Moody’s Buys Climate Data Firm, Signaling New Scrutiny of Climate Risks(nytimes.com)
nytimes.com
Moody’s Buys Climate Data Firm, Signaling New Scrutiny of Climate Risks
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/24/climate/moodys-ratings-climate-change-data.html
40 comments
I agree, but Moody's does have a reasonable defense against being called a failure.
We can't really expect them to ascertain the true state of things, because that is impossible and nobody can do that. And if they could do that, they'd put their knowledge to use as a trading firm rather than telling people what is going on.
Their job is to compile what 'everyone' knows and report it because that is all they can reliably do. That is something that can be achieved consistently, and that their customers probably do want to know.
We can't really expect them to ascertain the true state of things, because that is impossible and nobody can do that. And if they could do that, they'd put their knowledge to use as a trading firm rather than telling people what is going on.
Their job is to compile what 'everyone' knows and report it because that is all they can reliably do. That is something that can be achieved consistently, and that their customers probably do want to know.
> Moody's does have a reasonable defense against being called a failure.
"the subjects of their analysis are also their clients." sounds less like failure and more like fraud. 'Failure' is what they hope it's seen as, to avoid legal consequences.
"the subjects of their analysis are also their clients." sounds less like failure and more like fraud. 'Failure' is what they hope it's seen as, to avoid legal consequences.
Are you holding any investment grade bonds in your portfolio? If so you are directly rely on their (and other rating agencies) data. The fact that rating agencies fucked up mortgage in 2008 doesn't mean they can't see other real problems.
Also, if you're holding any high grade/investment bond ETFs you're very likely to own some mortgage backed securities in there.
Also, if you're holding any high grade/investment bond ETFs you're very likely to own some mortgage backed securities in there.
This is the start of what I’ve been waiting for. But I don’t think we’ll see real action until the risk starts getting priced into coastal real estate, both directly and indirectly (i.e. insurance and reinsurance).
I would have started with the assumption that the risks are already being priced into coastal real estate (because real-estate investors are not ignorant of climate change). What is your evidence that they are not?
Empirically, it doesn’t appear to be the case. https://www.trulia.com/real_estate/Miami-Florida/market-tren...
It is priced correctly by non taxpayer funded entities. However, to buy the votes of residents in FL and TX and other at risk regions, the National Flood Insurance Program was created for taxpayers to pay for flood damage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Flood_Insurance_Progr...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Flood_Insurance_Progr...
Things brings to mind an issue that I haven't seen addressed. Profiting directly from climate change will be an increasing threat. If investors start snapping up real estate in northern Canada, for example, it creates perverse incentives--not just to ignore climate change, as oil companies have, but to encourage it.
Don't think that people won't devise ways to make a fortune from this disaster.
Don't think that people won't devise ways to make a fortune from this disaster.
> northern Canada
I've been frequenting r/collapse and one of the perspectives there is that increasing heat in the north will create desertification and thus not a very hospitable place to live. Which leaves me wondering, where at all would be? Maybe no where... I live near the equator at low elevation and I can't imagine it will be better here either.
I've been frequenting r/collapse and one of the perspectives there is that increasing heat in the north will create desertification and thus not a very hospitable place to live. Which leaves me wondering, where at all would be? Maybe no where... I live near the equator at low elevation and I can't imagine it will be better here either.
Investors are already snapping up real estate in southern Canada creating a housing crisis.
We're actively trying to address this problem, it's not new.
It's possible that the boreal forest will just die from lack of water and deseases coming from the south(like the Asian beetle that is destroying trees in Ontario and Quebec) . Just the other day I was reading an article that the forests in South France are dying of dehydration .
Hmmmm. I'm not so sure I want big corporations becoming entangled with climate change data. Sometimes those profit motives cause some less than optimal usage of resources.
Moody's rate co2 AAA. Just like distressed debt securitisation...
Weirdly enough this actually gives me a lot of hope for humanity and is the beginning of a realistic and scalable solution to climate change.
