A changing climate is bad news for a continent that doesn’t like change

Economists visit time-tested haunts when they want to get a feel for how Europe is faring. The bourses of Milan or Paris provide a barometer of investor sentiment. Counting container ships coming into Rotterdam and Marseille gives a clue as to the haleness of trade. Frankfurt, where the European Central Bank sets interest rates, is worth a (brief) visit. Number-crunchers also drop into finance ministries in Athens or Dublin, where national budgets are crafted—and Brussels, where Eurocrats opine on them, before bond vigilantes in the City of London issue their own verdict. A detour via the Champs-Élysées in Paris or the Gran Vía in Madrid to see if shoppers are splurging completes the road trip.