Climate Change Photoshopped

Michael Fumento has been taking on the Hysteria Mongers for much of his writing career. His book "The Myth of Heterosexual Aids" debunked the political campaign to make the American public believe the risk of getting AIDS was widespread and deserving of the billions channeled to research for finding a "cure" when the "at risk" population was much much smaller.

History has proven him right.

Now, he takes on the global warmists. In the most recent Forbes he writes:

The cover of Al Gore's new book, Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis, features a satellite image of the globe showing four major hurricanes--results, we're meant to believe, of man-made global warming. All four were photoshopped. Which is nice symbolism, because in a sense the whole hurricane aspect of warming has been photoshopped.

Most interesting to me was Fumento's later reference to a 2005 "study" predicting much greater hurricane activity along America's coasts.

For many millions of American homeowners, the 2005 tempest tirade was hardly just academic. Half a year later, a company called Risk Management Solutions (RMS) issued a five-year forecast of hurricane activity predicting U.S. insured hurricane losses would be 40% higher than the historical average. RMS is the world leader in "catastrophe modeling," and insurance companies use those models to set premium rates charged to homeowners as well as by reinsurance companies and others.

With four years of data in, losses are actually running far below historical levels and at less than half the rate that RMS predicted. A lot of individuals and a lot of companies have grossly overpaid.

This made me recall one of the things Pennsylvania DEP boss John Hanger told the Daily Times editorial board this fall. Specifically, that insurance companies were increasing their rates due to evidence of global warming. It seems he was quite right, they were. But only because these insurance companies happily relied on this "study" that turned out to be incredibly WRONG!. The insurers profited mightily. Homeowners paid through the nose.

Hanger was brought to us by Rep. Greg Vitali who continues to push stricter state government mandates for more expensive "clean" energy. Here's my column about that meeting. I wish I'd known more about the RMS forecast and the gouging of the insurance-buying public at that time.