Grim - gee that's all we need the Government "Helping" us with insurance. That will cost more and help less. Government took over building construction insurance, cleaned it up and now anyone who gets a house built has to be lucky because if they are not there is nothing to fall back on.
House insurance is the same no insurance, fire, flood, lose house, simple really.
Grim, the government cannot do anything but make it worse, keep them right out of it.
If the "Government" are short of something to do get them to fix the theft of our rates to support pensions to council employees. They allowed that, now fix it!

Barrie. Read the AR5 assessment report re 'extreme weather' events, take a bex and have a lie down mate, this hyperventilating is just not good for you.

'Extreme weather events are as old as Noah (joke Runner) '

the multitudes that drowned did not think it a joke Graham. However it is clear that true gw will occur when the time comes. The apostle Peter gives a clear account of it. It won't be caused by trying to warm pensioners in the winter and cooling them in the summer as the Green religion preaches. It will be a result of man's corruption so aptly displayed by those who reject Christ.

(2Pe 3:7) But the present heavens and the earth being kept in store by the same Word, are being kept for fire until the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.

"There is a strong consensus amongst experts on climate that the Earth is warming at a rate that can only be explained by rapid increases in the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere."

It's unfortunate -- for you -- that the consensus doesn't extend to the actual data series which measure the earth's average temperature, as these show no significant warming since 1996. How often do we have to point this out, I wonder, before the message actually sinks in?

And Graham, all the data suggests that the best way to take 'sensible precautions' against extreme weather, natural disasters and anything else is to allow and encourage people all over the world to improve their lot in life via the provision of cheap energy, democracy and secular, reason-based rules and legislation. None of which are on the agenda of the UN or the IPCC.

Well, here we go. All the old tropes get an airing again.

“the actual data series which measure the earth's average temperature, as these show no significant warming since 1996”

Well actually, they do. Since 1996 HadCRUT4 has a statistically significant warming of the global surface of 0.09 C per decade; GISS has a statistically significant warming of the global surface of 0.11 C per decade, UAH has a statistically significant warming of the lower troposphere of 0.11 C per decade. Only RSS has a non-statistically significant warming of the lower troposphere since 1996 of 0.03 C per decade.

“sea level increases have been a steady 3.2 mm a year for 20 years now.. to get to even the lower level of scenario you set out - 60 cms by 2100 that rate of increase will have to at least double for the whole of the remaining part of the century”

That is the trouble with using short periods to cherry pick trends. http://www.cmar.csiro.au/sealevel/index.html shows an increased rate of sea level rise over the last 20 years (3.2 mm/y) compared with the first hundred years (1.4 mm/y). To reach 60 cm since 1880, the rise over the next 86 years only has to average 4.4 mm/y. There are two things driving sea level rise as the Earth warms, loss of land ice and expansion of oceanic water. A faster rate of sea level rise is a certainty if global surface temperatures continue to rise.

GrahamY, you are unlikely to get the deniers to agree that there are sensible precautions to take. The whole reason many deny man has an impact on climate is because they don’t want to think about precautions. You can see it already in this thread.

No individual event can be said to be caused by global warming. Extreme events have always occurred and always will. That is the nature of probability. However, many recent extreme weather events have been worse than they might have been because the Earth is a degree warmer and the seas 20 cm higher than they were 120 years ago

"Uncertainty about the problem (man-made climate change) is a given; but uncertainty about the chosen solution is inexcusable. This is to say, we should be confident that our solutions are going to be effective, and the more expensive the solution the more confident we should be. In short, big responses require high levels of confidence that they will work. There seems to be a lack of credible evidence to demonstrate carbon pricing passes this test."

http://jennifermarohasy.com/2013/08/why-the-ets-will-not-succeed-peter-lang/