, Columnist
The Market’s Next Black Swan Is Climate Change
Failing to do more to slow the planetary heating caused by greenhouse-gas emissions will gouge 40% from global stock valuations.
Up in smoke.
Photographer: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
Fighting climate change is difficult partly because humans are weird. It’s difficult to get them to care about their own future well-being much less that of entire future generations. People blow retirement funds and skip leg day. You think they care about their imaginary great-grandkids?
But people do care about stock prices. Entire media empires and lucrative careers have been built out of talking about stock prices. Unlike the fuzzy details of unborn descendants’ lives, stock prices are concrete. Line go up, line go down. Simple.