The (deputy) director's cut

It’s official. Climate change has changed everything.

Sure, there’s the stuff you already know. More severe storms, melting polar ice caps, the projected year-round beach resort status of Nova Scotia. But what about the other stuff? Major League Baseball games are getting snowed out in April, the same year that January football games in New England could be attended in short sleeves. I played golf (at a goat field of a public course that doesn’t use pesticides because they can’t afford it) three times in January, and had my tee time this past Saturday cancelled due to frost.

Even politics is no longer predictable. Yesterday, Newt Gingrich and John Kerry were supposed to square off in a debate that was to resemble the 1984 World Wide Wrestling Federation title fight between Wahoo McDaniel and Ricky Steamboat. (McDaniel took the title when Tully Blanchard came to his aid with a steel chair). Instead of the projected smack down, Newt and John ended up all chummy when Gingrich unexpectedly stated that climate change is real, that "we should address it actively". To top it off, there was an unsettling moment where it appeared they might even hug.

One of the reasons why climate change is more recognized now than it was even two or three years ago is the emergence of so-called "poster children" for the issue. The polar bear has become the face of global warming, as its existence is now threatened by the melting ice caps at the North Pole. As evidence that the polar bear is raising the issue’s profile, more than 500,000 Americans recently urged the feds to list polar bears as threatened under the Endangered Species Act due to the effect rising temperatures are having on their habitat. That’s almost double the previous record for public comments for an ESA listing in US history!

But its not just the charismatic megafauna that are at risk. According to the international organization Save the Children, 175 million children will be affected every year over the next decade by climate-related disasters like droughts, floods and storms.

Okay, you say. The plight of children and polar bears is alarming and tragic, and it makes me care that much more about the urgency to stop global warming.  But it isn't exactly surprising. Not like the giggle fest between Kerry and Gingrich anyway. THAT was surprising. Tell me something I don’t know.

Well, here’s an emerging casualty of climate change you might not have already considered: Business. Not exactly poster child material, but it makes Wall Street and wealthy political funders take notice.

According to a recent study, financial losses from weather-related catastrophes have risen an average of two percent each year since the ‘70s. Economists are viewing climate change more and more as a classic "market failure", with potential repercussions in the business sector that could be considered catastrophic in their own right.  Many agree that the single largest cause of that failure is corporations and governments don’t place a price on spewing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.  The resulting costs, however, could be huge.

Up until now, climate change has been seen as the cause of lefty liberals who want to make the world safe for polar bears and kids. Now, its champions need to include sports fans, golfers, day traders, parents, CEO’s, property owners and political pundits who make their living stereotyping congress.

Did I leave anyone out?