Page 14 - 2019 Mid-Year Program Book

WORKSHOPS

Tuesday, May 7

Predicting Weather-Driven Impacts in the The Liability Maze of Legal Marijuana –
Current and Future Climate Implications for your Program

10:30-11:30 am – Carroll AB 4:00-5:00 pm – Carroll AB
Lloyd Treinish – IBM David Bradford – Advisen
Weather profoundly affects the global economy and Cannabis products may be legal in most states, but the
society. Not a week goes by when we don’t learn of liability landscape remains unsettled. Liability concerns
such impacts. It can be wildfires in California or unusual include workplace safety, product liability, medical
weather like nearly 16 inches of rain in four hours in malpractice and other areas that can reach into many of
Japan last summer. Such situations stress the resiliency the programs written by TMPAA members. To complicate
of the infrastructure on which our lives and livelihoods matters, while marijuana may be legal at the state level,
depend. For example, global losses due to weather in it is still classified under federal law as a Schedule 1
2017 were estimated to be nearly $300 billion. Given drug. For these and other reasons, insurers have been
the growing social unrest and economic disruption from slow to respond with cannabis-related coverage.
such events, one must begin by understanding the
science and what is driving what we are seeing. This workshop will discuss the following:
Efficient, resilient, and safe operation of many cities, • Future of legal marijuana in the US
for instance, is dependent on local weather conditions • Federal vs State issues
at the scale of their critical infrastructure (electric, • Identifying the multiple sources of liability
communications and water utilities, transportation, etc.)
This includes both routine and severe events such as • Limitations of traditional insurance coverage
tropical storms, tornadoes, snowstorms, damaging winds • Emerging insurance marketplace for
and hail. With precipitation events, local topography and cannabis-related coverages
weather influence water runoff and infiltration, which
directly affect flooding as well as drinking water quality
and availability.
Until recently, many businesses and public institutions
largely accepted weather risk as a factor that could
not be mitigated. However, with the increasing skill of Evolve
weather forecasts, weather risk mitigation is a reality.
The initial step to address this gap is the application of
state-of-the-art weather models at the spatial scale of
a business operations. The results of such a model can
drive predictions of business impacts. While scientific and &
technical challenges remain, they are sufficiently mature
that they are used for operational decision making today.
Attend this presentation and learn about this science
and how it can be applied in practice to address different
business use cases. Also discussed will be the on-going Thrive
research to further such capabilities, including how
science is extending this concept to a climate scale in
order to evaluate the potential localized impacts of a
warming planet and the effectiveness of strategies being
used to mitigate such impacts.

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