Guest essay by Eric Worrall –
Climate Change is so low on the list of corporate priorities, that in Price Waterhouse Cooper’s latest survey of chief executive officers, climate concerns didn’t even make the list of questions.
According to The Guardian;
“In a critical year for action to prevent runaway climate change, one would hope the issue would rank high on chief executives’ list of business risks to worry about.
So it comes as a shock to discover that climate change appears so low on their list of concerns that professional services group Price Waterhouse Coopers did not even bother to include it in its global survey of business leaders.
PwC’s 18th annual global CEO survey, released Tuesday to coincide with the opening of the World Economic Forum in Davos, failed to even ask 1,322 business leaders about their global warming concerns after only 10% registered concern the previous year.
A spokeswoman for PwC said that climate change did not make it into the top 19 risks CEOs were questioned about because of their lack of interest in the subject.”
This total lack of concern about climate change makes a total mockery of activist claims that climate change is significantly impacting global economic activity.
If climate change were to say knock 10% off the profits of a major agri-business, climate would surely top their list of worries.
The fact that a credible source like PwC has demonstrated that climate change, as a corporate issue, rates somewhere below making sure the tea trolley arrives on time, conclusively demonstrates that climate change is having no impact whatsoever on global economic activity and corporate earnings. Any claim to the contrary is unfounded activist hype.
Heh. Somebody needs to point this out to President Obama.
Telling President Obama is like talking to a wall, but it might do some good to tell Boehner and McConnell. Oh, and tell them everyday and twice on Sundays.
‘Telling President Obama is like talking to a wall…’
Oh, if that were only true. Wall’s at least are not narcissistic, overbearing, nor have a messiah complex. And, at least they’re quiet.
Obama is a hopeless case.
In his “State of the Union” speech he used the expression “carbon pollution”.
That phrase is similar intelligent as e.g. calling rainfall “water pollution” …
Future and hopefully wiser generations will only grin in disbelief about the superstitious humans of the early 21st century, when even a US President called carbon (the very building block of Life) and CO2 (the “Gas of Life” itself on which the whole plant/animal-Cycle of Life depends) – without any second thought – just “pollution” !
Do you mean “hydrogen pollution” because it can be a real issue. /sarc
[Standing ovation]
Love it! Water pollution.
😀
And lest we forget, that nasty, inconvenient oxygen pollution clogging our alveoli.
President Obama is following the script. The script was written back in 2000 for Albert Gore Jr. (who was once the next President of the United States.)
Napoleon’s maxim: Never interfere with the enemy when he is in the process of destroying himself.
I bet Putin’s read that too…
Pretty much EVERYONE in the government… and NASA, NOAA, EPA, NatGeo, Discovery, SciAm, etc. etc. etc. It’s not on the polls because they’ve already declared victory.
Everybody “knows” it’s a “fact”.
Essentially, governments have now got a free pass on almost ANYTHING they do… if they can spin it to climate. And they do.
You nailed it codetech. No-one bothers now ‘cos it’s par for the course, The main (we – the blessed few being the exception) population of earth have been hoodwinked and the warmists, politicians and global progressives know it.They have their global tax in place and their brain washing ideologies embedded, from kindergarten to Professional Organisation
I agree completely. As proof, there were recent comments from a spokesman(woman) for the US electric utility industry who made it quite clear that they accept the whole global warming meme as fact and don’t even question it. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/01/14/1-million-tons-of-pressurised-co2-stored-beneath-decatur-illinois/#comment-1835521
Frequent comments that skeptics are “winning”, are 180 degrees out of phase.
I have a slightly different take on it. If Execs only rate Climate Change at 10% it is better for the warmists not to ask the question at all. That makes it easyer for them to claim concerm amoung buisiness leaders if their is no data directly refuting it.
You mean that ‘everyone’, aka the green parasites, alarmists and devotees, is tired of getting slapped in the face that the public by and large is neither frightened of CAGW prognostications nor their latest and craziest excuses and terrible science.
CAGW alarmism is slowly and surely turning educated people into confirmed skeptics and doubting Thomas’s.
Governments are slowly and surely calcifying into impenetrable immovable incompetent bureaucracies full of bureaucrats incapable of acting independently or synchronously for people’s common good. Their petty plans for a green dictator led world dominance are hobbled by their failing web of lies, false claims and the destruction of productive industries and material product manufacture.
Green parasites desire world domination as a ruling elite class. The trouble is that they are making it clear that they care not for the common classes. Actions speak far louder than words and 97% of green initiatives are lame indecisive unclear words. The greens do not help the poor and many of green claims impair or kill people unable to protect themselves.
Those politicians were promised an easy ride or a golden river of easy funding provided by rich Western taxpayers selling the most wonderful easy non-calamity ever. The politicians are getting shriller and ever more isolated. Their esteemed professional climastrologists, polar bear loonies, tropical island sinking fantasists, fracking and GMO paranoid antisocial immature personality disordered characters are screaming for blood and definitely not helping.
