I Who Can Insure Against the Climate ?

First, it is important to understand that the effects of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide content are uncertain, and may be as much as an order of magnitude less than is assumed by the computer models. The strength of various feedback effects is also uncertain. But the most important point is that computer models of the state of climate in 100 years’ time are viewed by their creators as scenarios. That is to say, they are statements of what ‘might’ happen, though in general without any attendant probability estimate. Only scenarios which seem ‘reasonable’ to their creators are ever reported publicly. The path to this reasonableness is littered with literally thousands of discarded computer runs which produce answers deemed to lie outside likely reality; for example, that carbon dioxide might increase and then, due to negative feedbacks, temperature decrease. This notwithstanding, the general public, and apparently also scientific advisors to insurance companies, often treat these scenarios as firm predictions. Great and unnecessary alarm is thereby generated. As pointed out pinned by science advice from government agencies which, themselves, have a major conflict of interest in the matter of climate change research. Let us consider some of the key planks of the alarmist case for climate change.