Corporate America doesn’t care about solving the problem of climate change. Rather, they are concerned with the profit they can make from it. Because we are already seeing effects of climate change, part of the solution to dealing with climate change will now include adapting to those effects. And with that need for adaptation, corporations have found a new niche to exploit.
While no one has completely given up on mitigating climate change, there is an increasing recognition that we have already altered our planet to such an extent that climate change is inevitable, so we have to begin adapting to that reality, author Alexander Zaitchik says.
Conversations are now becoming more focused on “adaptation,” or accommodating to the effects of climate change that we are already experiencing, such as, rising sea levels, higher temperatures, and more severe storms. As Zaitchik describes,
One thing we’re starting to see more and more of, as this becomes apparent, is finance figuring out how it can get in and create and corner new markets as resource scarcity begins to become more felt, and things that weren’t worth so much money before start to become worth quite a bit, and primarily that’s food and water. As arable land becomes more scarce, potable water becomes more scarce, as rain patterns shift, these are going to be the new gold, diamonds, and oil – the things that keep us alive.
While many in the GOP continue to deny that climate change is a real issue, it is hard to deny the effects we are already experiencing. Yet the Republican Party is even refusing to acknowledge the need for adaptation resources for states like North Dakota, whose agricultural economy is on the brink of destruction due to extreme floods now occurring every year in the state.