Claim: The monetary cost of damages has increased dramatically in recent decades, but that is due to increasing population, wealth and the amount of vulnerable infrastructure.

Relevance (1 = gold evidence, 0 = mined hard negative): 1
Passage: Losses caused by catastrophes, defined by the property insurance industry as storms causing insured losses over $5 million in the year of occurrence, have grown steadily in the United States from about $100 million annually in the 1950s to $6 billion per year in the 1990s, and the annual number of catastrophes grew from 10 in the 1950s to 35 in the 1990s.” Authors have pointed to several reasons why commercial insurance markets cannot adequately cover risks associated with climate change (Arrow et al., 1996, p. 72).

Relevance (1 = gold evidence, 0 = mined hard negative): 1
Passage: (2001) concluded that: countries with limited economic resources, low levels of technology, poor information and skills, poor infrastructure, unstable or weak institutions, and inequitable empowerment and access to resources have little adaptive capacity and are highly vulnerable to climate change (p. 879).

Relevance (1 = gold evidence, 0 = mined hard negative): 1
Passage: Others note that while the economy had stabilized and was growing by the late 1980s, inequality widened: nearly 45% of the population had fallen into poverty while the wealthiest 10% had seen their incomes rise by 83%.

Relevance (1 = gold evidence, 0 = mined hard negative): 1
Passage: Additionally, the percentage of the Chilean population living in poverty rose from 17% in 1969 to 45% in 1985 at the same time government budgets for education, health and housing dropped by over 20% on average.

Relevance (1 = gold evidence, 0 = mined hard negative): 1
Passage: Despite income and wealth disparities, the United States continues to rank very high in measures of socioeconomic performance, including average wage, median income, median wealth, human development, per capita GDP, and worker productivity.

Relevance (1 = gold evidence, 0 = mined hard negative): 0
Passage: Socio-economic factors have contributed to the observed trend of global losses, e.g., population growth, increased wealth.

Relevance (1 = gold evidence, 0 = mined hard negative): 0
Passage: and higher per-person infrastructure costs.

Relevance (1 = gold evidence, 0 = mined hard negative): 0
Passage: More than $ 300,000 (USD) ($ in today 's dollars) in damage was reported.

Relevance (1 = gold evidence, 0 = mined hard negative): 0
Passage: Millions can be impacted.

Relevance (1 = gold evidence, 0 = mined hard negative): 0
Passage: Global losses reveal rapidly rising costs due to extreme weather-related events since the 1970s.

Relevance (1 = gold evidence, 0 = mined hard negative): 0
Passage: In 1997–1998 the costs of damages reached US$2 billion.

Relevance (1 = gold evidence, 0 = mined hard negative): 0
Passage: Furthermore, increasing reliance infrastructure system interdependence, in combination with the effects of climate change and population growth all contribute to increasing vulnerability and exposure, and greater probability of catastrophic failures.

Relevance (1 = gold evidence, 0 = mined hard negative): 0
Passage: As indicated by the I=PAT equation, environmental impact (I) or degradation is caused by the combination of an already very large and increasing human population (P), continually increasing economic growth or per capita affluence (A), and the application of resource-depleting and polluting technology (T).