Business Week on Climate Change

This week's issue of BusinessWeek (July 17, 2006) has an article titled, "Business On A Warmer Planet". The subtitle is "Rising temperatures and later winters are already costing millions. How some companies are adapting to the new reality."

The article speaks of examples of global warming is having adverse effects on a number of businesses. One example features a diamond mining company, Diavik Diamond Mines Inc., which no longer can build "ice highways" over frozen rivers to deliver tons of equipment, fuel and supplies needed to run their business. Due to the higher temperatures in the area, the ice never got thick enough to support the heavy trucks. They had to choose between slowing their operations or investing a great deal more money to do same deliveries by air. They chose the much more expensive option due to the money they make mining diamonds.

A new report by Lloyd's titled "Adapt or Bust" is also mentioned in the article. It basically states that with the predicted effects of climate change (rising sea levels, stronger storms and a shift in agricultural cycles), everyone - businesses, governments and individuals - will have to adapt.

Some things being seen needing adjustments include a whole town in Alaska that may have to be moved at a cost of $100 million; trees being decimated in British Columbia due to the rising temperatures not killing mountain pine beetles as had occurred; snails that carry parasitic disease in China not being killed due to rising temperatures; and a great deal of salmon in Alaska being too diseased to be sold due to higher temperatures in the Yukon River that spreads a salmon parasite. The last example has caused upstream fisheries to be decimated. This has caused an overall decline in commercial fishing.

The rice growing season in Mali has also been cut short of late. The rainy season has decreased by more than a month over the past several decades due to an increase in temperature.

I recommend reading the article as it goes in more detail and gives more examples of how businesses, governments and individuals have already had to adjust to changes caused by global warming.