Things are Lookin’ Up: Global Warming is GOOD for Business?

I say: nothing is ever as good or bad as it first appears. And many have observed: one person’s tragedy, another’s opportunity. People tend to over-react and react too quickly to a lot of “bad” economic news, acting as if it is permanent when, in actuality, most is temporary. At the very end of May, when this was written, the stock market rallied on the news of a drop in oil prices. Gas prices rise, gas prices fall, who knows where there’ll be next month?

An even better example: how could the threat of “global warming” be good news? Front-page story in the MONEY section of USA TODAY (June 1st) headlined: Corporate America Warms To Global Warming: See Prospect Of Fat Profits From New Products Friendly To The Environment.

44% of large institutional investors surveyed saw “opportunity” arising from a growing public zeal for conservation and energy efficiency, fueled, pardon the pun, by gas prices and media focus on global warming.

Major U.S. corporations like GE say that addressing climate change offers technology-rich U.S. companies opportunities to make more money, not lose it.

Anytime you start paying attention to any economic news story, try thinking about it as a creative entrepreneur and investor, not a consumer; ask yourself: where’s the opportunity here? There most assuredly is one.