Corporations prepare for climate change
DOI: 10.1063/PT.4.0974
If you looked merely at the realm of politics, says Slate‘s Clive Thompson , it would be easy to believe that the question “Is climate change really happening?” is still unresolved. In recent months, skeptics have attacked climate science with renewed vigor, through faking scandals or denouncing global warming as a hoax .
The results of these attacks have been seen in opinion polls: A Gallup study found that Americans’ concern over global warming peaked two years ago, and has steadily declined since.
But there’s one area where doubt hasn’t grown—says Thompson—and where, indeed, people are more and more certain that climate change is not only real, but imminent: the world of industry and commerce.
As Thompson says:
“This makes capitalism a curiously bracing mechanism for cutting through ideological haze and manufactured doubt. Politicians or pundits can distort or cherry-pick climate science any way they want to try and gain temporary influence with the public. But any serious industrialist who’s facing “climate exposure"—as it’s now called by money managers—cannot afford to engage in that sort of self-delusion. Spend a couple of hours wandering through the websites of various industrial associations—aluminum manufacturers, real estate agents, wineries, agribusinesses, take your pick—and you’ll find straightforward statements about the grim reality of climate change that wouldn’t seem out of place coming from Greenpeace.”
More about the authors
Paul Guinnessy, pguinnes@aip.org