Keep the skepticism pointed and loud!
.
Just like evolution is a “fact”.
Evolution is a fact. No need for scare quotes.
It would seem my sarcasm has met with incontrovertible “proof” of evolution from hikingguy. It figures you live in Clackamas–the farthest distance from reality on Planet Earth.
Evolution is a theory, by definition. There is no absolute “proof”, however there is also no theory-killing evidence. Evolution is not a “law”, but it’s far more than a hypothesis. As a working method for explaining the origin of species it holds up well. Was there a guiding hand? Did God do it? I don’t know, I don’t care, and it doesn’t matter.
“Greenhouse gas caused climate change” is not a “theory”, it doesn’t even qualify as a “hypothesis” anymore, for the simple fact that these last 19 years have disproved the hypothesis as originally put forth, and they refuse to even alter it to attempt to match observation.
Define ”runaway climate change”. Seems to me that this has always been with us given that climate always changes, has NEVER been stable for longer than a few years at a time.
The Grauniad has ”run at the mouth syndrome” on the climate matters withoit knowing anything about the subject.
On the 11 October 2004 the Guardian then environment correspondent, Paul Brown, wrote this bit of fiction:
For years after Kool Aid drinking commenters at the Guardian kept spouting this bit of fiction. In later years I pointed them to an inconvenient truth: The IPCC and one of its founder stated that this is unsupported BS.
Yet in 2013 Dr. James Hansen continued to be worried about “low-end runaway greenhouse effect” whatever that means. Hansen is a fruit loop.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2013/jul/10/james-hansen-fossil-fuels-runaway-global-warming
Double speak earns double pay, Jimbo
“Runway climate change” is the scientifically proven fact that air, warmed by too many jet engines operating at an airport all at once, rises quickly, causing dangerous vortexes that disrupt the normal weather patterns over the tarmac–sometimes even lifting nearby farmhouses off the ground and …
Oh, wait … oh … “runAway” climate change …
Sorry …
It is good that people see the climate as a non-issue. However, the current administration does not care about what the people want, need or think. They have an agenda, and nothing is going to stop them from accomplishing it. Not the law, not the Constitution, not the will of the people. And that is where we must maintain constant vigilance.
The Guardian says:
Yes it’s a shock to the Guardian but not many others. Years of Guardian propaganda has failed.
PS I hear Al Gore is going to Davos to meet with these world leaders. I wonder how many of them agree with the title of his ‘book’.
Yawn.
The Guardian has long ago lost credibility on issues of race and climate. Whats funny is the comments sections often overwhelmingly point out the logical fallacies, completely absurd positions, and ideological insanity of their editorials, but still they churn out this waste water imagining it water from a mountain spring.
Alx, it’s not race and climate. It’s feminism and Climate.
Whenever the Guardian has a thread about its editorial policy the comments are dominated by the complaints about the Womens’ and Environment pages. Only it’s coverage of Israel comes close for criticism – and the Middle East causes arguments everywhere.
I think it’s because the authors and moderators are the same people on those pages.
I have previously posted comments at the Guardian with references keeping in line with terms of use and been promptly banned. There are obviously moderators who have either been instructed to delete science backed sceptical references or they are taking the ‘law’ into their own hands so to speak.
Jimbo,
I guess I’m naive, but a while back I commented at Scientific American. It was just a polite, factual comment intended to correct a mis-statement.
I saved a copy of the comment and still have it somewhere. SciAm deleted it with the message that I was "name-calling". There was nothing in it that could have been called name-calling.
So I agree with you that some of these media use mods that either are instructed to 'sanitize' any skeptical comments, or maybe the mods take it on themselves to do the censoring. Either way, it amounts to propaganda.
The interesting thing I've noted lately is that a larger and larger majority of the general public is busy ridiculing CAGW and related scares.
When the public turns on an idea or a narrative, it is toast. The best thing skeptical readers can do is to add their comments to other media outlets. Speed up the Chicken Little process, to where the townsfolk tell the chickens it was only a tiny acorn. Spread the word; even the [formerly] mighty NY Times cannot withstand public displeasure and ridicule.
Weren’t we all supposed to be dead by now? Roasted alive …
I guess we cleared up that acid rain problem; haven’t heard from those proponents for some time …
Anyone have any information regarding the rainforests? Are they still around? They were supposed to be gone a few years ago–the result of destroying 50 bazillion acres per day …
And not the spineless, weenie republicans either.
God bless the Tea Party.
So Guardian / Jo Confino seems to be sure about runaway climate change? It is the “critical year” already?
I suspect it is ‘critical’ that they come up with an agreement in Paris, to come to a future agreement in 2020. This of course follows their agreement in 2009, to come up with a future agreement in 2015.
