Thoughts/concerns on Climate Change
Curious to hear what people's sentiment on the climate change issue are on here. Do you think it's a real threat? What is your expectation on adaptation/resilience? And as far as finance is concerned, are you worried that this will lead to a more volatile insurance market with larger bailouts from the government?
Obama wouldn’t have bought a coastal mansion if climate change was real with the polar ice caps melting.
Banks wouldn’t lend to oceanfront FL condo builders if climate change was real.
The lending logic doesn't really follow in this case. Banks lend to risky entities all the time ... More inclined to follow the Obama logic.
Yes and no. In truly flood prone coastal areas, banks will not make loans without subsidized flood insurance. That doesn't seem to be a concern in this case.
makes zero sense. If anything happened to his mansion he has the coverage to build a new one. that's a pretty dogshit argument. That's like saying climate change doesn't exist because it still snows
CO2 levels used to be in the 1000s of ppm millions of years ago, it has been falling steadily (fairly linearly and predictably) over time, to where we are now, which is ~410ppm. The threshold for plant life on Earth is approximately 150ppm CO2, below that all plants, and eventually all life, will die. We should be doing everything in our power to get CO2 levels above 500ppm (as a safety measure), and keep it above that unless we want to turn Earth into a dead planet.
EDIT:
Follow the trend. The Carboniferous Period was an anomaly, CO2 levels before were ~4000ppm, and about 2000ppm right after:
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Global-Temperature-and-CO2-levels-over-600-million-years-Source-MacRae-2008_fig1_280548391
I don't know much, but 300mm year ago the earths CO2 levels were around 300ppm. This was around what was the Carboniferous Period. How is this linear?
“Homo erectus, an early human ancestor, emerged about two million years ago on a much cooler planet. At the time, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels averaged about 230 parts per million — a bit over half of today's levels.”
”Carbon Dioxide, Which Drives Climate Change, Reaches Highest Level In 4 Million Years”
https://www.npr.org/2021/06/07/1004097672/atmospheric-carbon-dioxide-fu…
The Carboniferous Period was an anomaly, CO2 levels before were ~4000ppm, and about 2000ppm right after:
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Global-Temperature-and-CO2-levels-over-600-million-years-Source-MacRae-2008_fig1_280548391
I'm somewhere in the middle on all this. I think that humans do impact the climate and it seems logical to me that we're going to eventually run out of fossil fuels, so it is a worthwhile endeavour to start figuring out more sustainable sources to derive our energy from. Further, I also do think that little changes we make can make a difference if done on a macro scale (i.e. if only I turn off all my lights when I leave a room, recycle, etc. then it won't have an impact, but a billion people making these small changes would have a large impact).
That said, I don't think it's conclusive how much actual impact we're having on the environment relative to other factors, how quickly we'll run out of fossil fuels, etc. Further, I do think that technological innovation can help reduce waste in multiple ways (think about how the iPhone replaced so many gadgets and how much less material would be consumed if we had a separate cell phone, iPod, etc. instead) and that eliminating poverty is an underrated way of reducing our carbon footprint. I also don't like how much hysteria there is in the mainstream media with centimillionaires like Leo DiCaprio telling us how the earth literally has 9 years left becasue of climate change, while he's jetsetting to Cannes and riding super yachts, both of which are not exactly greenhouse friendly...
Particularly agree with the last point, there's a huge irony in people with way more power and influence telling regular people that their choices are the problem.
The real change will come from the UN successfully enforcing the agreements it creates, and governments incentvizing companies to innovate.
Part of that is already happening with the rise of electric vehicles, and there are governments working on renewable power, but these changes will start slow before they ramp up rapidly.
We were supposed to have run out of oil in 2000 and the ice caps were supposed to melt in 1995 or something. Yes I think there are some common sense things we can do for the environment but let's cut the crap.
Liberal fear-mongering is something else. Is climate change happening? Sure. But is it against the natural order of the earth in the past several million years? Not at all.
You may find this interesting.
