Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Investing Prophet Jeremy Grantham Takes Aim at Climate Change

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 103 posts

Re: Investing Prophet Jeremy Grantham Takes Aim at Climate Change

#71

Post by Pharmakon »

sigmaprimus wrote: post #49

Just as vast fortunes were made during the financial crisis of 2008 by selling the markets short ( see the film "The Big Short") I would expect there are people betting on climate change continuing down its current tragectory, and these people now have a vested interest in making this happen. I don't know how many other billionaires are putting their money on the pro climate change side but wouldn't a smart investor…

Logically speaking this amounts to betting that the Titanic will sink on its maiden voyage, while you’re stuck on the Titanic.

Re: Investing Prophet Jeremy Grantham Takes Aim at Climate Change

#72

Post by gdubs »

dhh2106 wrote: post #2

>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.

“Tree Crops: A Permanent Agriculture”, by Russel Smith (1929) is an excellent, well sourced book on the subject. The title also hints at the origin of the term “permaculture”, popularized by Bill Mollison.

There’s a lot of solid scientific evidence out there for soil repair as carbon sequestration; in fact the appendix of the IPCC report that shook the world last year lists soil repair as one of the top things we can do to address climate change.

1: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/714112.Tree_Crops

Re: Investing Prophet Jeremy Grantham Takes Aim at Climate Change

#73

Post by lordnacho »

AceJohnny2 wrote: post #67
lordnacho wrote: post #63

As a former fund manager, I found his description of current capitalism quite close to my own. Particularly the bit where he says markets are good at a lot of stuff, but not everything. Has anyone else had that sort of intellectual journey, where you discover libertarianism, you learn all the tropes, you feel very confident, and then after a while you pull back a bit after finding a few issues? And I suppose on the o…

> Has anyone else had that sort of intellectual journey, where you discover libertarianism, you learn all the tropes, you feel very confident, and then after a while you pull back a bit after finding a few issues? And I suppose on the other side of the spectrum as well? For most people, that transition happens between the teenage years and adulthood.

How many people know even the basic facts of political or economic history as young adults?

Re: Investing Prophet Jeremy Grantham Takes Aim at Climate Change

#74

Post by kbenson »

makerofspoons wrote: post #11
dhh2106 wrote: post #2

>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.

There are solutions to this- driving through eastern Colorado and west Kansas you'll find many farmers using no-till techniques and planting winter cover-crops that create topsoil and increase soil quality. Farmers have a vested economic interest in keeping the soil productive. Meanwhile from what I understand from talking with some friends in agricultural engineering in places like California where farmers expect to…

> in places like California where farmers expect to be pushed off their land eventually by rising land prices they are using destructive practices to extract as much as they can before they go defunct.

Assuming the land is going to be used for non-agricultural uses (residential/commercia, covered in some material in some way) and "destructive practices" means over-farming, but not otherwise polluting or causing damage, I'm not sure I see a problem with that (but I may not be thinking of some consequences).

Then again, that's a lot of assumptions...

Re: Investing Prophet Jeremy Grantham Takes Aim at Climate Change

#75

Post by gdubs »

mooreds wrote: post #3
dhh2106 wrote: post #2

>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.

> 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-...

There’s a permaculture technique called Keyline Irrigation — one of its claims is that top soil can be generated at a much quicker pace as the result of a practice known as subsoiling, wherein a large blade cuts deep grooves into a field. The blade cuts plant roots which in turn decompose, and aerate the soil, providing pathways for water to infiltrate.

It hasn’t been scientifically validated. Anecdotal reports from farmers like Mark Shephard are that it works. [1]

1: https://books.google.com/books/about/Restoration_Agriculture...

Re: Investing Prophet Jeremy Grantham Takes Aim at Climate Change

#77

Post by holografix »

Pharmakon wrote: post #71
sigmaprimus wrote: post #49

Just as vast fortunes were made during the financial crisis of 2008 by selling the markets short ( see the film "The Big Short") I would expect there are people betting on climate change continuing down its current tragectory, and these people now have a vested interest in making this happen. I don't know how many other billionaires are putting their money on the pro climate change side but wouldn't a smart investor…

Logically speaking this amounts to betting that the Titanic will sink on its maiden voyage, while you’re stuck on the Titanic.

No, it’s betting the titanic will sink while you know you’ll be dead before it starts sinking.

Re: Investing Prophet Jeremy Grantham Takes Aim at Climate Change

#78

Post by sigmaprimus »

peaktechisnow wrote: post #76

"Prophet" who makes one horrifically awful market call after another. He was bullish in February of 2018 (right before implosion), after years of being bearish. What a clown.

Even a broken clock shows the correct time twice a day :)

Re: Investing Prophet Jeremy Grantham Takes Aim at Climate Change

#79

Post by CuriousSkeptic »

lordnacho wrote: post #63

As a former fund manager, I found his description of current capitalism quite close to my own. Particularly the bit where he says markets are good at a lot of stuff, but not everything. Has anyone else had that sort of intellectual journey, where you discover libertarianism, you learn all the tropes, you feel very confident, and then after a while you pull back a bit after finding a few issues? And I suppose on the o…

Absolutely, contemplating some issues with Rothbards writings led me to something more resembling geolibertarianism.[1]

Reading the Wealth of Networks[2] probably helped to.

I guess I’m even more left now. But really I think it’s time for a synthesis of the left/right ideologies.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geolibertarianism

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Networks

Re: Investing Prophet Jeremy Grantham Takes Aim at Climate Change

#80

Post by sigmaprimus »

I have reread this article as some of the comments made me question whether or not I understood it or not. I had assumed that Jeremy Grantham was investing his wealth to save the planet, this was the conclusion that the author presents at the end of the article under the title "Bottom Line". But this is not necessarily the case, Mr. Grantham is investing in technology that will show a profit because of climate change, it is a subtle difference but an important one to consider, sort of the grain of salt that should be taken with reading of the article.
Post reply on HN