It’s all nothing more than a Global Benefits/Welfare system. They still haven’t learned their lesson, whereby they discovered that Johnny Foreigner wasn’t as stupid as they thought. Instead of just doling out taxpayers dosh from poor people in rich countries, to rich people in poor countries, the clever little Johnnies decided they wanted reparation monies for past Climate Change, effectively doubling the bill resulting on a temporary knee to the financial nuts, but they just carry on those lefties, they don’t care how much damage they to! BTW WWF are advertising again as usual on all channels claiming that even penguins are endangered because their habitat is disappearing!!!! They clearly haven’t seen the Sea-Ice data!
It is ‘critical’ to them to get an agreement in Paris as the longer it goes on the more bored with climate change the public are becoming and the greater is the risk that the plateau in temps will end as the cooling starts. Expect a big propaganda push this year which may trigger a backlash of ‘So what?’ from the people who see nothing unusual happening and who failed to notice last year’s scorching 0.02 to 0.04degC temp rise.
I wonder what answer PwC would get if they asked ‘is your business seeing an impact from the costs of measures that are supposed to mitigate climate change?’
“Expect a big propaganda push”
like that?
Don’t forget to buy your critical “Future Agreement” year calendar. It will be issued in 1973.
I sometimes wonder whether the Guardian or its pension scheme has invested heavily into climate schemes. Their climate reporting is obsessive and hysterical. Anyone got information on this issue of investments?
Same here in Auckland with the New Zealand Herald. Repeated nonsensical lies and exaggerations, with any sceptical letters to the editor ignored. There must be some reason, apart from total incompetence, why none of their self-described journalists never follow up on this “story of the century”. A bit like those grant-seeking scientists, really. Follow the money!
The British BBC is (or was?) heavily invested in green technology companies. A few of the top execs must be sweating by now.
I so wish I could comment macht frei but I’ve been banned…
It’s just occurred to me that when they say “runaway” climate change will they try to say in the next few years as the narrative changes that they meant just that……that it had run away…..
Bet they try though and keep a straight face at the same time…..
Looks like runaway climate change has upped and run away….
http://31.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5wil1Bx9u1qbaj4uo1_500.jpg
I warned you!
But oh, no … it’s just a ‘armless littil bitta carbon dioxide, in’it?
The planet is warming! Look at the bones!
My thought is with the World Economic Forum starting in Davos, and Global Warming as a main topic, that PWC didn’t want to embarass the participants by showing that no one really cared about the topics, they are just there for the party.
PWC might want to consider for next year making the adverse impacts of _action_on climate change as one of their long list of concerns.
I bet that is a top 19 because it is hitting them in the pocket right now.
Each new taxation is a hit to private sector viability.
Or, at least that part of the private sector that is not employed by the government.
That is kind of the defenition of the Private Sector; Those not employed by the Government.
Jeff in Calgary, Like the defence sector?;)
Thanks for this Eric – always enjoy your pieces. I followed your link to the Guardian piece and posted this comment under my web identity of Euroslayer:
“I think when IPCC official Ottmar Edenhoffer told Germany’s NZZ Online in November 2010: “One must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole” that the cat was out of the bag so to speak.
Just about every person-in-the-street that I speak to on this subject – even those who follow the science closely – seems to accept that CO2 has a slight warming effect on the planet but struggle to find any evidence that catastrophic anthropogenic global warming is indicated in the science.
When Ottmar Edenhoffer said what he said, it seemed to confirm what a lot of ordinary people thought – that this is a political movement using overhyped science to achieve redistribution of wealth/assets. I am not saying that this is a good or bad thing, only that it is a thing. Further, the (I think) indisputable fact that Earth is in an interglacial (warming) period and that there has not been any statistically significant increase in the rate of global warming for 18 years has further bolstered the view that natural variations are calling the tune.
At a time when unemployment, particularly among young people, is at an all-time high in post-war Europe and the EU is in danger of imminent collapse, this may explain why global warming is low on many people’s agenda.
Was told we were just wanking about atmospheric rivers yesterday (and I agree but beside this point)
http://o.onionstatic.com/images/28/28389/16×9/700.jpg?8476
http://www.theonion.com/articles/new-climate-change-study-just-400-pages-of-scienti,37761/
won’t help my children with their jobs, but maybe their senses of humor
Yes – its remarkable how the only “solutions” green advocates are interested in require a restructuring of the world economic system, and new restraints on consumerism and the free market.
CEOs’ priorities are to provide the best possible products and services at the most competitive prices. If they get EVERYTHING right, they may keep their doors open for another year. They get ONE thing wrong, and they may well be out of business and all their employees are out of work.
CEO’s don’t have the luxury to waste corporate money addressing problems that don’t exist– like CAGW.
The ONLY “problems” CAGW is causing are exploding CAGW rules and reg compliance costs and higher energy costs from stupid alt-en fiascos….
