Global Warming a Huge Expense in 2008

clipped from news.yahoo.com Insurers' losses from natural disasters rose by about 50 percent in 2008, with Caribbean hurricanes Ike and Gustav powering the increase and climate change increasingly a factor, a leading reinsurer said Monday. Munich Re AG said in an annual review that insured losses came in at $45 billion this year, up from nearly $30 billion in 2007. It said total economic losses, including losses not covered by insurance, leapt to some $200 billion from last year's $82 billion. "Climate change has already started and is very probably contributing to increasingly frequent weather extremes and ensuing natural catastrophes," board member Torsten Jeworrek said in a statement. "These, in turn, generate greater and greater losses because the concentration of values in exposed areas, like regions on the coast, is also increasing further throughout the world."

Recent events have proved that companies and nations aren't made out of money and can run out. Still, let's keep pretending that GW isn't happening and it's all some nutty idea like alien abductions.

Really, what's the worst that can happen? Besides, the economy's freakin' awesome and we can totally afford to pay ten of billions a year.