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Making big money from climate change

It's a subject very much under the radar, but a recently published book reveals how many corporations, and individuals, are already looking to,and are, lever off climate change as an avenue to making a lot of money.    Author McKenzie Funk in The Windfall: The Booming Business of Global Warming, details what is actively going on right now.  The Scientific American explains what the book addresses as follows:

"Can climate change make for good business? Entrepreneurs all over the world are counting on it, claims journalist Funk in his new book Windfall: The Booming Business of Global Warming. The effects of a shifting climate, he says, can be divided into melt, drought and deluge (that is, rising sea levels), each of which would mean big paydays for different industries. From companies in Israel using by-products of massive desalination plants to capitalize on ski resorts in need of fake snow, to private firefighters working for California insurance companies, to Dutch architects designing floating cities, Funk's reporting brings him face-to-face with individuals who are investing in planetary crisis. Far from vilifying these opportunists, he attempts to see the warming world through their eyes".

See also this review of the book in the Sydney Morning Herald, here.

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