Essay by Eric Worrall
h/t M; A scattering of surprisingly climate skeptic stories has started appearing lately in the pages of America’s premier financial journal. But there may be an important deeper reason which explains why this is suddenly happening.
A very direct criticism of Biden’s climate policies;
Biden’s Climate Plans Are Unsustainable
The current White House agenda is so unrealistic it risks a backlash that will hurt the cause for decades.
By Stuart Gottlieb
July 31, 2022 4:48 pm ET…
Ironically, the greatest threat to this progress—particularly in the critical realm of climate—comes not from such emerging mega-emitters as China and India, although they certainly play a role. It comes from the energy and climate initiatives promoted by the Biden White House, which are themselves unsustainable—so aggressive and unduly optimistic that they risk a backlash that would set back the cause of environmental sustainability for generations. To avert this, the administration must shift to a more pragmatic set of policies. Encouraging more natural-gas production and a moon-shot approach to fusion energy would embolden America to lead the world toward a green future.
But the administration first needs to reckon with the peril of the moment. America’s announced climate goals seek a transition to 100% clean electricity by 2035 and net-zero emissions by 2050. This aggressive timeline is increasingly at odds with three hard realities: economic, geostrategic and political. Each sets a major hurdle for climate action, and together they expose the unsustainability of the Democratic Party’s climate agenda.
…
Read more: https://www.wsj.com/articles/bidens-unsustainable-climate-plans-environment-climate-change-policy-green-energy-fossil-fuels-initiatives-11659286021
Wall Street Journal on the green transition;
Democrats’ Great Fossil Fuel Bonfire of 2023
A hoped-for surge of solar, wind and battery production requires CO2-intensive mining and manufacturing.
By James Freeman
Aug. 15, 2022 6:24 pm ET…
Even if some of the mining surge is permitted to occur in the U.S., it will still rely heavily on fossil fuels. In theory, Democrats’ big bonfire will be offset by future CO2 reductions, but what if it isn’t? What if intermittent solar and wind power can never be counted on to reliably and efficiently replace the fuels we need today? Even those inclined to believe in the more pessimistic climate forecasts, even those who think that upending economies now is more sensible than relying on future technologies to address potential challenges, should consider the costs of expensive environmental belief.
…
James Meigs writes for City Journal:
Because of their low energy density, wind and solar developments require enormous tracts of land, compared with other energy sources. New York’s now-shuttered Indian Point nuclear power plant sits on just 240 acres. Replacing its power entirely with wind power would require more than 500 square miles of turbines. That’s a massive amount of land and habitat lost to energy production.
People upset about carbon footprints may not realize just how large the allegedly non-carbon footprints can be. And when inefficient alternative energy sources fail, people have to come back to the efficient sources that environmentalists have shunned. Mr. Meigs adds:
…
Read more (paywalled): https://www.wsj.com/articles/democrats-great-fossil-fuel-bonfire-of-2023-11660602262
WSJ on ESG;
Arizona Defends Retirees Against ESG
Fund managers have a legal and social duty to focus on financial returns for their clients’ retirement accounts, not climate or other issues.
By Mark Brnovich
Aug. 15, 2022 1:57 pm ETWall Street and the financial industry’s social purpose should be protecting investors’ savings and retirement money. Asset managers claim they focus on financial returns, but they have joined with left-wing state pension funds to cram “environmental, social and governance” policies down the throats of American companies and employees whose retirement funds are under asset managers’ control. What is the real focus of woke asset managers?
BlackRock recently sent a letter to several states claiming that BlackRock focuses solely on its fiduciary duty, allows its clients to determine how to approach the “energy transition,” and has joined climate organizations merely to “dialogue.” This month, 18 of my fellow attorneys general and I responded by pointing out inconsistencies and conflicts between BlackRock’s letter and its public statements and commitments.
