MIT’s alumni magazine, Technology Review, has published a helpful map for where to invest if you think that global warming will be more faster and more dramatic than others expect. Set it up for 2050, for example, and Canada gets a 35 percent GDP boost compared to the “no warming” case. Russia is up 47 percent. A U.S. investment strategy doesn’t need to change; our GDP will supposedly be reduced by 5 percent in 2050 compared to if a magic wand were waved and the climate stayed the same.
[Lending support to those who are skeptical of statements by scientists, the prediction for 2099 is that Russia will be up by 419 percent compared to the “stable climate” scenario. Canada is up by 247 percent.]
Readers: What’s your best long-term climate change investment idea?
My idea was to option marginal rangeland, just north of the most northerly viable rye field in Canada. Or you could buy it outright, pasture cows (present use) to pay the cost of capital, and wait for warming to give you that extra few degree/days you need to grow rye on them. Feed the rye to pigs and sell the pigs to China.
Or even better wait until a freak weather year to convince everybody global warming is happening quickly, and offload the project to somebody who actually wants to wait 30 years to see this through.
Looks like a load of garbage to me. They found some spurious post-1960 correlations and slapped a “global warming” label on it to boost sales.
http://web.stanford.edu/~mburke/climate/BurkeHsiangMiguel2015.pdf
ROI is usually undefined after a brief (by geological time) period, say 30 years. A random walk investment strategy is good as any. Witness the legion of big insurance companies that remain solvent indefinitely.
We can see glaring exceptions to this article’s scenario: Hot-as-Hell Houston and Texas at large have been good economic performers, and the Netherlands are a testimony to the ingenuity available to overcome tidal flooding.
It really doesn’t matter how climate plays out unless there is a human-species-extinguishing event like an asteroid collision, mega-volcanic eruption, or all-out thermonuclear war. Otherwise, the change will play out at a rate easily accommodated within economic and political cycles.
We need to worry more about malevolent or batshit crazy political regimes than climate change. Democratic government is much rarer in history than temperate climate.
Related: endless California drought comes to an end: http://www.drroyspencer.com/2017/01/satellite-reveals-end-of-n-california-drought/
I blame Russian hackers.
>What’s your best long-term climate change investment idea?
Ammo
If you’re really interested in investing, I recommend studying Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, of Berkshire Hathaway. The annual reports are a good place to start. Then the writings from Benjamin Graham. I did this, then decided Warren was much better at this than I could ever hope to be, and put my retirement funds in BRK-B. I go to the annual meeting every year in Omaha. This is also very educational and recommended for those who are interested in investing.
The best thing to do is buy real estate just one block from the beach. Soon it will be beach front!