We're seeing obvious impacts from climate change already when it comes to extreme weather events and rising sea levels. It is all well and good to say "future generations will figure it out" but kicking that can down the road is ridiculous. Had we addressed this honestly 30 years ago, the overall expense would be reduced. Complaining about the expense is like complaining that you have to pay for car insurance; yes, it may be a cost you don't want to bear right now, but it's miniscule compared to a scenario which is, quite frankly, likely to occur.
Too many people in the United States (don't know enough about other places this discussion is being had) confuse being a free rider for freedom - if there was some way to make sure that the future costs of climate change were borne disproportionately by the people who currently are dismissing it, I'd be fine with that. But it is conscientious people, mostly liberals, who will get fucked on this and thus I'd support forced social action on it.
Besides, so much of it is so easy, and costs comparatively little. Maybe you don't need subsidized water for your lawns in Arizona. Maybe agricultural concerns should be forced to limit water usage. As we're seeing now, a small amount of investment in renewable energy is yielding massive dividends in terms of technological advances; who knows where we'd be if automakers had tried to innovate in this direction 30 years ago instead of 10. Etc etc.
Cry me a river. It's really only fair that libs face some consequences that they can't escape from. They typical liberal playbook is to crown into a city (i.e. SF), turn it into a cesspool of poop / needles / progressive policies and once things become unbearable, move to a functioning city (i.e. Miami) and try to do the exact same thing. At least climate change is one consequence they'll have to bear and can't really escape from. Only a handful of places you can move to that will escape / mitigate effects of climate change, are open to lots of immigration, and are 1st world countries -- Canada is actually the only once that comes to mind. Nordics don't like excess immigration, nor do likes of Iceland / Greenland. So the libs that are ruining this country will finally have to own up, no loss there
Best thing about climate change is how it's screwing the libs, who for decades have worked to destroy America through there crappy policies. Good riddance
You mean, as always, the consequences of failed conservative policies? Yeah, we're used to that; fixing conservative messes is pretty much why liberals exist.
San Francisco has been a noted liberal bastion for decades. I'm not sure what you're talking about with all this "piling in". And for what it's worth, those cesspool cities are the economic engine that drives the country. I'm sure we'd all prefer to live in Birmingham... oh wait, you don't live in Birmingham, do you?
Liberal policies make cities a nice place to live.
Riiiight.... the group that says "hey, climate change is bad, maybe we should try some collective action to fix or mitigate the problem" is the one that "should face consequences"? Typical projection from a conservative. The pedophiles that point fingers.
I mean its pretty obvious its an issue. Fossil fuel companies knew about it and chose to hide the truth. I think the issue is that emerging market economies have no incentive to stop using fossil fuels/especially coal in the case of China and India. Efforts by OECD nations to limit it via Carbon border taxes/adjustments are limited in the scope of their impact considering that the majority of emissions come from non tradable industries.
try sustaining global energy demand levels without fossil fuels and lmk how that goes lmao
France is doing it right now. 74% nuclear, 15% other renewables, and guess what? Less pollution and no reliance on corrupt dictators. The faster we get rid of fossil fuels, the less people pay in gas prices. Renewables, even without subsidies, have been cheaper than fossil fuels in the US since 2019.
Fully agree. It’s certainly an issue that extends beyond political boundaries. Another issue is that many of these developing countries are located in tropical regions which will feel the initial brunt of climate changes effects. Since wealthier countries won’t have to deal with these initial effects, they have even less incentive to act with urgency
Why do you think so?
China and India don't have cheap ass natural gas like we do. So renewables are quite a bit cheaper than the alternatives.
