Blain’s Morning Porridge August 10^th, 2026 – Climate Change – The Conflict we may never win.

“When the evil of a snowflake in June could still be the source of relief…”

2026 looks likely to be the warmest year ever. Oceans are charged with energy to drive ever larger storm systems. Wildfires and droughts are ravaging the land. What if this is only the beginning? What if the climate is about to stage a chaotic breakout? Just how resilient will humanity be to a war with an implacable enemy that will give no quarter? What might it mean for the economy?

Key Takeaways

• Humanity is ingenious and great at innovating – which has historically made us robust and resilient to the challenge of conflict.
• Nations can win wars through force or diplomacy, but no one can negotiate with physics to turn around Climate Change.
• Defence and Climate Mitigation are linked – defence against aggression, and protection from a changing environment are economic costs.
• The economic consequences of climate change will be huge – and therefore tremendous economic opportunities.
• The big themes will include water, cooling, energy, food, drought and resilient infrastructure.
• Climate mitigation may be a war that is never won, but one we learn to live with.

LINK TO PODCAST

The path of Human economic/technological advancement, sadly, has largely been a story of how we adapt, innovate and rise to conflict.

As mankind evolved after coming down from the tress, warriors were chosen as champions – little different from rutting stags or primates looking to be the silverback – to triumph through shows of strength. Now we win wars based on pluck, courage and ingenuity to score conflict-winning blows on our enemies. The first ploughshares soon became axes and swords. There are periods of peace when it feels like innovation drives humanity forward, but every step forward like railways, aircraft, the space race, computing and even AI, are swiftly absorbed and innovated as the next ultimate weapon, spurring the other side to swiftly counter it. The result is a constant cycle of evolutionary adoption we now see in always changing battlespace.

Conflict makes societies ingenious, adaptable and resilient. Ukraine is great example. It’s also true that nations that don’t face threats tend to become fat and flabby – less resilient, and more bureaucratic. Wars are economics and geopolitical ambitions expressed in kinetic terms. Critically, participants know there are goals to any conflict and three possible outcomes: you win, lose or draw. We move on.

That said, I read a truly shocking book over the weekend: Annie Jackson’s Biological War – a Scenario. It describes how a genetically manipulated plague escapes from a Russian research lab, and within days destroys global society – completely over-turning everything we think about war and it’s objectives. It’s scary because it’s so possible and it’s all a terrible mistake.

The book illustrates how proud, robust, strong nations might be humbled by a microscopic bug – brought low by their own tinkerings with life. Shades of War of the Worlds perhaps?

Yet a very different and even more dangerous “conflict/challenge” may be coming our way. Like fighting germs, it will be a conflict where there will be no clear target in the sights. It will be one where the enemy is absolutely implacable, and is utterly unbothered by issues like genocide, costs or asymmetry. It will be a war unlike anything else humanity has fought.

This year is on course to be hottest ever in the UK. It’s dashed uncomfortable. Our American cousins say it’s entirely our own fault – we should have invested in air conditioning? Balderdash! Through the entire 27-thousand-year historical record in the UK – (from bodies found in caves on the Welsh Coast, Stonehenge, the Romans, etc) no one, absolutely no one, ever said… “gosh, it’s a bit hot” until just a few years ago. Suddenly it is too hot, and everyone wants Air Con, but there is none available except at gouger prices.

In May, during the first heatwave, I bought an Air Con unit – at double the price it had been advertised at a few weeks before. It’s not the best… but it sort of works. This winter, I predict the most profitable and busiest firms in the UK will be air conditioning installers.

Aid Con units will likely be remembered as an opening economic skirmish in the Climate Change Wars.

Let’s not beat about the bush and pretend Climate Change is anyone’s fault except our own. Anthropogenic means caused by human activity. The charts all show rising temperature and rising human activity are aligned. We poisoned our atmosphere and this the outcome. We wanted growth, cars, planes, plastics and the rest. Now comes the bill. How is humanity going to cope with a global climate that may be on brink of chaos? The consequences will be enormous in terms of weather events and economic impacts.

And we have no idea how to fight it.

Nothing in the current military inventory, or the economic/fiscal crisis playbook is going to stop temperatures rising or the threat of extreme weather events. You don’t negotiate with physics. Climate change means real effects rather than market events like a credit loss. Nations will not only have to pay increased defence costs for protecting themselves against hostile states but also have to pay dramatically more to protect themselves from an increasingly hostile environment. It will also result in economic war – some nations will be better prepared and able to adapt, controlling the supply of climate change winning assets.