Companies that waste money on “goin’ green” initiatives aren’t doing their communities, shareholders, employees and the world any favors… I’m not saying they should trash the environment or be noncompliant to pragmatic EPA pollution standards, but anything beyond that actually hurts everyone as they’re inefficiently utilizing limited land, labor and capital.
CAGW is quickly becoming a joke.
I have reported at the CEO level and sat in many board meetings for several companies and the top goals of each CEO I observed were to keep control and get their comp package approved. “To provide the best possible products and services at the most competitive prices” might or might not be involved in achieving their real goals, depends upon the situation and their degree of present control.
That aside, the real problems regarding AGW and its popularity or lack there of, are the ignorance of a large part of the population and the left wing media. We need a couple more Fox news type channels, though they also have their heads wedged firmly in their anal orifice on some issues they provide excellent balance to the struggle for some bit of truth in the media. Good example, POTUS still has a much higher approval rating than congress. They should both be dismal.
Jim– LOL! I know exactly what you’re saying!
I guess I should have prefaced my statement with “all outstanding company CEOs”… it’s been my experience as CEO that if your company provides an outstanding product/service, with outstanding customer service at a competitive price, all other aspects of your business are procedural in nature.
What bothers me is seeing CEOs often wasting $millions of corporate funds on frivolous “groin’ green” initiatives that may win the company and the CEO awards and accolades from the press, but through the misallocation of limited land/labor/capital, such wasteful spending hurts the company’s bottom line and the company’s competitive edge is lost in the long term.
You’re right about the MSM’s shameful disinformation campaign in promoting the CAGW gospel… Since most MSM are leftist, it’s only natural they’d be in the pro-CAGW camp. Polls show, however, people are quickly losing interest in CAGW, with the exception of the far left, who still, amazingly, take CAGW seriously…
For the far leftists, the Earth could enter into a new glaciation period, and they’d still think CAGW is a serious concern…. You can’t fix stupid…
The reasons that AGW is not concerning the public anymore are in my view as follows:
1) I cannot speak for other countries, but in the UK we have many “single-issue” groups all of them finger wagging busybodies telling us how to lead our lives ASH (Action on Smoking and Health) and Alcohol Aware are two examples, all of whom exaggerate the consequences of their issues to tell us what we should and should not do.
2) Anybody over the age of 40 can see from their own senses that the weather is the same as it has always been,.
3) Anyone of my age (60 this year) has lived through all sorts of doom laden scenarios (AIDs, SARS, Bird Flu, Mad Cow Disease, Saturated fats etc etc) all the predictions about these things have been hopelessly wrong.
My worry is that eventually there may be a serious and genuine problem facing mankind that is ignored in the same way that the boy who cried wolf was. This would be the real tragedy.
Gavin Schmidt appears to be staking a new position on the lack of recent warming… the standard – when this pause stops it is going to get really really hot…. So you may not be worrying about it now but we still need your taxes so we can stop the warming that will happen in the future…
http://www.reportingclimatescience.com/news-stories/article/pause-over-within-10-years-says-nasas-schmidt.html
Gavin Schmidt is the Baghdad Bob of the climate industry. Even while US military was freely rolling into the capital, Iraqi military dismantled, and Saddam Hussein running to hide in a hole, Baghdad Bob was pronouncing victory was soon at hand.
These guys are not paid to tell the truth or anything related to it. If something they say is truthful, that is convenient but not necessary. Their job is to deliver the message.
LOL 🙂
I wouldn’t worry too much about Gavin’s predictions. Just do the opposite and wrap up warm.
Here is our Gavin again telling us that the Earth is more sensitive to Co2 than previously thought!
little did Schmidt realize that, six years later, he would only be able to squeeze out a .02 C high out of 2014, with a 62% probability that that was a bogus figure.
Well that clears up a question!
Hansen mental condition is contagious!
Is Schmidt a scientist? I can’t find any reference.
“A spokeswoman for PwC said that climate change did not make it into the top 19 risks CEOs were questioned about because of their lack of interest in the subject.”
There, ya see? Ya see? Proves it’s a corporatist fat-cat capitalist CONSPIRACY to BLEED THE WORKERS DRY while sucking off the PROFITS and STARVING THE CHILDREN.
Um, do I need to add a “sarc” tag?
Title frustratingly misleading. You reference the public in title, but the piece is about the opinions of corporate CEO’s .You can argue corporate apathy re agw is important, but a far from asserting the public at large doesn’t care. Yes, the issue ranks low among the public, but polling firms as far as I know are not dropping the question . And in fact I’ve read that public concern has ticked up in last few years, especially among dems
Are not CEO’s a subset of the public and therefore when polled they are of the public?
38 year old voters are a subset of all U.S. voters. By your logic we could poll the 38 year old voters in the U.S. and and assume their opinions are a proxy for all.
