From the perverse consequences file: there’s a story in the November 24, 2006 episode of Living on Earth about the booming fossil fuel exploration industry in Hammerfest, Norway. Hammerfest is analogous to Nome, Alaska: it is on the northern coast, and is amidst an enormously changing ocean landscape. And, you guessed it: the oil industry is all over it. There no doubt are amazing opportunities in both fossil fuels and shipping (now that Arctic pathways are opening, due to runaway heating of polar water). To an entrepreneur, these two industries would be the very paradigm of growth.

Be on the lookout for new markets created by our pathetically idiotic non-stewardship of the earth. They may well make you pessimistic.