Ever since the changing climate was first spotted by scientists, it’s proved impossible to sustain global alignment to address it. Politicians have seen denial as a vote winner. Nations have seen fit to free ride other countries efforts to reduce emissions. Now, when the threat is becoming clear – its unlikely nations will be able to agree much in terms of how to address the consequences.

There is folk tale the Chinese words for crisis and opportunity are the same – it’s not strictly true, but meeting the challenges of climate change could become the biggest economic opportunity in history. Already the Chinese dominate solar panels, and guess what, air con units.

From exquisite projects like protecting cities from rising sea-levels or changing the planet’s albedo, to more immediate stuff like coping with higher temperatures – there will be tremendous opportunities for entrepreneurs to demonstrate ingenuity and innovation in the face of climate change and chaotic weather.

Yet, it seems unlikely we will ever get America, China, Europe and the rest to agree on priorities like how to cool the planet, address water shortages, protect against rising sea levels, ensure agriculture can cope, avoid weather systems causing flooding/drought, protect energy and business infrastructure, or on how to “cure” the crisis. The risks of climate chaos could well overwhelm market systems – and even trigger kinetic conflict in pursuit of land, food and lower temperatures.

At this stage a number of ostriches will stick their heads back in the sand. They will demand evidence and then refute it. Sunspots. Orbits. Normal. Nope. None of it is normal. I reckon this year will show we’re past the denial stage. Climate change is clearly happening.

I regularly go cold water swimming in my local river. According to my iWatch, the River Hamble is currently about 22C degrees, a bit like a lukewarm soup. It should be around 18C degrees at this time of year. Given that this is the hottest year on record in the UK’s climate record – 4 or 5 separate heat wave events where temperatures have exceeded 30 degrees – it’s no surprise the river is hotter than usual. Overly hot water raises risks, like blue-green algae (which can kill), lower oxygen levels in the water, flora and fauna dieback, and environmental degradation. Scale up one little river in Hampshire to the European level. The Rhein is no longer fully navigable!

Date from Copernicus says sea-temperatures around the UK are significantly warmer than usual – the hottest ever recorded. The Met Office calls the temperature rise – extreme. The oceans around Europe are 2-3 degrees warmer than normal. In some places, they are 5 degrees warmer. Ocean temperatures have been rising steadily for years, but some scientists fear they are close to spiking dramatically higher. Could that that mean the trend is about to stage a chaotic breakout event?

Oceans absorb heat, and power the weather. They are effectively a heat sink that, thus far, has absorbed the carbon consequences of the anthropogenic age. What if the heat sink is full? Normally you would expect warmer oceans would fuel storms – higher evaporation rates turbo-charging weather systems with moisture and energy to create floods. Or, as we have now in the UK, a drought where higher temperatures on land have all-but destroyed the harvest, raised fire risks, and triggered soil-degradation. Maybe the wildfires across Europe this year are a signal.

The thing is… it’s likely to get worse – such is the power of the feedback loop. A super El-Nino is occurring in the East Pacific. Warmer oceans, more power in storms. When the energy and moisture laden winter storms start hitting the UK after the summer – just how bad might they be? How will populist parties (that deny climate change) cope will increase refugee numbers if rising temperatures force migration from untenable heat South of the Med?

The ultimate jest of Mother Nature may yet be to come. To make the aircon units that will be required, the energy to run them and the host of other things society will need be in warmer times, will require even more pollution and carbon into the atmosphere!

Even if we prove ingenious enough to weather the coming climate storm (apologies for that metaphor!) by solving sea-level change, clean energy, agriculture and the rest, it won’t end there. Humanity could end up in conflict with our environment for the foreseeable future. Well at least it might stop us fighting each other…

Out of time and back to the day job…

Bill Blain

Author of the Morning Porridge
CEO Windshift Capital
Advisor – Spitfire Strategic Capital

Meanwhile, don’t forget about my new book:

You can read a review on the Society of Professional Economist’s website here.

The Battle for Hamble is a proper grown-up examination of how economies fail: a tale of Greedy Corporates, Bad Planning and Economic Illiteracy. It uses a wholly unnecessary Gravel Quarry in the middle of a prosperous village to illustrate the multiple failings and abdications of responsibility that have created Broken Britain. It’s about bureaucracy, money, exploitation and shareholders vs stakeholders. It’s about social injustice – asking why it’s ok to put 6000 jobs at risk so corporate bosses can reap bigger bonuses! Whether is the Hamble Quarry, HS2 or the abysmal state of UK armed forces due to bad procurement, read the book to understand how its broken process and bureaucratic indifference that is sinking Britain.