According to this article from the New York Times, a “major trade group for the insurance industry” has taken the stance that global warming may, after all, be the scam all those talk radio and Fox News pundits are claiming it is. This group is the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies, or NAMIC.
In a letter to insurance regulators, NAMIC makes statements denying the legitimacy of global warming science, making outlandish claims such as the University of East Anglia climatologists “actively colluded to subvert the peer-review process,” amongst other things. Apparently NAMIC prefers the cherry-picked misquotes of personal emails to the vast array of climate science available. That’s what they’ve armed themselves with to challenge the established scientific theories on anthropogenic global warming. None of these insurance businessmen are climatologists, but they feel they have the expertise and qualifications to make judgments about policy and how it relates to the threat of global climate change.
Overall, however, insurance companies still seem concerned about climate change, and for good reason. Insurance companies stand to lose vast amounts of money due to the changes scientists predict – some companies could go bankrupt depending on how bad and how quickly the effects occur. Perhaps this is just fear run amuck through certain insurance company circles, but that doesn’t make it any less irresponsible or dangerous. At a time when we need focused calculation and attention paid to the ever-increasing threats of global warming we are, instead, getting hysteria and misinformation. If NAMIC wants to join the likes of Glen Beck and Mark Levin let us at least hope that insurance regulators will take them just as seriously as those fine gentlemen.
###
By promoting cleaner energy, cleaner government, and cleaner air for all Texans, we hope to provide for a healthy place to live and prosper. We are Public Citizen Texas.
