An old system facing an unprecedented challenge

Preventing a rerun of World War II really isn't our problem

Jim and Sara Nuttle illustration from “America’s New Map”

Solid NYT story about how the global financial institutions and rules put in place after World War II are looking mighty creaky as the world seeks to manage, and adapt to, climate change. The subtitle is what caught my eye:

Economists offer alternatives to financial safeguards created when the U.S. was the pre-eminent superpower and climate change wasn’t on the agenda.

Those are two monumental structural changes all by themselves, as I note in America’s New Map, the other two biggies being the world’s demographic aging and the emergence of a majority global middle class.

In combination this century, they impose upon humanity the same sort of tough choices that climate change impose on species: adapt, move, or die.

Since humans are the royalty of adaptation, it’s interesting to see economists beginning to embrace the adaptation realm of climate change versus arguing over mitigation payoffs.