The last word, courtesy of Tom Friedman, goes to Jeremy Grantham, investor and $100 billion hedge fund manager, who, in his July letter to investors, noted: “Conspiracy theorists claim to believe that global warming is a carefully constructed hoax driven by scientists desperate for ... what? Being needled by nonscientific newspaper reports, by blogs and by right-wing politicians and think tanks? I have a much simpler but plausible ‘conspiracy theory’: the fossil energy companies, driven by the need to protect hundreds of billions of dollars of profits, encourage obfuscation of the inconvenient scientific results. I, for one, admire them for their P.R. skills, while wondering, as always: “Have they no grandchildren?”

Hedge fund managers like operating in a reality based world. So also the Pentagon. In 2007, the military broke with the Bush administration on climate, issuing a report that climate change threatened military readiness and strategic U. S. security issues. This year, the Pentagon's primary planning document, the Quadrennial Defense Review, "notes that climate change affects the Department of Defense “in two broad ways”: first, global warming impacts and disasters will “act as an accelerant of instability or conflict,” and second, military installations and forces around the globe will have to adapt to rising seas, increased extreme weather, and other effects of global warming."

Folks, climate is not some green feel good thing when these actors are involved. I could add the CIA and the nation's other intelligence gathering services, the nation's insurance companies, and the Saudi Government if I spend the research time. Addendum: The Department of Defense has committed to cutting emissions from its non-combat facilities by 34 percent by 2020. It's also the largest purchaser of green power in the U. S.