I grew up on a steady diet of Discovery Channel and National Geographic- this was before these turned into polished versions of sleazy reality TV and showed and explained scientific facts. On top of this was Captain Planet, which was quite effective in instilling in me a sense of responsibility towards ethe environment and oriented my thinking towards sustainability. I became prompt, if not obsessed with, in switching off lights and turning off taps, I used public transport as much as possible and even when barely possible. This invited the ire of my parents and a few years ago, my spouse as well.
Perhaps it is the sign of times, or I have changed, but my current circumstances do not permit such an environmentally responsible living. I drive a car to and from work since comfort and convenience are prioritised, not to mention safety, since my daughter also travels with me. Reducing power consumption is an exercise in futility since the mostly sultry Mumbai weather does not permit me to stick to it consistently while lack of time (due to work and baby duty) forces me to use packaging heavy quick-commerce.
Circumstances have thus forced me to abandon my idealism, much to the relief of my family members, but these changes in my daily life seem less morally repugnant when compared to what allows me to pay my bills. After a lot of twists and turns, I am a foreign exchange and interest rate derivatives trader and that means, I am part of the financial market that incentivises short-term thinking and has no concern about long term sustainability.
Money is the fuel and grease for the money machine that runs the world and motivation for all humans who are merely either operators or parts of the machine. Money- its availability and cost- determine whether investments are made in digging out more fossil fuels or in solar power. It decides whether more electric vehicles are made or we continue pumping more carbon dioxide into an already warmed up planet. Financial market has its long tentacles in every single thing that goes on in this world- even the most idealist and morally upright environment protectionist cannot escape its grasp.
I have been part of this machine for sometime now and sometimes, I see a glimpse of the reality when I force myself into my old reading habits. The trigger for my current ramblings come from the book "Environmentalism: A Global History" by Ramachandra Guha. I do not wish to delve into the books details nor do I think I can summarise it for the simple reason that my attention span has been destroyed, not by instagram or youtube reels or anything remotely related to social media, but by the sheer habit of watching ever-changing trends, narratives and fickle-mindedness of financial markets.
For now, it is the upcoming tariff announcement by the current US President. By Friday, it will be the jobs data in US and if it is strong, a new narrative of growth against all odds could takeover. Or, if tariffs announced are milder than expected, then narrative will shift again. Some would say that this is how markets are supposed to be- digesting new information, assimilating it by adjusting the price of various asset classes and then waiting for the next trigger and readjusting its price, even reversing course as if every event in the past makes no impact on future price.
At the risk of being judged a noob or an amateur in trading, I would like to state that this short-termism in price discovery seems ridiculous to my old self who was obsessed with sustainability and environmental issues. For me, the most important and damaging actions from the current US President are not related to tariffs or Ukraine or DOGE or DEI- it is his trenchant, adamant and unscientific denial of climate change that will bring doom to this planet. His statement "drill baby! drill" and exhortation to pump out more and more oil, exit of USA from the Paris agreement, reversal of fuel efficiency norms for vehicles and targeting Greenland for its resources with scarce regard for its fragile ecology have all been neglected by the market that is so eager to price in everything in an instant.
But the market's vision does not extend beyond the current or at most the next year. This is ironic since US issues 30 year government bonds and its price changes based on every minute fluctuation in survey outcomes of consumer sentiment, estimates of inflation and unemployment data released for each month. It is obsessed with the tariffs that may come tomorrow despite not knowing how harsh or how soft it will be, it does not care about the fact that it will only create a temporary blip in trade patterns of almost all countries who will then be able to find alternative markets in case it is required, while condemning USA to the sidelines, thus allowing China to take the global leadership in every sphere. It does not care that these are issues that can be solved with some effort, just by getting over lazy economics that has been going around the world which wants to export to the US while not exploring other markets or developing new products for their home country.
This obsession with short-term issues always clouds its outlook while the impact of climate change is being either denied or naively expected to affect only the next generation. This is despite irrefutable proof from more damaging storms, wildfires and droughts than ever before across the world and especially in the USA, that climate is a harsh reality of our times. There has been little price adjustment either for mitigation or adaptation but share prices of fossil fuel extractors and refiners have been on the rise once the current US President whittled down the country's commitment to combating climate change. Companies in the renewable energy sector are now having a tough time despite the fact that their way is the future while the short-term obsession with AI and using it for trivial pursuits like generating Studio Ghibli like images is the most popular investment theme.
As long as we are obsessed with these frivolous distractions, the real issues of our time will never be taken care of by the market. The solution is for a group of enlightened corporates and sensible governments to ignore all the noise from global markets, especially the USA, and do what is right. But that requires immeasurable bravery, idealism and naivety- the world desperately needs someone to have these qualities and immense money and wealth to see the required results. Only then will my kids have a planet in which they can do more than just survive and they can consider their parents not as the ones who gave them a dying or dead planet but as those who did their best to solve an intractable problem.