The main problem with the free market has been lack of accountability and dollar damage projections on environmental damage.
Most fossil-fuel energy companies have lobbied against it because it would make their product a lot more expensive to produce if their customers had to pay a market-rate fee for it's burning/disposal. The ammount of carbon that can be dumped out is finite, yet the cost is artificially set to zero/free which makes no sense unless you live in a communist system.
By accounting this into credit risk, it makes it more expensive for governments to ignore the environment. It means they have to pay a lot more interest on their debt which puts maximum political pressure on them to address the money problem regardless of their ideology beliefs.
This also makes clean energy companies actually competitive at market rate since they have very little carbon dumping to pay for.
It also puts a lot more pressure to improve the measurement accuracy of carbon emission if it is actively being traded. It also greatly increases insurance costs for new fossil fuel development because now they can face liability when people's homes are flooded for the first time.
On the positive side, It also makes local farming produce more competitive and economically stable too because it needs to burn a lot less gas, thus pay for less carbon waste for delivery compared to a similar product that's shipped from extremely greater distances.
Because shipping does not pay a market rate for carbon waste, it creates some absurd situations.
For example a lot of pepper farmers here in Ontario actually ship their produce all the way to China for packaging and then ship it back here to sell because it saves them a small margin this way in the current cost.
By enabling the market to factor in environmental costs, you're basically letting a distributed graph-based computer, a giant hive mind, the market, address the problem a lot more efficiently and with massively more processing power than you would have with central planning.
The main problem with the free market has been lack of accountability and dollar damage projections on environmental damage.
Most fossil-fuel energy companies have lobbied against it because it would make their product a lot more expensive to produce if their customers had to pay a market-rate fee for it's burning/disposal. The ammount of carbon that can be dumped out is finite, yet the cost is artificially set to zero/free which makes no sense unless you live in a communist system.
By accounting this into credit risk, it makes it more expensive for governments to ignore the environment. It means they have to pay a lot more interest on their debt which puts maximum political pressure on them to address the money problem regardless of their ideology beliefs.
This also makes clean energy companies actually competitive at market rate since they have very little carbon dumping to pay for.
It also puts a lot more pressure to improve the measurement accuracy of carbon emission if it is actively being traded. It also greatly increases insurance costs for new fossil fuel development because now they can face liability when people's homes are flooded for the first time.
On the positive side, It also makes local farming produce more competitive and economically stable too because it needs to burn a lot less gas, thus pay for less carbon waste for delivery compared to a similar product that's shipped from extremely greater distances.
Because shipping does not pay a market rate for carbon waste, it creates some absurd situations.
For example a lot of pepper farmers here in Ontario actually ship their produce all the way to China for packaging and then ship it back here to sell because it saves them a small margin this way in the current cost.
By enabling the market to factor in environmental costs, you're basically letting a distributed graph-based computer, a giant hive mind, the market, address the problem a lot more efficiently and with massively more processing power than you would have with central planning.
Wish I shared your optimism. It is simply too little, too late for humanity to avoid serious, calamitous effects of climate change.
Take a look at these graphs:
1. Annual worldwide CO2 emissions by region: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co-emissions-by-re...
That graph keeps growing every year (save for major recession years). Consider how much effort it would take just to reduce the growth to 0, where we would still be very much screwed.
2. Global CO2 concentration: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-co-concentration-p...
Again, up and to the right, consistently, for decades, with no sign of slowing down.
3. Same graph of CO2 concentration, but over a longer timescale, to really freak you out: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co2-concentration-long-te...
I'll start having optimism when I see even a small change in the direction of these graphs.
Take a look at these graphs:
1. Annual worldwide CO2 emissions by region: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co-emissions-by-re...
That graph keeps growing every year (save for major recession years). Consider how much effort it would take just to reduce the growth to 0, where we would still be very much screwed.
2. Global CO2 concentration: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-co-concentration-p...
Again, up and to the right, consistently, for decades, with no sign of slowing down.
