elsewhere, but here in Canada there was a fairly serious flood a few years ago when a housing subdivision built on a flood plain got flooded (I wonder why it’s called a flood plain?…… hmmmm….. could it be……? because it gets flooded periodically? …… No, that would be too obvious, wouldn’t it?)
So now, every year I get a reminder from the insurance company that, although my premium hasn’t gone up, it now doesn’t cover “overland flooding”. If I want coverage for that, I need to pay an extra premium. Basically, anything that looks like it might lead to lots of claims, they strip it out of their regular policies. Thankfully, we live on top of a hill, so when the nice lady says “are you sure you don’t want the extra coverage?” I can say no thanks with a straight face.
Many years ago, when we bought our present house, we tried to continue coverage with our previous home insurance policy. They said no. After long evasive responses it turned out that there had been three fires on our new street within the last year (there was a teenaged arsonist, it later turned out). So I said – but that’s why I want insurance! Didn’t work.
The insurance philosophy is to sell insurance, as far as possible, against things that are least likely to happen. Hats off to Mr. Buffett for treating his policyholders fairly on this.
I believe Bastardi made a prediction of a bad hurricane season coming up. Griff and the rest of the warmers will be all over that. I read his comment just a short time ago but cannot remember where.
Not a conspiracy but a fact. Large reinsurance companies are back stopped and regulated by national governments. Those governments have had aggressive climate policies for decades now. Although the hard headed financial types may not believe the government line they will bend to it when profitable.
That is what happened during the mortgage boom. Griff’s 2005 article would have been written during a particularly bad stretch of US hurricane related losses. I understand that rates have come down slowly in the absence of weather related losses since. Another prediction fail .
catastrophic degradation of catastrophic events impacting society:
https://ourworldindata.org/natural-catastrophes/
>>
. . . and remember well the dire predictions of most ‘experts’ about Y2K,”
<<
What experts? Those of us who worked in IT saw nothing dire. It was all hyped up by non-experts. So what if the dates of some programs did an end-run-around. It was a minor fix in our shop and most shops.
Jim
Or, in the case of Ethiopia and Romania to name two countries, didn’t have the money, resources or experts to do anything about it, so they didn’t.
whatever you want:
https://youtu.be/krK7Q49o6uA
Climate science fundamentally doesn’t understand Hurricanes. You may see more Hurricanes with global warming, but they will be less intense. The opposite of what climate science predicts.
The problem for climate science is that Hurricanes are not caused by warming. If they were, we would see them form over land, because the land is often hotter than the ocean.
Global Warming is not in itself able to create stronger Hurricanes, because strange as it may sound, you cannot make a heat engine that runs on heat alone. Rather, heat engines run on temperature differences.
Global Warming theory predicts that the atmosphere will warm faster than the ocean. Thus the Tropospheric Hot Spot predicted by the climate models. And such a pattern of warming will REDUCE the difference in temperature between the ocean and the atmosphere, which will reduce the efficiency of the Hurricane heat engine (see carnot cycle), which will REDUCE the intensity of the hurricanes.
Thumbs up for Max Roser !
Notice the timing of this obvious info well after the Paris Agreement. Was there anyone not involved in the global warming scam being run out of the White House?
The man puts his money where his mouth is ….and that’s a whole lot more than alarmists can say
Lose not loose, please
‘few of those predictions will be tested, until long after most of us are dead.’
Which therefore puts all of this under the heading ‘not my problem’.
For all of the hand-wringing over ‘children of the future’, and all the imagined catastrophes, whatever challenges the future actually does offer will (and should) be dealt with by the ADULTS of that era. That’s THEIR responsibility, just like current issues are the responsibility for the adults of current times.