Elm trees are a subset of all trees. Unfortunately elm trees have been largely destroyed by a blight. And yet I look out my window and see that the maples, and birches, and oak trees in my neighborhood are doing just fine.
Alarmists are a subset of all those with an opinion on climate. I guess we can all go home because we can extrapolate that all those with an opinion on climate are alarmists.
The subject is a trendy one only amongst government and NGO bureaucrats running biased computer models, grant addicts, the gullible, devious politicians and those that would like to take us back to a mythical Garden of Eden climate.
Climate should be a non-issue, as it is a non-problem. In the eyes of most real scientists, that is self-evident.
Therein lies the nub of the problem – Climate Change is all about the political outcomes that it can be used to create. No more and no less than that.
Equally predictable and unsurprising is that “climate scientists” whose career and income are reliant upon it continuing to be a ‘concern’ are quite content to walk hand in glove with their political paymasters.
There is a fascinating analysis and dissection of what lay behind the start of the green movement in the late 19th and early 20th century that I came across from an article link on the Bishop Hill site:
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2015/1/20/an-oldie-and-a-goodie.html
there I came across the following well researched article which shows how politics and greed lay behind the development of this ‘philosophy’ in the 19th century, long before Hitler came on the scene
http://www.martindurkin.com/blogs/nazi-greens-inconvenient-history
“In a critical year for action to prevent runaway climate change…”?
EVERY year since about 2000 has been a ‘critical year’ according to the Warmists.
It reminds me of the old Business Management adage: “If everything is top priority, then nothing is top priority.”
Well each year is critical and living each year as if it were our last helps us sort out our priorities. This of course has nothing to do with climate change.
That seems somehow akin to:
“an hypothesis that predicts everything, predicts nothing”
(I recall reading that a while back on this blog).
Boring, Oregon!!!! A wonderful rural town near the Cascades. Old houses. Farm land right next door. Old schools in need of repair. Great community spirit. Family centered. Anything but Boring if community and family are your pass time.
Yes, my uncle Don & aunt Donna lived there, on the road to Damascus and not too far to Pleasant Valley.
Did they mean “Runaway” or “Runway”? Noted this report @ http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/01/20/1700-private-jets-fly-to-davos-to-discuss-global-warming/
A squadron of 1,700 private jets are rumbling into Davos, Switzerland, this week to discuss global warming and other issues as the annual World Economic Forum gets underway.
The influx of private jets is so great, the Swiss Armed Forces has been forced to open up a military air base for the first time ever to absorb all the super rich flying their private jets into the event, reports Newsweek.
“Decision-makers meeting in Davos must focus on ways to reduce climate risk while building more efficient, cleaner, and lower-carbon economies,” former Mexican president Felipe Calderon told USA Today.
Davos, which has become a playground of sorts for the global elite, is expected to feature at least 40 heads of state and 2,500 top business executives. Former Vice President-turned-carbon billionaire Al Gore and rapper Pharrell Williams will be there as well; each plans to discuss global warming and recycling respectively.
Hypocrisy is strong with these people.
There is a great series of videos on Youtube where Alex Epstein inserted himself in the People’s Climate March in NYC with a t-shirt that said “I love fossil fuels”.
Alex’s whole point is that fossil fuels even with its negatives has been and continues to be a great boon to mankind and our quality of life. Many protesters confronted him and he would point out that their signs, shoes, banners, nylon jackets, cell phones, fanny packs, etc are all possible only because of the fossil fuel industry. They would then get a goofy look on their face and walk away or occasionally try to physically take Alex’s sign away from him. Got to say Alex and his cameraman has some incredible balls, standing alone against thousands of marching ignorant hypocrites.
Climate change is having No Effect on business, and it is unlikely it ever will; and hence the lack of interest.
But the Effects of Climate Change ‘Policies’ are an entirely different matter – perhaps PWC should have asked about that.
Perhaps a question along the lines of:
“Rate your concern level about (a) Climate Change and (b) Climate Change Energy Policies”
would have produced some illuminating and useful answers
Politicised Energy ‘policies’ are having a major effect on business, employment and economies as energy intensive industries shed jobs in moving to low energy-cost areas. Consumers are hit again by fuel poverty from massive subsidies to ‘green energy’ companies paid by hugely increased energy costs.
It’s having some impact on business. Companies that make snow machines, SnoCats, skis and snowshoes should be doing booming business this year as will ski resorts, road salt miners and distributors, snow plow mfg. and operators… the list is endless. I will, however, predict a downturn in their business sometime in the spring.
Point taken ….. although the effects on snow-related businesses are not what warmists want to see or ever hoped for.
The comments at the link are something to behold. There is apparently a sizable population of folks driven literally insane by the thought of corporations, free markets, and capitalism.
You mean comments from the Green Blob, I assume.
How can you keep people in poverty and under control if you don’t end capitalism ?
Gods die when people stop worshipping them. Ask Mithra. Sometimes you have to wait for the last of the devout to expire.
