Fortune - 04.2020

46 FORTUNE APRIL 2020

BUSINESS

FAC E S

THE

CLIMATE

CRISIS

At its core, business is about meeting needs.

Your local deli is a neighborhood fixture

because people crave delicious sandwiches.

The tax prep industry exists because people

hate to fill out 1040s. Big Oil was built to

serve a modern world hungry for energy to

power our cars and trucks. Before Netflix, we

didn’t grasp how essential streaming movies

could be. Whether big or small, timeless or

newly imagined, these urgent demands are

what drive businesses to innovate and grow.

Today, the world is confronting a colossal

unmet need unlike anything we’ve grappled

with in the past. The warming of our planet

thanks to human activity is causing dramatic

changes to the climate. According to the

VICIOUS

(RE)CYCLE

BY VIVIENNE WALT

72

PUTTING

THE MONEY

SQUEEZE ON

FOSSIL FUELS

BY BILL MCKIBBEN

52

PROJECTING

T HE COST

OF CLIMATE

CHANGE

BY BRIAN O’KEEFE

& NICOLAS RAPP

68

BI G OI L’ S

HAIL MARY

BY JEFFREY BALL

58

INSIDE

ILLUSTRATION BY PHIL WHEELER

INT.W.04.20.XMIT.indd 46 FINAL 3/10/2020 8:18:05 PM