Monday, January 15, 2007

NORMAL LIFE: Is Mother Nature Commoditising Heat?

Whoever is controlling the world's environment is a clever so-and-so, be it God, Mother Nature or whoever. While there's no sign of a deep freeze or a pending Ice Age, Global Warming is apparently likely to be a good thing for some of us (as I wrote earlier here).

The Financial Times recently reported that 'the Mediterranean faces crippling shortages of both water and tourists by the middle of the century' which means that 'northern Europe could reap big benefits from global warming' (read here and here). It has been suggest that, if global warming continues at current levels, the northern coasts of Britain (and why not the southern coasts of the Nordics?) could become future rivieras attracting tourists in droves.

The economic effects would be devestating for countries such as Spain, Italy and Greece whose internal investment has been geared towards a reliable flow of tourists, who spend an estimated €100billion ($130bn) per year. All this leads me to conclude that Mother Nature is commoditising the precious resource of heat by allocating it to specific regions of the world for certain periods of time. Could it be the world's own way of surviving for that little bit longer rather than allocating all the heat to one specific area, saving it from complete devestation?