BlackRock’s website describes the climate organizations it has joined. Rather than “dialogue,” the focus is on taking action to “accelerate the transition to net zero,” to “ensure the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitters take necessary action on climate change,” and to support “the goals of the Paris Agreement.”
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Read more: https://www.wsj.com/articles/arizona-defends-retirees-against-esg-blackrock-asset-management-retirement-net-zero-greenhouse-gas-fiduciary-duty-pension-gender-quota-california-11660571998
Why is this happening?
I have a theory that something changed when HSBC martyred senior executive Stuart Kirk, apparently for the crime of speaking his mind on climate change. Because the one thing the senior bankers and fund managers I’ve met can’t stand is an investment industry sacred cow.
The lesson which has emerged above all others over the last 30 years is lies lead to losses, including or especially lies of omission. Arguably every significant industry loss over the last 30 years has occurred because of a truth everybody knew, but nobody dared to speak.
A handful of senior bankers I talked to before the 2007-10 GFC crash quietly admitted the subprime mortgages being sold were total junk, but so long as the money kept pouring in, everyone, including me, kept quiet. Subprime was a juggernaut. I could have been wrong. What is one person’s opinion, or even a handful of critical opinions, against the massed wisdom and might, the massed consensus of the entire financial industry?
But the hard lesson was learned – in the aftermath of the 2007-10 crash, people in the financial industry started speaking their minds, and suddenly everyone realised they weren’t alone. Lots of other people had the same doubts, they just hadn’t felt safe about sharing those doubts with colleagues.
Stuart Kirk’s bold sacrifice has forced the financial world to face the possibility that the GFC nightmare, the pressure to remain silent, has started happening again. Once again there appears to be a golden opportunity, a financial sacred cow, which nobody is allowed to criticise.
All the simmering pain from the 2007-10 GFC is still fresh in everyone’s minds, maybe too fresh in some minds for them to just stand idle while their client’s money is swept into what could be a high risk gamble, because everyone is too afraid to speak up and point out the risk. So this time bankers aren’t going quietly, they are grumbling and in some cases openly rebelling, like the courageous Stuart Kirk.
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Isn’t “climate” just a politics plot to reduce the power of all those fossil fuel producers, like the arabs, the russians, etc. ?
It’s so hard to imagine the politicians behind the madness really believe in this co2-crap?
If it was, it backfired disastrously – it has done next to nothing about hydrocarbon producers whilst harming (and beginning a crippling punishment process on) western hydrocarbon consumers.
Here’s a new (to me) proposition for the WSJ editors to chew over. It came from Dessler in the Koonin-Dessler debate and it’s this : We carry on down the renewables route and if it proves to be unworkable we simply return to fossil fuels. I don’t know where to begin on this.
I read that too. One can only wonder at such thinking.
It’s a continuation of the magical thinking that they started with. The ‘game theory’ only considered what would happen if the temperature either stayed the same or went up and the geniuses took this assumption and stated that, even if they were wrong, no harm would be done and they could simply carry on. The fact that temperatures might go down or that even temporary lowering of temperatures might cause huge amounts of harm never entered their conversation. They simply believe that they live in a magical kingdom where they can try out new things and there is no downside at all – it’s a form of collective delusion that will end millions of lives if not stopped.
The main driver of the sub-prime mortgage collapse (turning collections of mortgages into securities) was that the algorithm for valuing them developed by a Chinese national had no provisions for home values going down. During the collapse he skipped back to China.
An entire new financial instrument (market) based upon a logical fallacy. Just imagine the thinking required to make new securities and valuing them based solely on impenetrable computerized-speculation that assumes the perpetual expansion of the nation’s housing market (a bubble with no end), with no downswings allowed.
It didn’t help that Federal and local governments artificially lowered the lending standards for “social equity” and “anti-racism.” Talk about pumping up the unstable bubble further. I think the politicians directing Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac had alot to do with the misallocations in housing finance and resulting instability.
Oh, FJB, as always.
Environment, Social, Governance, is a misguided concept based on nothing beyond virtue signalling. It is a concept promoted by the slick at the expense of the investors and sold to the public.
