Natural disasters prove action needed

Malcolm Singer, Las Vegas

Friday, April 11, 2008 | 2:04 a.m.

The term “global warming” doesn’t sound threatening at all. To most of us, the term sounds warm and cuddly. Even scientists don’t all agree it exists. Therefore, many of us have taken a wait-and-see attitude.

The debate on global warming seems to be over the validity of the measurements and the cause. Small changes in overall temperature are not easy to validate when daily swings and local fluctuations dwarf the global changes we are trying to measure. And studies that go back even a couple of hundred years may not be long enough.

But the argument should not be about whether global warming exists or even what caused it. The argument should be about what we can do to counteract the weather extremes that are threatening our lives and our future and costing billions of dollars.

The Earth has been and will be for some time in equilibrium. Like a giant pendulum, it started out with great fluctuations that were not conducive to any forms of life. It has taken millions of years to calm the extreme heat and drought, extreme flooding and extreme cold that froze the Earth.

With time, these extremes have lessened. For some reason let’s not point fingers this equilibrium has been disturbed. We are experiencing weather extremes. You don’t have to understand the threat of shrinking polar caps, or be able to measure a 2-degree rise in an ocean of water. You need only to look at the devastation by recent hurricanes, tsunamis and tornadoes.

Statistically we can accept two or three extreme highs, lows, rainfalls, droughts, floods and hurricanes that normally happen once in a 100 years. But when these weather extremes start happening more frequently, we will not be able to recover economically before the next one hits. Insurance companies will exclude these events and we will lose capital and lives. So, regardless of how or why these weather extremes are taking place, the question is: What can we do to protect our investments?