It’s only a matter of time before the Federal Reserve hires a chief climatologist. After all, despite Wall Street humor about weather being a poor excuse for weak economic data, the pace of climate change is now clearly rapid enough to begin affecting economic forecasts. How long until forecasting gross domestic product depends crucially, fundamentally, on expected weather patterns? Officials are already thinking about these issues. Several government and private institutions have tried to model the effects of climate change on economic growth. “Many central banks already include climate change in their assessments ... (full story)