The bundling up of worthless investments does not make them valuable. This was painfully demonstrated during the last example of an investment stampede, as more and more careered over the cliff. Will no one learn from the world economic crisis they created back in the 2008 period.
“What is one person’s opinion, or even a handful of critical opinions, against the massed wisdom and might, the massed consensus of the entire financial industry?”
Several million managers of their own money could’ve told those educated idjits what kind of a huge mess they were in. Anyone who has ever given money to a friend or acquaintance they know has a sketchy history of being able to pay it back, even without interest, could’ve told all those bankers that making loans to people who didn’t obviously have the ability to pay it back was a real dumb thing to do.
OPM, Gregg, OPM. And making money off the transaction, not the transaction’s profitability. The financial industry always wins.
City Journal
Perhaps this article is disingenuous when comparing numbers?
For those without a good grasp of numbers the journalist should have been clearer.
Indian Point 0.375 square miles for a nuclear plant
versus 500 square miles of turbines
or better 240 acres vs 320000 acres.
For perspective:
American football field approx 1 acre
Premier League soccer field approx 1.76 acres
Good point for future reporting.
I am not sure there is any change in political orientation / on climate change. This is a reaction to the indefensible Chicken Lilttle statements and positions that are coming out of the White House and Democrats in Congress.
This is very interesting.
Where others are claiming that the W.E.F. (Davos, Soros, Schwab) has talked Gates and the rest into destroying the Western economies by reducing energy production, and impoverishing (and freezing and staving to death) many by pushing the false claim of a climate catastrophe, the Great Satan Paper #2 (NYT is #1) is going back to its even-handed reporting that made it great. Perhaps a survival technique?
In a discussion with the CEO of IMCC (now Mosaic) many years ago, I asked him if he was selling fertilizer at a loss (net of fixed costs) as a means to benefit the poorer countries of the world? He did not understand.
I then pointed out to him that raising the economic condition of poor families decrease the pressure to have excessive children, and provides for a more stable economic picture amide prosperity increases (see China, the last 30 years).
Some years later, after reading the goals of the Club or Rome (sustainability thru population decrease) I realize that I was right and they were wrong. Even more obvious in the present environment when the W.E.F. is depending on chaos and destitution to reduce the population. IT WILL NOT WORK. Only prosperity will lead to long term sustainability.
They may force a one-world government to save us from the Armageddon they would produce, but there will be thousands of years of gorilla warfare between the haves and the have-nots.
When the grand climate con march reaches the gates of Wall Street, somebody has to take notice or we end up like a third-party world boutique market.
Third world boutique market
I was always taught to have a Plan B “no matter what” and I have been subject to many corporate types lecturing on this and admonishing those who have failed to develop their plan B. You know the old chestnut of “A failure to plan is a plan to fail”. Well these days I ask the big shots in business (woke xankers on big salaries) to detail their plan B just in case their CO2 religion and its effect on the globe turns out to be nothing more than a complete crock of BS as per the hard evidence available to all demonstrates. It’s a lot of fun to watch the incredulously stupid look on their faces, especially when you repeat the question several times😂 without an answer.
The more interesting aspect of the Kirk speech was that it was approved by senior managers prior to delivery. Now either those managers didn’t read the speech or they decided to let Kirk fly the kite, knowing that they could test the water and deal with the aftermath. My money’s on the latter. Capitalists always try to cover all the bases, but you never know what they really think. Supporting RSG was intended to bat away concerns that capitalism was uncaring. The same goes for AWG. But when the chickens come home to roost there are always fallback positions. “Never believed a single word of it.” Michael Shellenberger was the first green to break cover on the question of energy density. A question that will surface again and again when it comes to the abolition of ICE. The political elite demanded to abolition of ICE production capacity leaving people with no choice except EV’s. When the motor industry faces collapse in around 2030, because of the various mandates look out for the selection of reverse gear.