 Branson is the latest mogul to jump on board the latest peak’s philanthropic bandwagon; see Wednesday’s item on the “charity wave” for our coverage of its significance and magnetic appeal to several other bull market luminaries.
What’s doubly interesting about this item is the focus on the presumed global catastrophy of global warming. Another story out today notes the temperature of the oceans have actually been cooling off for the last three years. So, why is the fight against global warming heating up now? The answer is that this is what happens at the end of a euphoric countertrend rally in a bear market like that of late 1960s. The Elliott Wave Theorist pointed out back in 1992 that bear markets are characterized by a focus on social issues as opposed to individual achievement. The first “Earth Day” was inaugurated in the crashing bear market of 1970. Environmental concerns and the pressure for measures that will control emissions and other toxic by-products of human enterprise are gaining ground because the urge for control and restriction expands when the momentum of a long bull market finally exhausts itself in a secondary peak like that of December 1968. Socionomically, it seems plausible that the economy is running so hot that the planet is literally burning up, but the reality of global warming is less important to us (which is good because we won’t know the truth until long after we’re gone) than the opinions that surround it. The charts of global warming all show decades of incremental warming, but it is only now that there is such unanimity on the subject that Branson and so many politicians are jumping on board. Arnold Schwarzenegger just “ditched his beloved fleet of Hummer cars in a bid to save the environment.” As on so many different fronts, the advantage in the battle for social change is shifting from expansionary forces to the forces of fear, conservatism and scientific quandary. As the bear market progresses, the conservatism overtakes the feel-good elements of this trend. "At bottoms of major economic contractions," notes Pioneering Studies, "people care less about the environment and more about survival."
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