Insured -- or better sue


By John - Posted on 26 September 2008

Who will pay? Who should pay relocation costs? The town of Kivalina in Alaska is filing a lawsuit against oil companies for redress. The Sundurbans were already a lost cause in 2003, but little financial assistance has been forthcoming for them. 

Ten percent of the world's population (600 million people) live in coastal areas that are less than 33 feet above sea level, and are facing abandonment by their insurers. Furthermore, these direct climate change costs are in addition to the heavy price we already pay to repair damage caused by natural disasters like hurricanes and floods, which have increased four-fold in the last two decades. Clearly there's no easy answer to the question of who will pay the price of climate change, except to say that we all will, to some degree. Maybe the newly nominated Governor Pallin could give us some insight on Alaskan triage?
http://www.climatelaw.org/cases/country/us/kivalina/kivalina