It’s a pity PwC didn’t ask CEOs how concerned they were about government regulations and mandates purporting to address climate change. I bet that would have gotten a different answer.
+1
Not caring leaves a pretty big gap to drive the warmist agenda through. Apathy will accept the slightest false justificcation.
Excellent point and the reason questions about policy effects would be more informative.
CEOs manage to the next quarter, to the next fiscal year at most. Relatively long term issues like climate change are not going to rank high on their priority list – they figure they can leave it for the next guy.
Short-sightedness has ever been the downfall of human civilizations, and no doubt we’ll go the same way.
A CEO without an annual, 5 year and 10 year plan, who each year does not adjust the 5 and 10 year plans is not a very good CEO.
I do agree that many executives do leave messes they create for the next guy when hopping to the next lucrative position. What you describe though is more like a front-line manager.
I’m very familiar with strategic planning, and in my experience many external influences aren’t factored in (except as straight line extrapolations of the present) because they’re simply too hard to predict. If you’re particularly daring you might reduce profit on a product line to account for expected new entrants into the marketplace, or some likely increase in the price of labour or raw materials, but the specific effects of climate change on a particular business are unknown, and to be fair, largely unknowable. So people are going to ignore it as part of the planning process.
Nevertheless, many large companies are quietly acting to make themselves more resilient and manage risk in a climate-changed world.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/victorlipman/2013/01/22/climate-change-is-here-how-companies-are-preparing-for-it/
https://www.cdp.net/CDPResults/CDP-SP500-climate-report-2013.pdf
Quoth Sir Harry; “Short-sightedness has ever been the downfall of human civilizations, and no doubt we’ll go the same way.”
I fear your copy of “Ad Hoc Aphorisms for Everyman” is an earlier edition. Newer versions are much more succinct; “due to climate change” is universally applicable.
Backwater historians, of course, continue to write lengthy tomes on the causes of decline of human civilizations, each one wildly different from the other.
Yo Harry,
How are yer mate?
Jonesy – fighting the good fight. Or some fight, anyway….
So how does “Necessity is the mother of invention” fit into your myopic view?
CFOs manage to the next quarter or year. That is why they make lousy CEOs. CEOs manage for the next YEARS.
You are living up to your namesake.
In my (considerable) experience that’s more theory than practice.
No, in your limited opinion. You have no experience in the matter as is evidenced by your ignorance on the subject.
Usually I’m patient, but truly you are an idiot.
You have shown no patience, but you are showing a great deal of immaturity. I take your latest ad hominem to be an admission of both your immaturity and your lack of knowledge. No other conclusion can be drawn.
CEO manage for stock price. The time horizon is relevant based solely on the issuance date of the grant or option they hold. . They seek to maximize the value of their stock grants and/or options.
Sorry, more ignorance from the peanut gallery. I am sure some CEOs do manage to the stock price. Most do not. Most want more than a 1 year job. Which would be the case for your scenario. Stick to opinions, You are not good at those either, but at least you do not come off as completely uninformed.
CEOs are only concerned with Climate change or any other issue if it can be used as leverage for influencing government regulations or mitigating government regulations. The key point is government regulation not climate are CEOs concerns.
If you are a not CEO not in the energy industry, misguided and stupid government actions are not a concern. In the property insurance industry it is an excuse to raise rates which is not something they want to advertise. I can see the ad now running in the Super bowl, “We care about climate change, that’s why we are increasing your premiums.”
Wash Post has a columnist run a cliche/soundbite-heavy re-hash of marching orders…nothing new, nothing insightful, and plenty wrong – SRSLY? The polar bears?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/catherine-rampell-dangerously-in-denial-on-climate-change/2015/01/19/20796658-a01c-11e4-b146-577832eafcb4_story.html
Look for this to morph into the “evil CEO” meme…
My guess at copy: “Fat cat CEOs run corporations that rape the environment, so it is no surprise they care little about climate change. In fact, a recent survey firm found so few CEOs cared about climate change they stopped asking the question! I guess CEO 1%ers feel like they have theirs and screw the rest of us! Get your pitchforks! Let’s raise their taxes (and raze their homes!!!)”
James
Read the Guardian post. [They’re] not ‘Evil’ just ‘Stupid’, but can read the ‘correct facts’ in the pdf linked.
http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/jan/20/global-warming-business-risks-government-regulation-taxes
The survey highlights just how little CEOs understand climate change and the impacts it will have for generations to come. Unless action is taken now, it will be impossible to keep within the global goal of a 2C temperature rise (pdf) to prevent irreversible climate change.
bold links to http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/s/e/2degrees-map.pdf
“…how little CEOs understand climate change…”
Of course, they will only truly “understand” climate change when they accede to every demand of the activists. Until that day arrives, the shrieking, accusations, hysteria and doom-mongering will not cease.
