Dave Dayen, the executive editor of The American Prospect, took to the electric Twitter machine and pointed out Tuesday’s most significant story. The climate crisis, it seems, is starting to scare the money power. From CNBC:

In an annual letter to CEOs published Tuesday, BlackRock Chief Executive Larry Fink said: “Climate change has become a defining factor in companies’ long-term prospects … But awareness is rapidly changing, and I believe we are on the edge of a fundamental reshaping of finance.” BlackRock’s assets under management totaled almost $7 trillion in the third quarter of 2019. Fink’s comments come as business leaders, policymakers and investors prepare to travel to Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum next week. The theme at this year’s January get-together, which is often criticized for being out of touch with the real world, has been designated as “Stakeholders for a Cohesive and Sustainable World.” “Climate change is almost invariably the top issue that clients around the world raise with BlackRock. From Europe to Australia, South America to China, Florida to Oregon, investors are asking how they should modify their portfolios,” Fink continued.

For years, environmentalists have been banging their heads against the wall, trying to convince coal miners and oil workers, and the corporations that employ them, that there is a massive market, millions of jobs, and hefty profits in converting to environmentally sound sources of energy and the technology with which to tap them. Comes now the guy who manages more money than anyone else in the business to tell the investor class, and the politicians that it sublets, that the climate crisis is coming soon to a dividend statement near them so they better gear up.

“Over the 40 years of my career in finance, I have witnessed a number of financial crises and challenges — the inflation spikes of the 1970s and early 1980s, the Asian currency crisis in 1997, the dot-com bubble, and the global financial crisis,” BlackRock’s Fink said. “Even when these episodes lasted for many years, they were all, in the broad scheme of things, short-term in nature. Climate change is different.” “Even if only a fraction of the projected impacts is realized, this is a much more structural, long-term crisis. Companies, investors, and governments must prepare for a significant reallocation of capital,” he added.

Dayen also emphasizes that a place like BlackRock doesn’t jump without significant outside pressure. Also, in a subsequent Tweet, Dayen points out that, like it or not, the financiers are going to have a significant role in whatever response to the climate crisis we finally muster up. Their skin burns like everyone else’s does.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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