Financial Risks From Global Climate Change
An excerpt from an original Tidepool article, dated Tuesday, September 9, 2003:
At long last, the sweltering summer of 2003 is starting to give way to the cooler temperatures and changing colors of autumn, at least here in the Pacific Northwest. Cloudy skies and rain recently made a welcome return for many folks in the region, unaccustomed to this year's long, hot dry spell.
But climate scientists say we could be in for more of the same in future years, as greenhouse gases and other culprits of global warming play havoc with the world's climate. A group of U.S. and U.K. researchers that studied 2,000 years of temperature data recently concluded that the late 20th century has been the warmest period on record -- ever. And they, like thousands of other scientists around the globe, pin at least a portion of the blame on human activity.
Yet despite this widespread consensus among the scientific community, the belief that we could all be in trouble as global overheating triggers continued climate disruption hasn't affected one of the most important drivers of our economic well-being: the stock market. The financial world largely has yet to consider climate change as a major risk factor, demonstrating its short-sightedness and difficulty in dealing with such a long-term issue. Indeed, many companies and shareholders discount the financial impact that climate change could have on their market value, either denying the threat or discrediting the idea that global warming solutions will be costly. And now, groups like the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies say that someday soon those companies and investors could be sorry they didn't plan now for what could turn out to be a very hot future.
Read the entire story on the Tidepool website:
Consider the Climate
http://www.tidepool.org/
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