This has been a record setting winter in the Eastern United States: record cold and record snowfall. And this has prompted conservatives to declare climate change a hoax. Never mind the fact that there has been record heat on the West Coast, and in much of the rest of the world. Global warming is, apparently, local.
But I don’t really want to talk about the stupidity of politicians talking about climate change in the snow. I want to discuss something broader.
Generally when conservatives say this crazy stuff about climate change, liberals respond by citing climate scientists, and innumerable studies that show the reality of climate change. This is fine if you’re trying to reassure other liberals, but is totally ineffective if you are trying to convince conservatives that climate change is real. They dismiss these scientists and these studied out of hand.
But there is a way, I think, to address climate change in a way that is understandable to conservatives.
Conservatives claim to believe in the wisdom of the free market. They believe that business people will make wise decisions based on the demands of the market, based on supply, demand, and the desires of the consuming public.
So what do businesses think about climate change? Most are deeply concerned about it.
Perhaps the most freaked out are the insurance companies, who believe that the effects of global warming will have a multibillion dollar impact on their industry. They are deeply concerned about paying out insurance claims for damage caused by rising sea levels, drought, and increasingly powerful storms. See: Climate Change: Insurance Issues and Insurance Industry Is Leader on Climate Change
The insurance business is based on the calculation of risk. Insurance companies economic survival depends upon their ability to predict, with some statistical certainly, the future. They have a good idea how many car wrecks there will be every year, so while they can’t predict whether you or I will get in a wreck next year, they are pretty certain that millions of people will. (And they have that number down to the hundreds.) So they have studied the question of climate change in depth, and determined that it is real, and that it is a real threat to the world, the economy, and their industry.
Insurance companies are not alone. In fact the vast majority of major American and world corporations believe that climate change is real, and believe that it will have a significant impact on future economic conditions. The major disagreement is over whether this presents a danger to the economy, or an amazing opportunity.
There are two major business groups that have formed to address climate change: Ceres and the U.S. Climate Action Partnership. Ceres is a non-profit that is allied with hundreds of major corporations, including AMD, Coca Cola, Dell, Ford Motors, and many others, who believe that dealing with climate change offers a tremendous technological and business opportunity. The other, USCAP, is a collation of major corporations, including Alcoa Aluminum, Dow Chemical, Duke Energy, GE, and many others, who believe that the best way to deal with the long term impact of climate change is to deal with it now. They believe that it will be much cheaper and less disruptive to deal with it now, rather than wait until global environmental changes dramatically alter the world’s economy. (See also, Business And Climate Change.)
I think one of main problems in the debate over climate change is that liberals don’t seem to understand how most major companies in America are addressing the issue. They tend to assume that most companies oppose any measures to address climate change. That assumption is dead wrong. While many energy companies are actively involved in funding climate science deniers, many others, like Duke Energy and Shell, are actively working to address the issue. (They are obviously trying to figure out how to make money in the process, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.)
I do not understand why Democratic politicians never mention this fact. I think liberals could change the debate by noting that on this issue most major American corporations are on our side.