good thread from about 6y ago: https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forum/off-topic/do-you-believe-in-man-m…
my comment: https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/comment/1432916#comment-1432916
my thoughts haven't changed much except a few more passport stamps leading me to believe that paper straws at my local coffee shops aren't making one bit of fucking difference
just realized I didn't answer the other part of the question - concerns. yes I am concerned. I worry that because everyone in the world believes almond milk and avocados are inalienable rights, that our water supply is in danger. I worry that we incentivize RE development over soil quality and we're creating a desert in the midwest where the bison used to roam instead of shutting down ethanol subsidies to let ruminants poop all over the great plains, rejuvenating the soil. I worry that fish stocks will get destroyed, I worry about how much pork we sell abroad and the massive amount of farmland it requires as well as the waste it creates (if you've never driven by a pig farm, do it and tell me you think this is good for the environment). I worry that the entirety of the developed world relies on just-in-time delivery and having exactly what they want when they want it instead of thinking locally and sustainably (for example, you shouldn't be having strawberries in winter, they don't grow). I worry that our incessant taste for more, bigger, better, and newer stuff will do absolutely nothing to timberlands and minimizing plastic consumption, and there will eventually be entire cities converted to landfills. and worst of all, I doubt the ability of politicians who are all old enough to have to take RMDs to think long term enough to come up with solutions that do little more than give them some retweets, cripple the younger generations with higher costs for everything (regulation increases cost nearly 100% of the time), and do nothing to change the environment because china and india are still burning coal and people like it's going out of style.
if I really get into the weeds, it's easy to get down. but I've found solace in a couple of things that won't change the world, but they'll minimize my impact
Sure, climate change is a thing but I have a feeling, it is not a top priority for most people right now.
Except for that Greta Thuneburg girl. Jesus just let it go, it was charming at first but now it's just annoying. Though she doesn't get as much major press coverage as before so who cares I suppose
youre seriously bringing up this person completely out of the blue in one sentence and then complaining about how she gets too much attention in the next? This has got to be a joke lol
I think there are some common sense things we can do for the environment, but the thing is we don't talk about environmental issues anymore. Yes, I said what I said. We only talk about one very singular, specific issue which is carbon, with the idea that less carbon = less global warming?
Maybe global warming, or climate change, or whatever the new name for it is part carbon emissions, and probably a big part geological and solar activity which we can't control like coming out of an ice age.
But what we can control is: taking better care of our forest lands which we do a terrible job on the west coast specifically, doing a better job with water contamination, and doing a better job at protecting the honeybee population. We don't talk about the environment anymore. This is why I use the work "environment" and not "climate" because I'm trying to push back on this carbon myopia, plus whether or not carbon is really the root of all our evils. Sulfur emission are terrible - and we don't talk about that. All the smog in LA, that's not carbon. That's sulfur.
I reject the notion that questioning that teenager girl, whats her face, about her rants about carbon means you're anti-environment.
Meanwhile oil is at $120 and rising...RIP middle class, but hey at least we seemed woke on social media for a few years!
Edit: One more thing. I feel a little conflicted on this because I've had to work on ESG sections of pitch decks, and we all know this stuff is eccentric at best or toxic at worst, but clients want it. We don't have common sense people running the show. We have purple haired cat ladies at university endowment funds, who in turn make hedge funds/PE funds woke since they don't want to lose asset allocator clients, who in turn makes investment banks woke, who in turn makes F500s needing capital woke. For now, there isn't much I can do about it so I just shut up and color and collect my paycheck, but at what point do we stop staying silent on stuff like this? We all know that Exxon isn't more environmentally friendly than Tesla, despite whatever S&P says about ESG. We also all know that we need oil for at least multiple decades for plastics, jet fuel, chemicals, and plenty of other things until alternative tech improves.
So on one hand I see the BS, but I like my paycheck. So I keep filling out the ESG section as instructed until I'm in a position to do otherwise.
You got it mixed up. Exxon is actually on the list of ESG responsible companies and Tesla was dropped from it. Which is total bullshit imo
Lol at thinking ESG was meant to be an objective measure of societal good. It’s nothing more than a clever way for PMs to funnel money to their buddies. Musk clearly isn’t one of their buddies.