3. Same graph of CO2 concentration, but over a longer timescale, to really freak you out: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co2-concentration-long-te...
I'll start having optimism when I see even a small change in the direction of these graphs.
There are more drastic ways to cool the planet and they're actually economically feasible too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJFtdvrTZs4
By no means are they safe or anything, the environmental impact is vast and with many unknowns. However at some point in the passing decades it will be unethical not to use them. The environmental damage of the continuing warming will be greater that the possible environmental damage of the geo-engineering methods. Therefore we will most likely use them.
The 2 most practical methods that can be enacted by a single nation today are ocean fertilization to spur growth of oxygen producing plankton and spraying of reflective sulphur dioxide dust in the stratosphere, even if all the permafrost melts, methane in the atmosphere has a half life of only 7 years.
The carbon is the main problem. At 1000 ppm we can still breathe despite the impact it has on our cognitive health. Most likely we'll offset that with massive tree planting at scale. Other carbon capture methods are not that scalable in my opinion. Wood is basically captured carbon, it makes great building material and certain species of it can grow pretty fast over and over again like bamboo which grows 91cm/3ft per day. Genetically modified derivatives of it are quite likely to be developed too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJFtdvrTZs4
By no means are they safe or anything, the environmental impact is vast and with many unknowns. However at some point in the passing decades it will be unethical not to use them. The environmental damage of the continuing warming will be greater that the possible environmental damage of the geo-engineering methods. Therefore we will most likely use them.
The 2 most practical methods that can be enacted by a single nation today are ocean fertilization to spur growth of oxygen producing plankton and spraying of reflective sulphur dioxide dust in the stratosphere, even if all the permafrost melts, methane in the atmosphere has a half life of only 7 years.
The carbon is the main problem. At 1000 ppm we can still breathe despite the impact it has on our cognitive health. Most likely we'll offset that with massive tree planting at scale. Other carbon capture methods are not that scalable in my opinion. Wood is basically captured carbon, it makes great building material and certain species of it can grow pretty fast over and over again like bamboo which grows 91cm/3ft per day. Genetically modified derivatives of it are quite likely to be developed too.
Forgive my bluntness, but I thought we had buried the 'efficient market' fallacy over a decade ago. Besides, the only thing your market would optimize for is how to maximize rentseeker profits, the 'climate' situation be damned.
How was the efficient market hypothesis buried? Believing that markets are optimal in a very strong sense is wrong, indeed. We know that people are not perfect rational actors, but we are quite rational anyway. Markets work damn well if what we care about is priced in.
Not to mention that market economies of many different kinds have been proven over and over to be more efficient than centrally planned economies. For example, China authoritarian and socialist market economy miracle of rising almost a billion people out of extreme poverty in strong contrast to the centrally planned disaster with the Great Chinese Famine where at least 15 million people died of starvation. Or Holodomor in Ukraine with 4 million people starved to death.
Centrally planned economies are responsible for more deaths and misery than the whole Holocaust.
Not to mention that market economies of many different kinds have been proven over and over to be more efficient than centrally planned economies. For example, China authoritarian and socialist market economy miracle of rising almost a billion people out of extreme poverty in strong contrast to the centrally planned disaster with the Great Chinese Famine where at least 15 million people died of starvation. Or Holodomor in Ukraine with 4 million people starved to death.
Centrally planned economies are responsible for more deaths and misery than the whole Holocaust.
Northern passage is opening up, trade with Chinese goods will be much cheaper. There is a lot of profit to be made on top of dead bodies of millions of future victims of the climate catastrophe.
Cheaper for who? The Panama Canal is a pretty direct route.
It saves about 4000 km and 4 days off of Vancouver -> Finland, which for one early transit was worth about $200K:
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/breakthro...
