I’m in my mid 50’s and looking to retire in 11 years. I’ve been interviewing financial planners, and running numbers through the various retirement calculators found around the internet. I have been investing in the usual S&P 500 index funds throughout my career, and getting the usual returns. I’ve worked on and off in the tech industry and get paid a generous income, and have a net worth which the retirement calculators tell me I’d be comfortable with, if the world goes on working like it has for the past 50 years. And therein lies the problem I’ve discovered. I don’t believe this economy will continue working like it has been going forward
I’ve also been researching other areas of importance: Global Warming and Climate Modeling. I make my living as an engineer who works with complex systems with multiple feedback loops. I understand, and model complex systems every day. They’re not a mystery to me. What I’ve found has me feeling nervous. Very. Very. Nervous.
I took all these skills and did some further research. I decided to try to understand the feedbacks and models myself. I took a coursera class on climate modeling, and have done some work with the Python Library for solar heating. Understanding the amplifying effects of the many positive feedback leads me to think that "abrupt climate change" is possible before 2050, maybe even before 2030.
"Abrupt Climate Change" is a nice term for the following situation:
- collapse of global grain crops.
- catastrophic wildfire seasons
- heat and humidity levels across wide ranges of the tropics incompatible with human life
- tropical storm seasons expanding in lethality and destructiveness
Climate Models are now forecasting these conditions to occur with increasingly frequency in the next decade.
It’s not that I’m against listening to rational financial planning, but plans based on future projections of continual economic growth and stability, given the scientific consensus on the state of the environment, are completely absurd. Where does one find resources for financial planning based on actual reality? Even if the global economy has not collapsed by 2030, it will be plainly obvious to all the markets, that it _will_ collapse soon. I don’t see this as an environment where investing in bonds and equities is even remotely possible. I need a better plan. One based on reality.
Submitted November 05, 2020 at 09:35PM by sluggo_burgh https://ift.tt/3evGqr8
