The YogiBerraism "It ain't over till it's over" is overused. But just because it is overused does not mean it is wrong.  AES has stayed up late digesting the insights of one of baseball's greatest. Its homework has paid off. On January 17 the Virginia Supreme Court entered a terse order (attached) granting rehearing in Steadfast Insurance Co v AES Corp. Jump to the next paragraph if you are familiar with the case. For those unfamiliar, AES is a defendant in Native Village of Kivalina v ExxonMobil Corp., a lawsuit alleging that certain carbon dioxide emitters are responsible for global wa...

Notwithstanding that millions tune in to the long-running reality TV show America's Next Top Model, the real modeling action is not in Hollywood.  Instead, it is on computer mainframes churning out annual simulations of 100,000 years or more of catastrophes such as hurricanes, earthquakes and terrorist attacks. Such analysis drew the attention of the Maryland Court of Appeals in its seminal opinion last Wednesday in People's Insurance Counsel Division v. Allstate Insurance Co. (attached), which affirmed the appropriateness of modeling in an insurer's decision to issue, or not, homeowners'...

Last week a big step forward was taken by the Western Climate Initiative (WCI). Or what remains of it. On January 1, 2012 members were to establish binding caps on emissions of carbon dioxide from electricity generators and certain industrial sources, issue allowances for those emissions and then permit the trading of those allowances.  At least that was the plan back in September 2008 when  Design Recommendations for the WCI Regional Cap-and-Trade Program was released and when climate change response was popular and states had money in their budgets.  Since then Arizona, M...