That's what he said bruv
I don't stay silent. when clients approach me with ESG questions, I tell them my opinion (without my conspiratorial leanings sprinkled in). the talk goes something like this
brof - the climate is changing, we have corruption and mental health crises here and abroad, we can quibble over how much man has to do with it, but you want to reflect your environmental/social concern via your investment portfolio, meaning you give less to companies that do bad, and more who do good, right?
client - spot on!
brof - currently, the best tools we have is something called ESG (and then I explain the acronym) and many firms will score certain stocks on how they stack up ESG wise, allow me to read to you the top 10 holdings of XVV, the iShares ESG ETF and IVV, the iShares regular S&P 500 ETF. notice anything?
client - they're basically the same
brof - and did you notice while cheap, XVV costs just over 3x as much?
client - wait a minute...
brof - furthermore, how much energy do you think is used by companies like AMZN driving stuff all over the place just because people don't want to leave the couch? how much energy is used to run cloud centers for google, MSFT, and AWS? how much social good does facebook/meta do? and how is AAPL ESG friendly when it's widely known that their phone production involves borderline slave labor? what about tesla and mining in south america? what about coke and pepsi and all of the problems with sugar, is that not a social problem?
client - is this for real? so what good does ESG do?
brof - my opinion is that companies and governments will do well by the environment because of social pressures, and if you want those products I will try to find the best ones available, but I personally believe that ESG is no more than a marketing ploy/excuse to charge more for substantially the same investments. I firmly believe the G in ESG is good, because that's a systematic thing (independent directors, etc.), but beyond that I'm skeptical, and since I believe in skin in the game, I don't invest in these funds personally, therefore I cannot in good conscience recommend the same for you
client - so what do we do?
brof - well, since it's impossible to invest directly in patagonia or dr. bronners, I recommend we focus our investing on investing merits, focus your philanthropy on philanthropic merits, and focus on your personal carbon footprint rather than trusting people who are more interesting in seeming good than doing good
edit: if they're really curious, I'll send them to aswath damodaran who has some brilliant write ups/take downs of ESG
https://aswathdamodaran.blogspot.com/2021/09/the-esg-movement-goodness-…
https://aswathdamodaran.blogspot.com/2020/09/sounding-good-or-doing-goo…
lmaooo i love flagrant CCP propaganda
Amazing how the West thinks it has the moral high ground on everything
If you were born after 1976, you have never seen a year where global temperatures were below average. If you were born after 1985 you have never seen a month where global temperatures were below average. No idea how anyone can deny it at this point
100 years isn’t a large enough horizon to make a substantial conclusion. For all you know the period before 1976 was abnormally cold, or the volatility in temperature isn’t statistically significant.
It probably took you more time to type and post this comment than it would have for you to spend 5 seconds googling to find out both of your "hypotheses" have no grounds in fact. Lazy discussion like this shows how much you actually care about finding out the truth vs confirming your own biases.
It's a real threat, but on what scale is questionable. Deaths from natural disasters have fallen ever since the 1930s, killing 40k yearly now versus 3.5m at the peak in 1930. Humans adapt and develop new technology. There are more disasters every year but fewer deaths.
A bigger problem IMO is all the chemicals and microplastics that end up in our systems. Just look at the sperm count over the last 40 years, around a 60% decrease. A serious problem when the west is facing a population crisis in the near future, just have a look at birth rates.
Sure it's happening but I'm not convinced the man is really responsible for most of it. History of earth is heating & cooling. Sure, we may have accelerated it by a few centuries (or even millennia) but ultimately it's just back to the mean reversion. As brofesor says above, if things get really crappy humankind will be the ones that become extinct, not Mother Nature -- which I'm very comforted it by. It was here long before we were
Lmao great user name
Hey man, definitely not trying to wade into this debate on a forum like WSO, but here's where I think you should reconsider your opinion: "As brofesor says above, if things get really crappy humankind will be the ones that become extinct, not Mother Nature".
To me, that is just more of a reason that it is logical to act (rationally) while we can. Climate change has a high likelihood of being a major hindrance to economic growth. Just because it's "natural" (in the sense that it's happened before) doesn't mean we shouldn't take steps to prevent it if those steps are accretive to economic growth. People way on the left create animosity towards this topic by acting as if we could just shut off fossil fuels, but even though that's a silly opinion that doesn't mean that there aren't sensible steps that we can take to reduce the impact and protect our ability to grow in the future. Looking at some of the cost/benefit analyses of certain "climate related" projects it's obvious that there is value to be had (I'm not talking about proposals by some super left-leaning organizations but actual cost-benefit analysis by economists that are often right-leaning).
since I'm being quoted here let me be clear - the comment in question is to allow yourself some personal peace if the idea that we're killing the planet gives you anxiety. I firmly believe that mother nature is far more powerful than humankind, so while I am not pessimistic that we'll drive ourselves extinct, I do think the perspective and the humility that we're not as powerful as we think can lead someone to peace.