There're still a lot of practical problems with the Northwest Passage - notably, the most direct routes are too shallow, there remain lots of icebergs and ice sheets, it's not well-mapped, and there are few resupply ports along the way. I'm not sure I'd agree with all the criticisms in the article (notably, they assume the Northwest Passage will always have ice in winter, but in many "greenhouse earth" scenarios the arctic is ice-free year-round), but it's decades out, not years.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/breakthro...
There're still a lot of practical problems with the Northwest Passage - notably, the most direct routes are too shallow, there remain lots of icebergs and ice sheets, it's not well-mapped, and there are few resupply ports along the way. I'm not sure I'd agree with all the criticisms in the article (notably, they assume the Northwest Passage will always have ice in winter, but in many "greenhouse earth" scenarios the arctic is ice-free year-round), but it's decades out, not years.
Shanghai to Rotterdam: Panama canal 26000km, Northern passage 16000km....
Not to mention the northern passage isn’t anywhere close to passable by any serious cargo, even in a decade it will be questionable.
very poetic. I like it because it made me look at the positive side first (woah.... never thought of that)... and then made me decide I don't want that.
Well, history is going to be written by those who profited rather than those who died, so in the eyes of our descendants (if we have any), it'll be a positive thing. Not sure if that's a comforting thought or a disturbing one.
There is also 15% more green vegetation on the planet right now than a few decades ago, due to recent warming, much in formerly marginal areas. Some millions of people potentially dead from famine are likely still alive thinks to the extra food resources. (Along with quite a number of assorted non-human critters supported by it all.)
An uptick in crop failures due to irregular growing seasons has lead to things like the Syrian civil war, which is a fairly direct cause of the immigrant crisis in Europe which is a fairly direct cause of the rise of ethno nationalism in Europe.
This paper disputes your claims about the effects of climate change on Syria’s current state: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096262981...
Just because there is more vegetation over all does not mean that food crops produce higher yields. Climate change decreases yields by creating more extreme patterns in precipitation and temperature fluctuation.
If "extreme patterns in precipitation and temperature fluctuation" are doing that, you should see decreased greening in the satellite data. But we haven't.
https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate3004
According to the above (2016) Nature article, 25% to 50% of the globe shows greening, with only 4% showing browning.
https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate3004
According to the above (2016) Nature article, 25% to 50% of the globe shows greening, with only 4% showing browning.
Lower yielding crops are still green, color has nothing to do with the weight produced per plant. Yield is related to physiological stress on the crop: over water a plant it stays green while the roots rot, put it in drought conditions or heat it up for slightly longer and it gets stressed; either way you're reducing the harvest yield.
Additionally if the greening is occurring in previously permafrost soils that are not very useful for farming then there is not an increase in the food produced by that green area.
Additionally if the greening is occurring in previously permafrost soils that are not very useful for farming then there is not an increase in the food produced by that green area.
World crop yields are up year on year, according to the USDA. See Table 01 World Crop Production Summary here:
https://apps.fas.usda.gov/psdonline/circulars/production.pdf
https://apps.fas.usda.gov/psdonline/circulars/production.pdf
Interesting, although year to year is a bit of a small scale to compare. Also the first sentence mentions a drought that dropped 5% of Russian wheat from the previous month, but that left the yield 4% higher than the previous year. It's possible that the increases from higher temps offset the longer droughts in some cases. If variance in rain and temperature continue to increase there will eventually be a tipping point where yields are severely reduced.
Well sure, there must be a tipping point somewhere, but the earth has been a lot hotter in the past than it is now, and biomass was in much greater quantity at such times.
It's glacial maximums that are really concerning to me personally. It's very unlikely that we could feed so many billions of people as we do now if we ever enter another ice age.
It's glacial maximums that are really concerning to me personally. It's very unlikely that we could feed so many billions of people as we do now if we ever enter another ice age.
Do you have any references to back up these claims, especially the assertion concerning famine?
Wouldn't this also be related to the European requirement for companies to account in their filings a measure of how climate change may impact them ?
Why did it take this long? Serious question. Was weather not considered an insightful input/value until now? Why?
This is just branding for more clients