Politicians and their spin doctors love climate change they can promise anything they like, and right or wrong the results will only come home long after they are gone. The public are far more cynical of politicians and science claims and most simply tune out at the first mention of the words “climate change”.
The politicians will no doubt try to pull some “non binding” agreement out of the hat in Paris and kick the can further along to 2020 or so. That buys another 5 years of spin and some nice junkets along the way.
It was a good attempt by the politicians to get a tax on “air” that would only leave a tax on “sex” left to chase down and they would have the long sought after tax coverage.
The politically correct thing is to not argue with the zealots, but do nothing. If pressed, take out an ad claiming “concern”. After all, you are fiddle-faddling with politicians who act the same way…ie millions or passionate words about income equality for the sexes, but somehow it can’t actually be managed for the white house staff.
One could find hundreds (thousands?) of similar examples. In te public eye, like corporate brass, what one says has to do with the sensibilities of the audience, even if idiotic….not what one believes.
More from the irony and hypocrisy wall of shame.
In last nights state of the union Obama touted the boom in oil and gas as one of his achievements. Later of course he touted the national security dangers of climate change. Go figure.
POTUS would have done well in the big corporate world as well. He knows the first rule of success. Take credit for anything good that happens on your watch and deflect blame for anything bad. I have seen it work for other incompetents in the corporate arena.
Conservatives need to take some lessons from him and how he got elected. No specifics on what you will do if elected, just “hope and change” type BS, get a young, reasonably good looking candidate that is a good talker. Republicans are their own worst enemy when they put up old, or possibly, old fat, men against sweet talking democrats who are good at deception. And no whimps, please! Scott Walker looks really good to me but I don’t hear much about him yet.
I like Walker too but I don’t know if he has enough swagger to beat Hillary.
She’s been in Washington politics since 92.
I like that he’s not an attorney.
Hell, he’s not even a college graduate but he’s a decent governor.
The trouble is she can lie very well.
And she’s not afraid to tell a lie to cover up previous lie.
Remember, she was taught politics and lying by the best.
Walker may be too honest to win POTUS.
mikerestin,
Maybe a young well spoken good looking guy can beat an old fat woman. Most important, large portions of the female population don’t like her and many folks in general find her lies pretty transparent. I think we have a chance this time if we don’t choose an old/fat man, but then I did’nt believe the present occupant of the office could win again either. Never underestimate the power of stupidity.
Reblogged this on Sierra Foothill Commentary and commented:
Heads up local lefties, global warming is no longer a concern of the business community. Only the political left are still hanging on to this failed science.
I think most CEO’s view “Climate Change” fear mongering like they did the Y2K scare — something that needs to be considered but is ultimately dismissed as baseless. Let’s be honest, this has been going on for thirty five years now, without any discernible adverse effects, other than those created by politicians.
Unfortunately, unlike the Y2K crisis, this nonsense does not have a built in finality, and continues to live on in the minds of the simple minded slogan chanters.
More evidence: At time of commenting this article has 65 comments. I’ve not read them yet but they must demonstrate interest.
The linked Guardian article has only 23 comments.
The numbers of alarmed and engaged is about half the numbers of sceptical and engaged enough to comment.
Need Help!
I’ve been writing letters to editor for local paper and they publish them (and neighbor John McClaughry – look him up) re lack of global warming, increase in atmospheric CO2, Susan’s polar bears are OK . . . that this is all politics and money and here in McKibben and Sanders Vermont there is monumental ignorance.
In return I am now receiving threats (I’m retired science professor who apparently struck a nerve) and my wife (health care provider) is the one taking the on-site heat out in community. My final letter – out today – essentially says, as does this piece, that no one cares about climate change but if you want to learn more, check out WUWT.
I have to stop writing, except for the odd innocence thing that reveals that I am not rabid, but Please fire away at –
http://caledonianrecord.com/ click on Submit – Opinion – post your letter.
Thanks
It may not be much but I was wondering how the UK headquartered PWC feels about the UK’s warmer winters. I think they have been sticking their heads out of their windows in the past few years to see climate change. That is what they told us to do: look around you, climate change is everywhere. PWC execs must be pissed with climastrologists after worrying that their “Children just aren’t going to know what snow is,”
*Children just aren’t going to know what snow is*
Charles Onians of The Independent is a twit.
What an ass this guy is. Someone ought to put this moronic article in a time capsule that the deprived children of 2030 can open and then laugh about as they slip and slide in the snow and on the ice.
These global warming idiots are unbelievable.
For my part, I say, If global warming weren’t a ridiculous hoax, then they wouldn’t have had to change the term to “climate change”. Hmmm?
Don’t worry, people in the UK will soon become Warmists because of ‘climate change’.
