Business and the effects of global warming

NESTLED IN A forest an hour’s drive from Providence, Rhode Island, sits what some employees call “the world’s biggest facility for property destruction”. Here workers for FM Global, an engineer-cum-insurer, set fire to wall cladding, hurl projectiles at reinforced glass or test roofing designs for the gusts of wind they can take before tearing off. The experiments are designed, monitored and replicated with laboratory precision, beams Louis Gritzo, FM Global’s head of research. All simulate what wildfires, hurricanes and other natural disasters could do to the structures of its customers, which include such well-known names as Disney, Caterpillar and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.