MSM: Insurance Group Says Stolen E-Mails Show Risk in Accepting Climate Science

(NYTimes) – A major trade group for the insurance industry is warning that it is “exceedingly risky” for companies to blindly accept scientific conclusions around climate change, given the “serious questions” around the extent to which humans cause atmospheric warming.

EVAN LEHMANN
NY Times
Friday, January 15th, 2010

The assertion was made in a letter (pdf) to insurance regulators, who will administer the nation’s first mandatory climate requirements on corporations in May. Large insurers will have to answer about a dozen questions related to the preparations they are taking to safeguard themselves from climatic hazards.

The National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies believes that the new regulation leaves little room for companies to cast doubt on widely accepted assumptions about global warming. Insurers are hamstrung to provide answers that dovetail with the perception of key regulators who believe climate change threatens the industry’s financial strength, said Robert Detlefsen, the group’s vice president of policy.

“It’s fairly obvious that certain regulators have made up their minds about what the answers to those questions are, and are just proceeding on the assumption that their answers, or the ones that they subscribe to, are correct and unimpeachable,” Detlefsen said in an interview. “There really is no room, as I see it, for any sort of legitimate, in their minds at least, for legitimate dissent.”

Full article here