I am the Actuarial Risk that dare not speak its name

PRESENTED BY LORD ALFRED DOUGLAS, FSA, EA, MAAA, FCA

Last week, Federal Reserve chair Jay Powell reminded America that he is one of President Joe Biden’s most consequentially terrible nominees. Under sharp questioning from Sen. Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.) about climate disasters and home insurance, Powell admitted that it’s a “significant” problem that insurance companies are abandoning coastal markets. “Ten years from now, how are you going to get housing insurance?” But he noted that it’s not the Fed’s problem.

He then reassured climate denier Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), “I’m really determined we’re not a climate policymaker.”

So if you’re in the market for a home, feel free to take a gamble! At least your leap into our fossil future will now have better data. Using figures from First Street Foundation, Realtor.com has added new climate risk factors to its listings. In addition to existing flood and fire risk ratings, there are now wind, heat, and air quality risk factors.

Nice while it lasted: Swiss megabank UBS acquired Credit Suisse a year ago. Now it’s abandoning Credit Suisse’s plan to stop financing coal projects. And the Dutch-British oil giant Shell is preparing to abandon its carbon pollution reduction targets set way back in 2021. Who needs glaciers and coastlines when you’ve got fossil-fueled paperclips, right?

Bucking the tide, grocery giant Unilever has set newly aggressive climate pollution targets for its product line (which is a plasticky mess).

Next week, the climate criminals responsible for the ever-exploding rise in global methane pollution while criminally underreporting it and spewing greenwashing propaganda will be convening with the government officials and representatives of civil society responsible for ending methane pollution in Geneva, Switzerland, for the 2024 Global Methane Forum, from March 18th to the 21st.

U.S. officials attending include the Environmental Protection Agency’s Tómas Carbonell, Christine Derieux, Jake Dunton, Pamela Franklin, Janette Hansen, Andrew Meluch, Denise Mulholland, Justin Pryor, Volha Roshchanka, Monica Shimamura, and Klara Zimmerman; USAID’s Andrew Geoffrey Bisson, Malick Haidara, Peter Richards, and Alyx Ruzevich; NASA’s Shanna Combley, David Crisp, and Edil Sepulveda; the Department of Energy’s Tom Curry, Jack Lewnard, and Suzanne Waltzer; State’s Rick Duke and Claire Henly; the World Bank’s Zubin Bamji and Alexandrina Platonova-Oquab; the Inter-American Development Bank’s Sergio Campos and Magda Correal; Commerce’s Erica Pencak; U.S. Geological Survey’s Özgen Karacan; Argonne Lab’s Marianne Mintz; UN mission’s Philip Rodenbough; and Defense’s Roberty Taylor. Oil industry lawyer Eric Camp is going as a representative of the Department of Commerce, as is private energy consultant Suriya Jayanti.

U.S. methane pollution industry sending representatives include ExxonMobil, Cheniere, Targa Resources, PG&E, CNX, Danone, Cenergy, SEaB Energy, Marathon Digital, GTI Energy, Raven Ridge Resources, and Advanced Resources International.

If you’re going, let me know!

Hazardous weather is about to erupt in the central US with a potential fire outbreak, tornadoes and feet of snow.

Colorado ranchers sentenced after tampering with rain gauges to increase crop subsidies.

“I’m face basting with butt paste.”

“AI stole my likeness and created a deepfake ad of me promoting erectile dysfunction pills.”

What’s missing from railroad safety data? Dead workers and severed limbs.

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