Weather a Disaster: Is $15 billion a lot of money in today’s dollars?

I often comb the business section of The London Free Press looking for my one big break.

E.g., Old widow selling shares in Coca-Cola - 4 cents each.

What are the odds, eh?

On Dec. 23 I found a few interesting items.They will not lead to my fortune but leave me with questions.

“$15 Billion, Weather a Disaster: A report from the Center for Research on Epidemiology of Disasters noted that 224 out of 245 international disasters this year were weather-related, causing $15 billion US in economic damages.”

In other words, 91% of recent disasters were weather-related and cost big bucks, i.e., if $15 B is big bucks anymore.

Q: Is it?

A: It sounds like a lot to me. More than I have in savings.

Q: Besides that, I’d like to ask if that number has been going up or down over the last 20 years.

In the book entitled The Little Green Handbook (TLGH - see Read This, side margin) I read the following:

“Global weather-related losses covered by insurance increased from $26.2 billion for the 1980 - 89 decade (i.e., approx. $2.18 billion per year) to $123.5 billion for 1990 - 99 (i.e., approx. $10.29 billion per year).”

So, according to one book at least, the cost of weather-realted damage has been going up.

Q: Is that a problem?

(Did you notice I didn’t ask what Epidemiology means?)

From TLGH:

“How long can we cope with weather-related economic losses? If global income is substantially greater than the losses, and if it increases at least as fast as the losses, we have nothing to worry about. There will always be enough money to repair the damage.”

“Preliminary examination of the data (available to author) shows that the prospects are not encouraging, because the losses are increasing much faster than income... in time the losses might match global income. That would mean global bankruptcy.”

Yipes.

I have no more questions for today.

You?

***

Is this a good time to say ‘build a stronger house?’

.