21 January 2015 – UK
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/01/21/24E6B1D500000578-2919826-This_was_the_scene_this_morning_in_Foolow_Derbyshire_in_the_Peak-a-14_1421852956197.jpg
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2919826/Snow-causes-travel-chaos-UK-roads-blocked-car-breaking-TWO-SECONDS-runways-closed-s-plenty-come.html
Price water house should have asked the question. It could serve as a barometer of the worry we will see in the EU as electric power becomes unstable and we get more brownouts in the future. Don’t forget we have the eu goal to cut emissions by 40 % around 2030. This is going to cost an arm anda leg and will cause problems for all those happy CEOs who forget this global warming issue is a huge looming problem. And the problem could be government policies used to keep the EU offering leadership to India, China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia.
Perhaps the question wasn’t asked because important clients didn’t want the answers they were likely to get.
You don’t have to accept, explain or deny the thing that isn’t said.
Apparently the US Senate hasn’t noticed.
http://news.sciencemag.org/climate/2015/01/updated-u-s-senate-set-vote-whether-climate-change-hoax
“Climate change falling so far off the public radar, a major polling house didn’t even bother asking about it this year”
There is another way of looking at this statement……..and that is that the corporate world both sees money to be made from CAGW, and is to a degree reliant on Government subsidies and so why ask the question…..its a done deal. You only have to see the arguments for a retention of the RET scheme in Australia from business, to see that big business has become reliant on the CAGW scam.
So if business is happy with the existing Ponzi scheme, why ask a question which could rock the boat……..better to leave sleeping dogs lie, and claim that no one is interested.
If the US economy is over $10 trillion annually and global climate change business is $1 billion per day, at best the climate change industry represents no more than 0.3% of economic activity in the US. Energy costs are probably the most important economic factor for businesses’.
Sanity at last.
Big business knows there is no more money to be squeezed out of this scam.
There is is still some taxpayer money left for those with grant addiction.
Let’s hope cold turkey is not far off.
How did WUWT perform since the collapse of public interest for AGW? Did it’s audience rise because it was kind of a trendsetter and on the right side even before not being a warmist was cool? Or has it lost visitors like all other sites related to that fad because practically nobody in the real world cares about AGW anymore.
[Reply: WUWT has gained traffic since Climategate. ~ mod.]
[WUWT traffic has been increasing significantly the past two years, and traffic (number of replies and number of threads and number of readers) is faster yet as 2014 aged into 2015. .mod]
Remains to be seen, don’t it ?
I see it still retains your interest.
As proof of the corruption of government and science it’s more relevant than ever. As a proven non-problem interest has waned.
*The fact that a credible source like PwC has demonstrated that climate change, as a corporate issue, rates somewhere below making sure the tea trolley arrives on time, conclusively demonstrates that climate change is having no impact whatsoever on global economic activity and corporate earnings.*
That’s as it should be since global warming is a hoax.
Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming, aka Climate Change, didn’t even show up in the top 20 concerns of US citizens in a recent Gallop Poll.
See: http://www.gallup.com/poll/180398/cluster-concerns-vie-top-problem-2014.aspx
Given that it has hardly warmed in the last 18 years one can hardly be surprised.
The only people who are concerned are the whacko greenie organizations and government trough-feeders who both stand to lose funding if the hysteria goes away.
Atmospheric CO2 is identified as a climate change forcing with units of J sec-1 m-2 by the ‘consensus’ and the IPCC. Energy, in units J M-2 divided by the effective thermal capacitance equals average global temperature (AGT). Thus the time-integral of the atmospheric CO2 level times a scale factor equals the AGT change.
For 8000+ years the temperature trend has been flat while the CO2 level has been in the range 260-280 ppmv. This mandates that the scale factor be zero.
Since 2001 the temperature trend has been flat while the CO2 level has been in the range 380-400 ppmv. This also mandates that the scale factor be zero.
Together these observations lead to the expectation that ‘climate sensitivity’ to a doubling of CO2 level will also be zero.
The two factors that do explain the temperature rise since the depths of the Little Ice Age and the flat trend since 2001(95% correlation since before 1900) are identified at http://agwunveiled.blogspot.com
Yeah, I’ve said that many times.
It’s not surprising the world’s top CEOs don’t see climate change as a big concern. The world’s top economists also ranked climate change as low priority (12th rank). Higher priorities than climate change are deworming of school children and salt reduction in processed foods.
http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/copenhagen-consensus-iii/outcome
“If climate change were to say knock 10% off the profits of a major agri-business, climate would surely top their list of worries.”
If a rogue, unsecured printing press went wild, chasing down and eating all the journalists at a newspaper then having adequate bolts to secure the next printing press would certainly top their list of priorities.
If journalists did their jobs objectively instead of fabricating ridiculous business loss scenarios then this whole world would be better off.
Remember, just because one printing press went ballistic doesn’t mean all of them will. Most are hard working, reliable assets to their employers..
Why is the Guardian still in business? Wasn’t London supposed to be under eight feet of water about 10 years ago?