Blain’s Morning Porridge Friday 13th March 2026 – Forget Iran, worry about Climate Whiplash and El Nino.“Out of the frying pan into the fire. Chaos begets chaos. Instability begets instability.”While global markets are fixated on the Gulf, cast a weather eye on the Eastern Pacific where a Super El Nino climate event is developing. It could lead to Climate Whiplash events in terms of flood, storms and drought, food inflation and increasing migration tensions. It never rains, but it pours – and that’s not necessarily good for the most important commodity on the planet: Water!Resilience is a marvellous word. How able are we to withstand the consequences of our multiple failings and keep smiling? Life is about making mistakes and how we recover from them – how resilient are we to the challenges and disasters that life sends our way?When I was a child, we were taught “it’s never anyone’s fault but your own” – that it’s our own responsibility to “resiliently” work our way out of crisis. Sh*t happens as they say… deal with it. Fortunately, most of the time outcomes from bad decisions are never as bad as we fear, but seldom as good as we hope, which is Blain’s Market Mantra No 2.I was with clients in London y’day and all they wanted to talk about was anything except what’s going on in the Gulf. They are struggling with Trump/Iran burnout syndrome – watching and listening to every move and comment so intently they have become increasingly anaesthetised to it. Oil prices are rising, stocks are falling, bonds are flustered, and even reputable analysts are saying the best hope for the market is yet another Trump Taco – although I reckon it’s too late for that and he’s in too deep…. We will wake up Monday and maybe it will all have magically solved itself – or it will have got worse.The thing about the energy crisis that’s roiling global markets is it’s the result of the actions of the players involved in it – they can talk, they can deal, they can compromise and make a bad situation slightly better. That’s the hope. (And if you are playing the market on Iran, then you factor the mercurial Trump into the equation.)But there are other kinds of crisis where the momentum is very different…. Where talking about it isn’t going to solve it… natural disasters like an earthquake or a volcano, or long-term change like climate warming. We can feel an earthquake and watch a volcano – therefore we know they are very real and even though they are not our fault we will have to deal the consequences.But climate warming?So, yesterday I talked to my “bored of Iran” clients about climate change…. Surely not? All that ESG nonsense is behind us… Donald Trump says it’s a hoax – and he is the biggliest clever man on the planet. What if... perish the thought, what if Trump is wrong? Actually, it doesn’t matter: If the Earth is getting warmer, it’s getting warmer and we have to deal with the consequences.You can read the Morning Porridge by subscribing on ⁠www.morningporridge.com⁠, and have it delivered fresh to your inbox every morning!

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