Essay by Eric Worrall
More evidence of the ongoing collapse of the climate movement.
US multinationals purge website references to climate change
Walmart and Kraft Heinz among big corporations deleting or rewriting statements as Trump climate attacks intensify
Attracta Mooney and Susannah Savage in London
Big companies and non-profit groups have begun purging or rewriting references to climate change on their websites, mirroring similar action by US government departments in response to the policies of Donald Trump.
Financial Times analysis shows that statements on climate change from leading corporations including Walmart and Kraft Heinz have been deleted or rewritten over the past year at the same time as a Republican backlash against green action has intensified and companies have begun rolling back their net zero targets.
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Areeba Hamid, co-executive director of Greenpeace UK, warned companies were at risk of “committing brand self-sabotage by erasing and diluting references to climate on their websites”.
…Charities also told the FT they were rejigging their websites, with one US non-profit group that operates internationally saying they had scrubbed whole pages about climate change online, partly in a bid to help shore up US grants.
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Read more: https://www.ft.com/content/f100bedb-16cb-4f5e-8f64-9a10d5c43a51
The full article is worth reading, it contains a substantial list of companies and charities which have turned their backs on climate action.
Interestingly some of them apparently started purging online climate content before the November election, possibly in anticipation of a Trump victory.
Obviously if a radical climate activist is elected to the White House all the statements of climate commitment will be dusted off and restored. But in my opinion this shows how little corporations and charities genuinely care about climate change, and the fundamental weakness of the climate movement.
End of the beginning?
Beginning of the end.
Climate Change was just a ‘fad’ to a lot of these companies. That’s why they reverse course so easily.
It’s like all those Tesla buyers selling their cars because of Musk’s politics; all it really shows is they bought them as virtue signals.
all it really shows is they bought them as *subsidised* virtue signals.
Wait till they learn they must pay taxes on those subsidy’s
Just goes to demonstrate the Golden Rule – he who has the Gold makes the Rules.
Alternatively
He who pays the piper calls the tune.
And now the jig is up.
There’s a long way still to go until the public realise carbon dioxide is not the Devil and that they have been fibbed to and deceived for years.
I had an enjoyable but depressing discussion at the squash club last night as it became apparent that a surgeon and a actuary in the group still believe net Zero is needed.
They also defended lockdown but that’s another kettle of fibs people have swallowed.
When people have been indoctrinated for years by relentless media propaganda, it is not easy to break out of that mindset. However, I see that more articles about the absurdity of net zero are starting to appear in the media and this should eventually start to change some minds.
“It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled”
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I thought that was by Mark Twain, but apparently it is not, so at least I have learned something new.
Baltasar Gracian expressed a similar sentiment in 1647.
Thank you for that. I looked him up and the first search result was:
“Low prices on Baltasar Gracian” from Amazon . com.
Odd times indeed. But he’s added to my reading list. A more expansive internet article said he studied at Zaragoza and Calatayud in Spain. Both of which I visited a couple of years ago.
The first search result is always “Low Prices on [whatever you keyed in] at Amazon”. It’s that or pay for search information, I’m afraid!
Strange. My search results always say eBay. For example, “Cheap Apocalypse on eBay!”
Presumably they were sold on US Net Zero?
But in any case the thing to focus on is not the whether it is needed. Instead focus on the why and the who. Why is a US Net Zero needed? What effect will it have on either global emissions or global temperatures?
And if its a global net zero they are sold on, who is it that needs to stop? And do they show any signs of doing it?
The strongest argument is to point out that in the real world no-one, outside the English speaking countries and perhaps Germany, is reducing emissions. And even they are mostly static. So the world in which people are advocating our own net zero is one where global emissions will continue to rise regardless, and where China and India will go to COP and block anything that would be effective. Because they rightly (but whether they are right doesn’t matter) do not believe in it.
So why is our own Net Zero (whether its the US, UK, Australia…) so necessary? Its actually futile. And people are waking up to that.
Well said. But some of us, our host on here in the lead, have been arguing against the whole climate ‘concept’ for years. And to a great extent getting nowhere.
Where did the idea ever come from that there was ever “global warming” beyond the normal climatic variations that gave us the Mediæval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age? Where did the idea ever come from that that essential trace gas, CO2, could turn the planet into some overheated hellhole.
Why did otherwise intelligent people, expert in their own field and apparently in full possession of their faculties fall for the lies of the climate activists and their scientifically illiterate hangers-on?
Net Zero is not only futile, it is essentially impossible since we can try to reduce our CO2 emissions but nature isn’t paying the slightest attention. While human CO2 emissions trended downwards a little during the Covid pandemic, it made not the slightest difference to the steady progress of the CO2 record at Mauna Loa,
‘Nuff said?
It’s the continuous reference to ‘climate change’ on the misleadia. Never challenged about what change had occurred. A bit warmer? Sure. Anything else? Certainly not the great overarching measurable metric – cyclones
I find that winter is the best time to discuss the “warming” of Earth, especially when someone is already remarking about less snow, warmer winter temps, and an earlier Spring. Those observations fit a warming world, and folks will listen when it is explained that global warming is mostly Earth getting less cold during winter and with warmer nighttime lows year-round, which fits their experience.
