There remain some fringe lunatics who deny that global climate change exists, some of whom occupy positions of power and authority within our governmental, industrial, and financial institutions. However, they are slowly losing influence behind the scenes as a key fact emerges: it makes good business sense to accept the reality of our changing climate.

This writer first got wind of this trend a few years ago, when shopping for real estate in a warmer climate – coastal real estate, someplace with palm trees and such (hey, he’s getting older, so warm and sunny works for sore and creaky/Blunt and Cranky). When looking into insurance for many locations, he was informed that the rates would be very high, and in some cases coverage could not be purchased at any price. Why?

Because the profit-motivated actuaries and accounting whizbangs who assess risk for insurance companies have determined that sea levels are rising; and any coastal properties that aren’t going to be submerged in the next 20 – 60 years will have to deal with increasingly frequent  and severe weather events. They can’t make money insuring properties that are pretty much guaranteed to become fish habitat in the near future.

This is far from an isolated situation: insurance against crop damage, flood damage, tornado damage, etc., all are getting pricier and/or harder to obtain. Commodity markets are adjusting, supply-chains are having links added and removed, manufacturers are making changes, homebuilders and remodelers are changing  materials: all to deal with the world that the right-wing loons pretend isn’t real.

If you want to know what risks are worth planning for, you don’t ask someone with fluffy-bunny ideas, or someone who “lives in the world but is not of it”: they will refuse to see the danger, because they think that some sort of divine intervention or positive visualization will magically fix the problem. This in spite of the fact that we haven’t seen such miraculous works on a global scale in at least several thousand years.

No, you ask some flinty-hearted, inhumane, profit-loving, Dickensian creature what he’s doing with his money.  He’ll be making the conservative, prudent choice, based on hard data and facts. For example, the World Bank says “Holy cow, peeps, this s***’s getting expensive”: http://climatechange.worldbank.org/

The smart money says global climate change is real. And if you’re not smart, you’re stupid. This humble blogger will be consulting climate models before purchasing the next chateau de Blunt and Cranky, thank you very much.

Mr. B & C