I'm not saying "well we're fucked so let's not do anything about it," quite the contrary in fact (I believe we're not as fucked as greta thunberg thinks but we should still do something about it, the whole "leave it better than you found it ideal"). I'm simply saying that if you try to change the world, you will get frustrated, and perspective can sometimes help frustration.
to be sure, I'm in agreement with you, we should act rationally while we can, but you can't tell everyone in the world to do that, and quite frankly I don't want to live in a world where someone/a few people have enough power to enforce that
Lol the West isn't willing to invest behind minimizing climate change impacts. There was a summit a while back and the EM countries said collectively they need $800bl to switch to more renewable sources. Put your money where your mouth is if you care that much, if not it's just virtue signaling
It literally occupies zero space in my brain, and is just something new for left leaning Gen Z/Millennials to freak out about (as well as the patriarchy, Covid, institutional racism, nuclear war with Russia, and whatever else is in the news that week) as they are on their way to refill another prescription for anti depressants
I also am skeptical of “the science”. Not the data itself, but the solutions. Investments, wealth redistribution, etc that no doubt has some degree of corruption to it and will likely lead to waste and unintended consequences. We were told for 2 years to trust the science with Covid and look at the economic mess it has caused. If our country was the United States of Florida we would somehow be much better off today and arguably not have measurably more deaths.
my take? If/when it becomes a real issue then necessity being the mother of all innovation will lead to some brilliant solutions. When we collectively want to fix something we fix it. Until then it’s just fear mongering, rebranding global warming to climate change as more of a catch all, as well as blaming every little hurricane drought tornado on it now - which is hilarious. Don’t stress about things in life for which you have zero control. Thus, I do not stress
Go outside in this very pleasant summer accompanied by a Gin and Tonic filled to the brim with ice.
Do not sip - simply let the glass sit in the sun and observe what happens to the water level.
Congratulations, you have wasted a good Gin and Tonic. On the upside, you disproved climate alarmism.
Haaaa so because all the ice on the planet is already submerged in water, sea levels will stay the same even if the ice melts?
Extremely logical, except for the fact that antartica and greenland exist, so your analogy makes aboslutely no sense whatsoever and everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it.
I don't think about it. Not because it doesn't exist, but because it gets old getting bombarded with propaganda about plastic straws and using too many squares of toilet paper while governments and mega-corporations that we ultimately have no control over create waste and destruction at massive levels. And that won't change regardless of how much blame we place on the individual consumer to reduce their footprint. Eventually I figure we reach an inflection point in a few hundred or thousand years where we see a climate apocalypse like we see in sci-fi movies; I'm actually kind of disappointed that I won't see it in my lifetime and will instead just have to continue to listen to tiresome diatribes from politicians and CEO's.
All of a sudden coal is back on the menu because libs want to destroy Russia, so yeah...
Deranges climate terrorism appeals to scientists with god complex and vegan sociopaths trying to force their lifestyle onto the masses
People that complain about climate change have never lived in cold cities. I was in Boston for 4 years and that shit is unbearable
Living in a cold climate is a pretty poor excuse to ignore climate change assuming you're even passively informed on how it impacts the weather...
Www.phys.org/news/2022-02-climate-snowstorms.amp
It's just another power grab payoff. ESG is groupthink investment on steroids that ultimately stifles competition and innovation overall. Should climate change be an "existential crisis" of the magnitude that some believe then we should be incentivizing innovation through our current most efficient, abundant, and reliable power source (fossil fuels) to continue to innovate new ways of creating energy. Instead, it does the complete opposite. Now markets such as I believe the Nasdaq have ESG criteria (completely subjective) if you want to list. Let me know if I’m missing something but I really cannot find how this is beneficial at all to society. Subjective standards + regulatory pressures - innovation - competition = ?
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