If you think it’s hot now, just wait a couple of decades

Plus: Goldman Sachs falls, Carvana climbs and more. [Bloomberg]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a sort of collective insurance policy protecting us against the worst of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. [Sign up here](. Today’s Agenda - The [entire]( [world]( is [cooking](. - Goldman Sachs has [a lapse](. - Carvana cools it on [the drama](. - Housing finance has [a loophole](. Hot Ones Pure hell. Source: Mark Gongloff via [Twitter]( Picture this: It’s the year 2060. You live in New York City with your two grandkids. Their parents — both conservationists — are free-diving out West, trying to [salvage]( what’s left of the Golden Gate Bridge after the Pacific Ocean swallowed it whole two months ago. Your brother is a weatherman in Iowa, and so far he has received only four death threats this year, which is nothing compared to the level of [vitriol]( he received back in the ’20s. Your teenage grandson — a professional [NPC TikToker]( called @IceCreamS000Good — is on his 45th straight day of streaming. Your 5-year-old granddaughter, Peach, was named after [a fruit]( she’ll never get to taste because it went extinct in 2047. Lots of things have changed since then: The ocean went from [green]( to brown. Chicago [sank]( into the ground. The Hudson River got [desalinated]( for water rations. But none of this fazes Peach, who grew up in an era of [gas masks]( and water theft. You still try to remind her of the good old days by playing her music on the Zoverboard (Mark Zuckerberg’s [answer]( to the Apple iBoard). Just the other day she asked: “What did Dolly Parton mean when she [said]( 9 to 5?” to which you replied: “Oh, sweetie, that used to be the time we’d commute to work — now we call it [the 6 to 2]( because it’s not 135 degrees [outside]( then.” It doesn’t take [a TikTok age filter]( to imagine what life will be like in 40 years. Just take one step [outside]( and you’ll see how [bad]( things have already gotten. From [Italy]( to [Japan](, temperatures around the world have reached [extremes]( this week. But Lara Williams says [heat spells]( like these are no longer abnormal. “That raises questions over whether our [tourist hot spots]( and peak travel times will remain so in the coming years, and how the industry will cope,” she writes. After a summer of “biblical floods, apocalyptic fires and life-threatening heat domes, people are starting to wonder whether we’ve lurched over some sort of climate [tipping point](,” F.D. Flam [writes](. She notes that Earth has been habitable for most of its 4-billion-year existence, but sudden shifts in climate feedback loops can roil life, leading to mass death and extinction. Back in 2017, planetary scientist Andy Knoll said the rate of change we were imposing on the planet was “geologically [unusual](.” Five years later, the effects are already [palpable](, and it’s only going to grow worse. By 2050, 3.4 billion [people]( could be living in areas facing ecological disaster. “Our civilization was built for a climate that’s vanishing,” David Fickling [argues](, noting that signs of self-destruction are all around us, from crumbling stormwater channels to inadequate building codes. “Modern society is a sort of collective insurance policy protecting us against the worst external shocks. But insurance policies have a price that rises with the cost of disasters — and we don’t know the point at which they will break altogether,” he writes. The world has grown exponentially more delicate in recent years, and although we’re not fully over the cliff of catastrophe just yet, we’re dangerously close to the tipping point, when stone fruits struggle to grow and skyscrapers slide into the ground. Check, Please We’ve all been there: You go to dinner with your friend who has hyped up the restaurant she’s reserved to high heavens. “The chef is amaaazing,” she gushes. “The last time I was here, the foie gras terrine was sold out, so we have to order that.” But then the red flags start rolling in: Your table isn’t ready for 25 minutes. The $28 mezcal cocktail you ordered is pure salt. The terrine is sold out yet again. And the “al dente” pasta is not toothsome — it’s crunchy. You haven’t even received the check yet, but you know the damage is going to hurt. Now take that experience and stretch it out over five years. Ever since he took over in 2018, David Solomon has been trying to turn Goldman Sachs into a more appetizing bank that produces stable earnings. “Hardly anyone is happy with the result and they still haven’t seen the final bill,” Paul J. Davies writes. The DJ slash CEO has spent the past 12 months battling disappointed stakeholders after pivoting away from his previous master plan to build a consumer business. That expensive U-turn, along with the bleeding [real estate market](, resulted in the second-worst quarterly returns of Solomon’s reign. Goldman Sachs “suffered more than $1 billion in losses on debt and equity investments in commercial property, and a slump in its core investment banking and trading revenue,” Paul writes. Goldman Sachs partners and shareholders alike are quickly losing their appetite for the CEO’s antics — “and that’s before seeing the final costs of undoing Solomon’s strategic missteps,” Paul concludes. Read the [whole thing](. Telltale Charts Normally I’d say rollercoaster metaphors are way too overdone in the world of financial journalism, but man does Carvana’s stock price chart make me want to scream my lungs out on a nostalgic theme park ride. It’s giving ... Splash [Mountain](. Kingda [Ka](. The Journey to [Atlantis](. The used-car business was worth $60 billion at its 2021 peak, Chris Bryant explains. But last year, the stock dropped by a steep 98%, leaving junk-bond creditors crying in a heap of paper losses. “This year, short sellers have been the ones sweating as bets that Carvana would hit a financial wall were undone by a [blistering rally](,” he writes. Over July 4th weekend, I made a massive batch of macerated strawberries (to be eaten with shortcake, of course). But instead of tediously cutting each berry into tiny pieces, I used a banana [slicer](, shoving them into the contraption, which spits out five perfect strawberry slices in one motion. It was meant for bananas, not berries. But I used it all the same — a harmless hack! Back in the Great Depression, the government invented a banana slicer of its own: Federal Home Loan Banks (FHLBs for short), which were intended to support mortgage lenders and reduce the cost of homeownership. But “as their role in the mortgage market has declined, FHLBs have expanded into other types of business,” Bloomberg’s editorial board [explains](. Instead of using FHLBs for their original purpose, banks are using them to lend to [riskier]( enterprises, such as crypto firms and tech startups. Sometimes, they even use it to make overnight loans to each other. But turning an FHLB into a “[liquidity first responder](” is far more sinister than using a banana slicer to take a strawberry shortcut. “Absent major reforms and a clearly articulated mission, it’s simply asking for trouble,” the editors write. Further Reading Gucci’s CEO [change]( is risky business. — Andrea Felsted The private credit [boom]( is just beginning. — Shuli Ren Ghost factories are China’s [secret]( weapon. — Tim Culpan �€™s inflation [whisperer]( feels a win around the corner. — Conor Sen [Ties]( to China weren’t an issue for aviation. Now they are. — Brooke Sutherland Europe’s “far right” [isn’t]( on the outskirts anymore. — Pankaj Mishra The GOP’s favorite hobby is driving [wedges]( into society. — Francis Wilkinson ICYMI Apple is [testing]( a ChatGPT rival. Stanford’s president is [resigning](. A US [soldier]( crossed into North Korea. Retired White men have the worst [cognitive decline](. Kickers Space sex could have [consequences](. Taco Tuesday is [now]( for everyone. A giant eyeball is haunting [this]( golf course. An Alaska man [filmed]( his own drowning. Would you pay $87,400 for [really old]( jeans? Notes: Please send Zoverboards and feedback to Jessica Karl at jkarl9@bloomberg.net. 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