Betting on disaster

FOLLOW US SUBSCRIBE   Despite the risk of "stranded assets," which in the case of Big Oil is fossil fuel nobody wants in a future world where carbon is a dirty word, the industry giants are nevertheless planning investments approaching $1 trillion in everything from new fields to drones and drilling rigs. The pro-industry policies of the Trump administration, mixed signals from elsewhere and a general reluctance to implement the kind of changes that will help avoid a climate catastrophe mean there's still lots of money to be made fueling global warming. —David E. Rovella   "I don't accept this idea that the Amazon is world heritage. This is nonsense. The Amazon is Brazilian." —General Augusto Heleno Pereira, top security adviser to President Jair Bolsonaro, on why Brazil will allow development that will trigger accelerated destruction of rainforests critical to fighting the climate crisis.     Top stories The climate crisis could hit bank balance sheets and endanger financial stability, the European Central Bank warned, saying things could get ugly if markets aren't correctly pricing the risks stemming from extreme weather and the transition to a low-carbon emission economy. Bad outcomes include "fire sales of carbon-intensive assets" and potential liquidity problems. Australia's gas industry would seem to be in a good spot. It's ideally placed to serve Chinese buyers looking to avoid tariff-laden U.S. natural gas, and likely to benefit from the re-election of a center-right government. But none of that alleviates growing investor scrutiny over the sector's contribution to the climate crisis.  Trump administration appointees overruled their own technical experts in deciding not to impose tougher smog requirements on the Wisconsin county where Foxconn Technology Group planned a $10 billion manufacturing facility. Hungary is planning to create a green-powered town with jobs and housing for thousands on a barren strip of Danube flood plain. The U.S. has been rocked by 500 tornadoes in the past 30 days thanks to an atmospheric phenomenon that has been "stuck in neutral." The tornadoes are being driven by larger weather patterns that have led to widespread rains and flooding across the Great Plains and Midwest.   What we've been reading Scotland may be mulling an exit from a Brexit-paralyzed U.K., but it has a bigger problem. The Independent reports Scottish National Heritage is warning that the climate crisis may leave the country with polluted waters, abandoned villages, dying forests and just a few birds within a decade. If we were to think of the climate crisis as a traditional epidemic, one that's spreading fast and wide, at some point we might identify the index case. In the case of global warming and America, Esquire reports, that patient is Louisiana. A massive Bering Sea die off of 8,800 birds in 2016, most of which were tufted puffins, was attributable to the climate crisis. A major cause of the deaths was warming in the Bering Sea from 2014 to 2016, Vice reports, disrupting the ocean food web near the seabirds' island breeding grounds.   You received this message because you are subscribed to the Bloomberg Climate Changed newsletter.     Unsubscribe | Bloomberg.com | Contact Us Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington, New York, NY, 10022