The Monetary Aspects of Climate Change

In Windfall: The Booming Business of Global Warming, McKenzie Funk takes a different slant on the effects of the issue by following the money. While he paints a clear picture of the geographical and physical changes caused by climate change, he focuses primarily on the business side of it.

In some cases, enterprising entrepreneurs are seizing opportunities to take advantage of unfortunate situations. One such case is that of a man who is buying up every scrap of available farmland in struggling South Sudan. It remains to be seen whether this will be a positive or negative development for the country’s poor, war-ravaged people. Greenland is in a different situation. It is sitting on vast amounts of minerals that are becoming increasingly accessible as the country’s ice cover melts. Russia is also discovering more available land for farming and industry.

Companies...