first of all I'm a greenie and have been reading avb's posts with much teeth grinding. firstly, he equates the green energy business as something strictly existing for the purpose of dealing with climate change, when in truth it's merely just an energy business for the purpose of energy, the same as any energy business. he also creates a false us & them scenario over and over "fossil fuel is on the way out, wind and solar are the future", when in fact, fossil fuel, natural gas, wind, solar, hydro, tidal are all the future of energy; 10% with one, 3% with another, 15% here, 40% there. The energy types don't compete just the companies exploiting the resource like any resource, fossil fuel companies own wind farms as much as solar array based companies own junior oil companies, it's just energy exploration for exploitation. Reading avb's daily dumps - for me at least - is not much different than reading misinformation on guns and hunters on CBC. No greenie that I know who has been around alt-energy for many years has ever claimed that wind or solar will meet the energy needs of the planet. It's really about co-generation anyways, one type cannot exist without the other. I'll end my teeth gnashing rant with; greenies (the older ones at least) see fossil fuel, nat gas, wind, solar etc as energy types in its infancy and fossil fuels might yet still be the greenest of them all.
But back to the us & them game and climate change, this snippet of an article is from 97, I bolded the important bit. Enjoy!!!;
Abstract
A convincing economic argument for taking action to prevent or ameliorate climate change has not developed because of both uncertainty about the degree of change and its timing. Recent costly weather-related catastrophes with consequent negative impacts on the insurance industry has made the insurance industry a potential advocate for slowing what has been identified as a causal factor in climate change: emissions of greenhouse gases. However, rising costs of claims, without a longer-term trend of such catastrophic losses, will make it difficult to present a strong case for taking costly economic action. Using the Black Scholes Option Pricing Model, it is shown that increasing levels of climate variability as embedded in the anticipated variability of damage to insured assets will have an immediate economic cost that could serve to bolster the argument for more immediate action.
That cost is shown to be economically justified higher insurance premiums.
Keywords
Climate change;
Insurance;
Global warming;
Options
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...21800996005563