While giving away $1 billion, Grantham’s planning to make even more money, and he’s hoping climate change offers the opportunity.
The key sentence, buried halfway through the article...
Investing Prophet Jeremy Grantham Takes Aim at Climate Change
21–30 of 103 posts
Re: Investing Prophet Jeremy Grantham Takes Aim at Climate Change
#22Going to get downvoted harshly for this, and I deserve some of it. But let me say, is anyone else just slightly suspicious (don’t have to change your minds though and I agree with the science here) that investing billionaires, people who give truth to the saying “behind every great fortune is a great crime”, would actually be interested in the best possible thing for the world? Doesn’t that sound a little bit suspici…
"While giving away $1 billion, Grantham’s planning to make even more money, and he’s hoping climate change offers the opportunity. "
I think that you might be on to something...
Re: Investing Prophet Jeremy Grantham Takes Aim at Climate Change
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
The scary part is that even if you cannot provide food to even, let's say 3% of the human population, it will create massive destabilization, initially in the part of the world affected, then globally. I remember that at the start of the various Arab Spring revolts, protests were about the cost of food. I have never been to Egypt, and maybe I have a distorted view of the situation there, but I don't understand how it…
First of all, the Nile basin covers 32% of the area of Egypt (330 000 km²), which is a bit more than the size of Italy who supports a population of 60 million. Secondly, due to the climate they also get two-three harvests per year.
Thanks, it put things in perspective.
Re: Investing Prophet Jeremy Grantham Takes Aim at Climate Change
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Generating three centimeters of top soil takes 1,000 years, and if current rates of degradation continue all of the world's top soil could be gone within 60 years, a senior UN official said on Friday. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/only-60-years-of-...
> "Generating three centimeters of top soil takes 1,000 years," Such a vague assertion leaves me with more questions than it resolved. Topsoil should properly be measured in volume, not distance. Presumably they mean a given area will gain three centimeters in 1,000 years, but what area and under what conditions? There are some environments with zero topsoil and some environments with quite a lot of topsoil, so is th…
It's also just wrong.
Maybe this is true under "natural conditions" (however you want to define those). But intentional farming practices can produce this much top soil every year. The problem is that few farmers use those practices. But I do, and I can tell you that planting green fertilizers and nitrogen-fixing cover crops, and then plowing them under, will produce pretty good topsoil very quickly.
Re: Investing Prophet Jeremy Grantham Takes Aim at Climate Change
#25While giving away $1 billion, Grantham’s planning to make even more money, and he’s hoping climate change offers the opportunity. The key sentence, buried halfway through the article...
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Re: Investing Prophet Jeremy Grantham Takes Aim at Climate Change
#26If he is so prophetic why does he only have a billion instead of a trillion dollars? Why must we use such a click-baity word in our headlines? Bloomberg could just say "Investor Jeremy Grantham..."
Re: Investing Prophet Jeremy Grantham Takes Aim at Climate Change
#27While giving away $1 billion, Grantham’s planning to make even more money, and he’s hoping climate change offers the opportunity. The key sentence, buried halfway through the article...
Not sure why this is getting downvoted. That quote does come from the article and it's is a very real concern. This article seems to be about Grantham's new investment strategy disguised as philanthropy.
Re: Investing Prophet Jeremy Grantham Takes Aim at Climate Change
#28>With topsoil disappearing at a rate of 1 percent a year and “only 30 to 70 good harvest years left depending on your location,” Well, that's definitely a scary framing. Does anyone have sources for this specific prediction? Aside from launching his (for-profit) climate fund, (for-profit) vc investments, and funding research, I'd be very interested in more details on how the money will be used.
The scary part is that even if you cannot provide food to even, let's say 3% of the human population, it will create massive destabilization, initially in the part of the world affected, then globally. I remember that at the start of the various Arab Spring revolts, protests were about the cost of food. I have never been to Egypt, and maybe I have a distorted view of the situation there, but I don't understand how it…
Isn't food instability a contributing factor to the crisis in Syria?
Re: Investing Prophet Jeremy Grantham Takes Aim at Climate Change
#29Going to get downvoted harshly for this, and I deserve some of it. But let me say, is anyone else just slightly suspicious (don’t have to change your minds though and I agree with the science here) that investing billionaires, people who give truth to the saying “behind every great fortune is a great crime”, would actually be interested in the best possible thing for the world? Doesn’t that sound a little bit suspici…
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Re: Investing Prophet Jeremy Grantham Takes Aim at Climate Change
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Generating three centimeters of top soil takes 1,000 years, and if current rates of degradation continue all of the world's top soil could be gone within 60 years, a senior UN official said on Friday. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/only-60-years-of-...
> "Generating three centimeters of top soil takes 1,000 years," Such a vague assertion leaves me with more questions than it resolved. Topsoil should properly be measured in volume, not distance. Presumably they mean a given area will gain three centimeters in 1,000 years, but what area and under what conditions? There are some environments with zero topsoil and some environments with quite a lot of topsoil, so is th…
The statement was about the global reserve, so clearly these are all global averages.
I don't see volume being very natural reporting unit as farming usually counts by area, so reporting a total volume just forces everyone to convert to length themselves.
You want more details, read the Status of the World’s Soil Resources report: http://www.fao.org/3/a-i5199e.pdf