The article is reflects the opinion of a horse coach builder on Motor cars

Mature industries and their opinion leaders tend to become ignorant against facts after being conservative. This has happened all the times and is happening again when paradigms shift.

the climate change is not just a Hollywood hillbilly, but is only not agreed by the international science community as absolutely certain and manmade because of political influence of governments trying to win time.

The various needs and investment fields the author names are all interconnected and depend on each other.

for medium term decisions depend on the political decisions shaped over the next few years, but on the long run reality will take grip and markets are already coming into existence. Companies not preparing now will not be able to enter the by then mature markets and disappear as coach builders did and the US car industry does right now.

How can we know that the theory of relativity is correct? Most of us have no clue about it but at least most of us "believe" that it is correct. It simply works and we can study its effects everyday. Climate change is very similar, we can´t really feel it and the processes are beyond of our common understanding, but the scientific facts are that evident that the only reason that the IPCC (international panel on climate change, consisting of scientists from thousands of scientists of various disciplines and organized world wide) is only not claiming a 100% certainty for these man made effects out of political pressure by interested governments. Now the final statements ends with a likeliness of 95%. So far to the listed scientific capacities from Hollywood and the reference from industrial interest groups.

Shouldn't we all discuss such an important topic seriously without falsifying facts and testimonials?

To make a long story short. The listed facts are either of no relevance because they are drawn out of context, work along timescales which have nothing to do with the ones applied in here or are simply bending physical evidence by someone having no idea about the topic comparing apple cider percentages with the alcohol content of a good Calvados, both made from apples but completely different things. We could as well take creationists ideas as basis for historical research.

the drop in the bucket he had were probably the only 1.8 permille in his blood even less than CO2 in the atmosphere.

To understand how climate change is influencing our economies and hence they should our investment decisions we have to understand the interrelations with societies, their reaction on this knowledge and what it means for the single person. It is not less global than influencing everything what we do on the long run.

Even politicians, by nature not really blessed with a long term horizon and by survival instinct more engaged in daily live hassel have realized that action is necessary now. That leads to a strong support for alternative energy production already by subsidies and tax breaks. Most of it in Europe but interestingly also in China and emerging market Countries. Interesting enough China in the climate change discussions is always going as far as the US are prepared to go when it comes to international market influences.

In short, for investment decisions into alternative energy production it is already irrelevant if climate change is a fact or not. Political acting is creating the fact necessary for the decision and these are fundamental decisions with a very long time horizon creating markets which are partly already ripening into mature markets like Photovoltaics and Wind.

the other half of the climate change is energy consumption and the cost of it. The strong dependence of fossil energies is probably the highest risk factor of all production costs for the coming years useless to say for energy intensive products like steal production for example.

And before you even think about it. Nuclear power plants, insignificant whether a path into the future or outrunning technology, will not be a savior for at least the next 10 to 15 years because of the long time to get such a plant into production and the necessary solution for the radioactive sewage disposal. From a general economic perspective it is also an expensive technology because of the huge costs to dismantel a plant when it goes out of operation, the tax payer will have to carry that load in the future if politics accept that industry shifts its load to him as it is happening in many countries.

the oil price explosion in 2007 / 2008 is a very nice example how the price of such a substantial resource which is not substitutable can explode when the demand / suppliers curves cross. What we have seen was only the first smell of what to come with the oil peak not only in sight but, again serious analysis taken seriously and not stating hollywood celebs as testimonials, already happened. I would like to know how much the increased energy costs and inflation tendencies have triggered world economic crisis apart from the well known systemic reasons. 

There is a lot to come on this field and some economies have shown that they are neither prepared for that nor are they able to react on short notice. The higher the ratio between energy used per value created the harder the economy in question will be hit. Interesting enough that this is not restricted to oil prices but is also working on all not sustainable namely fossil alternatives. Saying this it is clear who will be hit most. The emerging market countries because they produce a very high percentage of the energy intensive products and the US economy because of its general consumption pattern namely in private consumption, lets not forget at least 40% of prime energy consumption in private households goes into heating or even worse cooling.

Therefore it would be probably wise to invest into energy saving companies like more efficient heating and cooling technology leaders a.s.o. as a 2 - 5 years horizon.

Both Climate change AND cost of energy will do their work in almost every sphere of producing and even service industry, be it flying and traveling be it food production.

If you are invested into food production it probably makes sense to study the charts how changes are currently taking place in rain patterns, of course still quite inaccurate and connoted with high uncertainty percentage but in general a good measure.

You would probably have a look into the dependence of some countries on agriculture as a share of whole production, like India for example if you want to know how stable a society will be in 10 years. If people get nothing to eat they tend to become quite nasty and might ignore the right of private property or an industry friendly. And they will be hungry if there is no rain on their fields, they can not afford the fuel for their tractor and the oil based fertilizers become unaffordable. This also happened already during that last practice lesson in exploding oil prices.

you may as well make some quick money form Oil majors in this time but do better not rely on their long run potential. They are year by year reduced into trading companies because upstream becomes more and more a sensible point in production countries, leading to nationalization in the country which will more and more be done at a  high loss for the company in question, just have a look into BP and Russia. What is left will be the deep sea offshore fields and the ones within the backyard of the US like Mexico.

Conclusion

Of course you can keep on dancing with traditional fields but big money will be made with the new industries and on the long run fueled by the mega trend if you want named climate change.

But to come to a realistic conclusion you will have to study the whole picture with many variables and take up the red yarn following it for a specific industry or operation all the way down to its roots not forgetting the side branches of influence. It might be something we are not used to any longer in this apparently linear world were one cause has a predictable effect but it is definitely worth while doing so if we are prepared to simply use rationality and an open approach that is not hampered by long trained prejudice which might misguide us only on a way that is safe on the first look but gets us in trouble on the long run.

This author consults with leading institutions through GLG