Stephan: This is not a good story, but it is of a piece with the country's overall response to climate change -- ignore it as much as possible, and accommodate as begrudging as you are compelled to.
Are insurers ready for the risks posed by climate change? New study finds most aren’t fully prepared, but the industry says it can handle claims.
Most insurance companies do not have comprehensive strategies to cope with climate change despite mounting weather-related claims, says a report to be released Thursday.
Of 184 companies surveyed, only 23 had such strategies, and 13 of those that did were foreign-owned, according to report by Ceres, a Boston-based non-profit that promotes eco-minded business practices. The report says the most prepared tend to be the largest companies with scientists on staff and those that insure property rather than life or health.
Many companies ‘won’t talk about climate change’ and if they do, they use ‘hedged’ language to avoid the controversial issue of whether it’s man-made, says author Sharlene Leurig, senior manager of Ceres’ insurance program. She says the issue is less politically divisive in Europe, where insurers are often better prepared.
The report comes as weather-related disasters cost an estimated $100 billion in damages last year, and the U.S. government’s latest National Climate Assessment says climate change increases the risks and severity of of heat waves, downpours, droughts and wildfires as well as the intensity of hurricanes.
The report’s findings […]
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SPENCER ACKERMAN, Senior Reporter - WIRED
Stephan: This is the latest assessment of what the neocons did with our money. I have done many stories on the corruption, rampant greed, and crimes against humanity committed by this group. It is beyond shameful and, once again, the Obama administration has held no one accountable.
The legacy of all the money the U.S. wasted in Iraq might be summed up with a single quote. ‘$55 billion could have brought great change in Iraq,
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NATASHA LENNARD, Assistant News Editor - Salon
Stephan: Finally, we get to the truth as to why the Obama Justice Department has been such a pusillanimous player, and why there has been virtually no accountability of the self-created financial crash that came to a head in 2008, and that we have been suffering with every since. This is one of Obama's great failures as a President, and its implications will haunt us for years.
Attorney General Eric Holder admitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that banks are simply too big to prosecute.
The Justice Department has not brought a single criminal conviction against a Wall Street executive four years after a financial crisis proven to have been precipitated by fraudulent behavior. On Wednesday, Holder admitted that the vast size of major banks and the structural integration in the economy makes criminal prosecutions basically impossible.
‘I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if you do prosecute, if you do bring a criminal charge, it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy,
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LEE KUAN YEW, Former Singapore Prime Minister - The Atlantic
Stephan: This is one of the best assessments I have read concerning the future of the U.S., China relationship. It describes what is possible, let us hope...
In this book excerpt, one of Asia’s greatest statesmen says competition is inevitable between China and the U.S., but conflict is not.
Few individuals have had as consequential a role in their nation’s history as Lee Kuan Yew, the founding prime minister of Singapore. During Lee’s three-decade long tenure in office, he helped transform Singapore from an impoverished British colony lacking natural resources into one of Asia’s wealthiest and most developed countries.
Over the years, Lee has also become one of Asia’s most prominent public intellectuals, one whose unique experience and perspective gives him tremendous insight into trends shaping the continent.
Related Story
Introducing The Atlantic’s China Channel
In the following conversation, Lee trains his sights to the most prominent geopolitical issue of our time: the rise of China. Rather than attempt to thwart China’s emergence as a global superpower, Lee argues, the United States should find ways to work constructively with China in forging a new global order.
This conversation is excerpted from the book Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master’s Insights on China, the United States, and the World comprised of interviews and selections by Graham Allison and Robert D. Blackwill, with Ali Wyne, and a foreword by Henry A. Kissinger.
How likely […]
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Thursday, March 7th, 2013
, - The Wall Street Journal
Stephan: Here is the latest update on an increasingly alarming trend, the decline in the lifespan of certain cohorts of American women. I have done several stories on this over the past few years, each one worse than the one preceding it. Note particularly the class and education factors in this trend.
While women in the rest of the world see their lifespans increasing, in the U.S. it is rather the opposite. This trend constitutes a ringing alarm, telling us our social structure is not producing wellness.
NEW YORK-A new study offers more compelling evidence that life expectancy for some U.S. women is actually falling, a disturbing trend that experts can’t explain.
The latest research found that women age 75 and younger are dying at higher rates than previous years in nearly half of the nation’s counties-many of them rural and in the South and West. Curiously, for men, life expectancy has held steady or improved in nearly all counties.
A new survey from the American Psychological Association reveals troubling findings about stress in the American workplace. WSJ’s Lauren Weber and the American Psychological Association’s David Ballard join Lunch Break to discuss.
Two studies that looked at the effects of smoking over a lifetime found that both men and women who smoke were about three times as likely to die before reaching age 80 in one study, and 75 in the other study. WSJ’s Ron Winslow reports.
Health: Working to Make Childbirth Safer
The study is the latest to spot this pattern, especially among disadvantaged white women. Some leading theories blame higher smoking rates, obesity and less education, but several experts said they simply don’t know why.
Women have long outlived men, and the latest numbers show […]
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