Global warming continues to accelerate while between 2015 and 2025, the Earth warmed over 0.61 °F, the most for any decade on record, and this is according to a paper published in the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters.
The past three years have also been the hottest on record, while greenhouse gasses have The earth to warm since the since before the industrial revolution, this warming has been steady for decades, and that is leading scientists to look for other reasons behind the increase.
Additionally, more research hints that we may not have the full understanding of how fast sea levels have risen.
Well joining me this morning to weigh in is Jeff Guterman, managing director.
Gitterman Asset Management.
Jeff, good morning.
Thank you so much for joining me.
Thanks for having me.
Well, when it comes to global fossil fuel consumption and emissions, we saw record numbers last year.
So break this down for us.
On the warming front, we're basically warming in the last decade, double what we warmed on average over prior 10 decades, so it is troubling for sure.
There are some things of concern that they're looking at.
One is shipping aerosols.
There was a big reduction in shipping aerosols done by the shipping industry, and what they believe is that the cloud cover was actually reducing the amount of sunlight hitting the oceans and the amount of warming that we had to absorb.
When those aerosols were removed back in 2019 or a little bit later, then all of a sudden that cloud coverage that was being formed by those aerosols dissipated.
A lot more warming coming in.
The oceans are at max capacity for absorbing warmth.
That's the other thing, the Earth is a carbon sink.
We absorb a lot of this carbon so that it doesn't go back up and create the greenhouse gas effect of basically blanketing the Earth with a blanket that doesn't allow the heat to leave the planet.
And when the Earth can't absorb anymore, when our forests can't absorb anymore, and oceans can't.
Absorb the amount of heating in the greenhouse gasses is going to accelerate.
So there's two factors that they're looking at for increasing the risk and neither one of those factors are going to slow, so we're not going to reverse this unfortunately.
So now we have to deal with increased warming and what that means to storms and storm surges and rainfall and all of the other impacts that global warming has on the planet.
Yes, so I do want to ask you about rising sea levels and if there aren't ways to reverse this, what are some ways to slow what's happening?
There was just a mandate this morning on one of the South Carolina coast homes that has to be moved back from the ocean because there have been multiple issues down there of homes falling into the ocean as we're seeing erosion of the sand as well as sea level rise.
So the only thing we can do is we can build bathfels, we can build extensions.
We're doing that down in Battery Park in New York.
We're building a whole kind of extension park to absorb more.
Another great thing is there's a lot of plants that actually can slow waves coming in and stop that erosion, so there's some natural things that we can do.
But if we're looking for a one-off solution, we don't have one.
We need multiple solutions.
We need to move inland a little bit and we need to raise homes.
It's a multi-layered solution.
Yeah, and looking beyond the US borders, of course there are a lot of policy initiatives as well as frameworks.
So what do you think is most effective right now?
Unfortunately the frameworks haven't worked.
So we've had a lot of frameworks in play.
We've seen Europe more aggressive.
We've seen the US for years reduce CO2 emissions.
China is on.
A good trend because they're actually doing much more solar and renewables.
People will argue that they're still doing coal, but if they weren't doing renewables, the amount of more coal they would have done would have been devastating to the planet.
So you have to give them some credit.
They are deploying more solar and renewables than all other countries combined.
That's the best that we can really do right now without coming up with some unique solutions that we haven't seen yet, but the frameworks have not worked, so now we have to deal with adaptation and resilience, which we talk about a lot on this show.
We're going to deal with warming.
We have to figure out how to adapt to it and quickly.
Yeah, and speaking of quickly, there have been extreme weather events here in the US.
So given what is happening in the nation's capital, what is the role of FEMA moving forward?
You know, it's interesting because Christine was just self-deported as I've heard her say.
She was just let go, so we're going to have a 4th person running FEMA.
There's a lot of talk of FEMA being dismantled.
What has been dismantled already at FEMA is a lot of the call centers that were there.
So our response to Texas floods and other things has been devastatingly slow.
We need FEEMA desperately in a world we're going to have more natural disasters.
Larger disasters, I think it was Milton was the hurricane that they just shelved the name or they put it on the Hall of Fame for most powerful wind shear ever in a storm over 215 MPH.
We're going to be dealing with this stuff.
We need an agency that is there to really aggressively support pre-planning and definitely post devastation planning.
That we get a sensible response to FEMA going forward.
They've put in 3 people that have had no disaster planning experience whatsoever.
That's not the way to go here.
The guy that they are presenting right now also no disaster planning recovery, so there's a candidate out there somewhere that's had some disaster planning.
I'm sure that would be the right candidate at this point.
Yes, and Jeff, while I have you here, I do want to ask you about what is happening in the Middle East.
All eyes are on the Iran war and of course here on Wall Street we've been paying close attention to what's happening across all asset classes, but oil overnight we saw futures rally not just 10% but we saw WTI and hit nearly $120 a barrel and in New York morning trade we're looking at both contracts below those levels with WTI currently hovering right below $98 a barrel.
But what are your concerns as we move forward?
They elected Khomeini's son, and that is a hard right person that you could put in office after the last Ayatollah.
That's a direct signal that they're not going to bow out of this quickly if you know the background of the.
Regime right now, the regime basically believes that the more chaos you bring to the world, the more chances you bring to the second coming, and they believe in martyrdom, and there's no signals right now that there's going to be an easily negotiated peace.
What we have to hope is at some point Trump might just say, well, they unconditionally surrendered because we bombed them enough and they can't respond anymore.
That is the only off-ramp currently that I can see.
That off-ramp isn't going to come from Iran in the near term for sure, which means we're probably looking at $120 to $130 a barrel over the next few weeks if this thing doesn't get wrapped up by Trump.
And hopefully there will be enough pressure interest rates, inflation, oil prices that with the midterms coming, that he'll find an off-ramp.
And finally, before I let you go, I do want to get your take on what this means for the US economy because there are different opinions out there about how long this conflict will actually last and of course that in turn will affect traffic going through the Strait of Hormuz and gas prices for Americans out there.
So what would you say to them?
Is stagulation an actual possibility here?
It's a Huge possibility because even if we get the strait open again in the next week or two, let's say the tankers that have been sitting there can't be refilled quickly, so there's this very slow process of getting the tankers where they need to go, getting them back, getting them refilled, and getting them shipped again.
This will be a lag effect on the price of oil going through the summer and we're coming up.
On the biggest travel segment of the US for sure, where people drive the most and travel the most and fly the most, all of that pressure on demand met with the constraints that we're seeing right now.
We're going to have trouble through the summer for sure.
Well Jeff, a lot of moving parts here, so thank you so much for breaking it all down.
I appreciate your time and all of your insights.
Thanks for having me on as always.
