Global Warming in Louisiana
GLOBAL WARMING FORCING U.S. COASTAL POPULATION TO MOVE INLAND - 08/16/07
Hurricane Katrina, which made landfall in late August 2005, forced a million people from New Orleans and the small towns on the Mississippi and Louisiana coasts to move inland either within state or to neighboring states, such as Texas and Arkansas. Although nearly all planned to return, many have not.
These deficits were repeated in Louisiana and at the national level with the National Flood Insurance Program, which ran a $23 billion deficit in 2005. The bottom line is that rates must rise as the risk rises. This applies not only to property insurance, but also for firms seeking to insure against business interruption losses.
After a point as storm risks multiply and insurance rates rise, real estate prices start to decline. To cite an extreme example, how much is a building lot worth in St. Bernard Parish, now largely abandoned, or in the low-lying parts of New Orleans? Some of the businesses in these hard-hit areas that are not tied directly to local customers, such as consulting firms, software companies, or publishing houses, have moved to more secure locations.
New Orleans entrepreneur, Ken Murray, who founded Parker, Murray and Associates, a sales and marketing company, is among those who have moved their firms to Dallas.
More destructive storms are an early manifestation of global warming. The longer term risk is that rising temperatures will melt glaciers and polar ice caps, raising sea level and displacing coastal residents worldwide. The flow of climate refugees to date numbers in the thousands, but if we do not quickly reduce CO2 emissions, it could one day number in the millions.
Global Warming Threatens Louisiana Coastline - 01/16/07
Parts of the Mississippi Delta are sinking, and at least one prominent geoscientist places the blame on global warming. Torbjörn Törnqvist, PhD, an associate professor of earth and environmental sciences at Tulane University in New Orleans, says rising sea levels-the result of melting polar ice caps-pose a greater threat to Louisiana than the sinking of his state's land. His research appeared in a recent issue of Eos, the prestigious journal published by the American Geophysical Union.
According to Dr. Törnqvist, coastal Louisiana's sea level has been rising up to 400% more rapidly in the last century than the rates recorded over the last 1,000 years. And, he warns, this rate is expected to at least double in the next 100 years. This increases the area's vulnerability to hurricanes and storm surge.
The solution, Dr. Törnqvist asserts, must focus on reducing global warming-the primary cause of rising sea levels. In addition, scientists must restore the loss of wetlands and barrier islands, as well as build better levees.
"The emphasis in the whole debate over the past couple of years about the future of coastal Louisiana has been strongly focused on the question of how rapidly the land is sinking, but there has been too little concern about sea-level rise, which is a global problem that could have a big impact here," Dr. Törnqvist stated in a Tulane interview. "I think we should be more worried about that than we are.
"If we want to slow this down," he continues, "we have to stop global warming. If we don't succeed in doing that, the long-term future for coastal Louisiana is extremely grim. Nearly all coastal cities in the world are going to face these problems.
States insurers discuss catastrophes - 07/24/08
Louisiana's insurance industry is ready and could withstand another major hurricane, state Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon said Wednesday.
"We are better prepared," Donelon said after participating in a panel discussion on "Insuring for the Next Big One" at the weeklong National Conference of State Legislatures in New Orleans.
Citing the success of Citizens' Property Insurance Corp., the state insurer of last resort, and two dozen new insurance companies that have come to the state, Donelon said Louisiana homeowners will be protected from future hurricanes and natural disasters.
A catastrophe fund, also called "cat fund," is a pool of money that insurance companies can tap into once claims in a natural disaster exceed a certain amount. The idea is to remove some of the risk in doing business in states that are vulnerable to hurricanes, earthquakes and other disasters.
Donelon said the plan has been successful so far in bringing five new insurers to Louisiana with $29 million of the allocated money. Those companies have already taken 27,000 policies out of Citizens, he said.
