Business Opportunities Abound In A Crumbling Climate - Air Conditioners! Drugs! Guns & Cameras!

[hatrack]

Climate change will have some pretty terrifying consequences. Experts have predicted everything from deadly heat waves and devastating floods to falling crop production and even increased political instability and violence. But according to some of the world's biggest companies, these future disasters could also present lucrative business opportunities.

In a remarkable series of documents submitted to a London-based nonprofit called CDP, big-name corporations describe global warming as a chance to sell more weapons systems to the military, more air conditioners to sweltering civilians, and more medications to people afflicted by tropical diseases. CDP, which stands for "Carbon Disclosure Project," asks companies all over the world to disclose information about their greenhouse gas emissions and how the changing climate will impact their operations. Each year, thousands of companies send in responses. Below, we've compiled a list of some of the most striking—and, in some cases, disturbing—scenarios laid out by those businesses.

It's important to keep in mind that these companies aren't rooting for catastrophic warming. In the same documents, they outline huge risks that climate change poses to humanity—and to their profits. Many of them have also taken significant steps to reduce their own carbon footprints. Still, the fact that corporations have spent so much time thinking about the business opportunities that could emerge as the world warms underscores just how colossal an effect climate change is going to have on our lives.

EDIT

Raytheon, the Massachusetts-based defense contractor, warned in a 2012 CDP document that climate change might "cause humanitarian disasters, contribute to political violence, and undermine weak governments." The company wrote that it expects to see "demand for its military products and services as security concerns may arise as results of droughts, floods, and storm events occur as a result of climate change." Connecticut-based United Technologies Corporation cites arguments that a devastating drought contributed to instability in Syria. The company notes that helicopters made by its Sikorsky business (which has since been sold to Lockheed Martin) were "deployed during population dislocations and humanitarian crises," and that last year it provided support to the US military's efforts to "mitigate population dislocations in Syria." Cobham, a British corporation that manufacturers surveillance systems, stated in a 2013 CDP document that "changes to countries [sic] resources and habitability could increase the need for border surveillance due to population migration."

EDIT

And so on . . .

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/12/climate-change-business-opportunities

[pscot]

1. “God’s still up there and there’s a reason for this to happen.”

Inhofe told Family Research Council president Tony Perkins on his “Washington Watch” program that Americans simply don’t care about the issue anymore and that there is nothing the U.S. government can do to reduce carbon dioxide emissions anyway.

“I know there are some out there, probably a couple hundred people, who actually believe that the world is coming to an end and man-made global warming is going to cause it, so I just want to give them the assurance that if they’re right and we are wrong, [proposed climate policies are] not going to reduce but it will increase CO2 emissions,” he said.

“They don’t understand,” he added. “God’s still up there and there’s a reason for this to happen.”

Inhofe went on to argue that human activities cannot affect the climate as the atmosphere naturally fluctuates between cooling and warming periods.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Still an @$$hole. Could be Congress was holding him back.

Now he has time to share his ignorance even more with the idiots.

We ALL know " there’s a reason for this to happen.” You Betcha, Jim!

[center]

Jim proves there is no global warming if there is still one snowball remaining. [/center]