Segue those observations to a discussion of how the “average” temperature disguises that, with alarmists pushing that Earth is getting “hotter”, though summer highs are not getting higher nearly as much as lows are. They can understand the misleading “average” when given an example that reinforces their experience. Most, especially up North, experience the warmer winter effects, and may even realize their summers are not really much warmer. The conclusion is that a warming world is actually Earth getting less cold, generally a good thing. It is an epiphany to many.
I knew the climate panic was ridiculous when I read Al Gore’s doomsday book, “Earth in the Balance” when it first came out in 1992. I realized the climate panic was also a farce and a moral panic when the Weather Channel ran the tiresome scold Heidi Cullen almost daily to remind us unwashed heathen of all the things we should give up lest Mother Earth descend into the darkest regions of Hell.
About that time, the Mayor of Minneapolis or Governor of Minnesota (I forget which) agonized on TV that “If global warming isn’t stopped,” the daffodils might start blooming a week or so earlier in the grim, unlivable future.
Spring too early in the Northern Great Plains? That is really straining to conjure up catastrophe. Next thing you know the barn swallows might start arriving “too soon” at Capistrano.
I wouldn’t read anything into the supposed epiphany of corporate chameleons. They’ll do whatever it takes.
Agreed. Everyone may be tempted to applaud the reversal, but it is a sign of a deeply worrying underlying phenomenon in Western, or at least English Speaking, culture. Perhaps its in Germany and France also.
The reversal is right, but that it is happening so fast and with so little resistance shows how volatile our culture has become. And that is very worrying.
There is an extraordinary susceptibility to the spread of irrational ideas and a resulting willingness to take individual action supposedly based on them. I have the impression that this is new, at least in the last 15-20 years. Earlier on you still had manias of course, but their spread was limited and there was not the current rush to do things based on them. [Although there again, there was the terrible example of Germany and Russian 20C genocides.]
As late 20C examples, Recovered Memory and Satanic Child Abuse (in the UK see Project Midland) got traction, but were fairly confined and died out quite fast.
By contrast, climate hysteria has people like the UK NHS changing the makeup of its anesthetics to eliminate GHGs from them. It has countries putting trillions into wind and solar and EVs. It has local councils in the UK trying to make their little towns Net Zero. Supermarkets deciding to sell jars of hummus without lids because climate… But its not confined to climate….
It has police forces deciding to call on individuals who have posted on social media expressing doubt that trans women are really women. Harry Miller was called on for ridiculing trans ideology by saying, among other things ‘I was assigned mammal at birth, but my orientation is fish. Don’t mis-species me.’ Maya Forstater was fired for expressing gender critical views while privately using social media. [Both of these actions were later held to be unlawful by the courts]. A woman was banned by her football club from attending matches, again because of the private expression of gender critical opinions.
These are just instances of particular events. The infiltration of corporate life by Stonewall, now metamorphosed into a trans activist organization, is an instance of the general phenomenon. Schools allowing, or perhaps facilitating, social transitioning in secret from parents. The UK National Trust demanding its volunteers wear Rainbow badges. But its not just climate and gender….
In the UK you had the extraordinary sight of the current Prime Minister and his Deputy kneeling in public because a police officer thousands of miles away in a different country had choked the unfortunate George Floyd to death on evening. What did it have to do with them or the UK? Who knows? Then in the same vein you had the move to ‘decolonize’ various things, whether by rewriting books, taking down statues or putting paintings out of view. Why? But its not just climate and gender and race…
There is also a growing move in the UK to legislate against something called Islamophobia. Which appears in practice to be speech or action dissenting from the tenets of Islam.
I could go on. Spiked has given a partial list of these things with a bunch more absurd instances. Its not so much the detail as the overall phenomenon.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/11/26/the-sinister-folly-of-the-non-crime-hate-incident/
The worrying thing is the number of these manias in recent years, the way in which they sweep through public bodies and corporations, the way in which individuals then start their own crazed initiatives in response to them. Western culture has become, based on this evidence, febrile and irrational, with an over active but under employed conscience which is continually looking for expression. And finding it.
Coming shortly to a school, church, council or supermarket near you. On a subject which you cannot yet imagine, but don’t worry, one will soon be found.
You notice by the way that these initiatives do nothing to improve what is claimed to be the underlying problem. UK or UK wind and solar and generation net zero will have no effect on climate. Firing Maya Forstater could have no benefit for the civil rights of trans people. There may be real racisim in parts of the UK, but kneeling by Starmer does nothing to reduce it. There is real prejudice against Muslims (as distinct from dissent from Islam) but seeking to suppress dissent will not reduce it/ And so on.
Yes, there is. And until Muslims themselves stop scenes such as we had in Australia after 9/11, with muslims celebrating in the streets, the prejudice will unfortunately continue.
But I’m not allowed to say that in the UK.
The left never liked free speech
From the post:”…choked the unfortunate George Floyd to death…”
I don’t think Mr. Floyd was either choked or unfortunate. But all the people who died, had their businesses burned, or were injured because of the rioters were the unfortunate. When politicians kneel for drug abusers and not for those affected by the rioters they demonstrate their immorality.
That kneeling thing was ridiculous, even for the Democrats.
Any unfortunateness(?) on Floyd’s part was his own doing.
It is hard to breathe when your gullet is chock-full of pills & powders, and nothing to wash it down with.
More like, when your bloodstream is chock-full…
Floyd had 3 medical conditions. Hypertension (high blood pressure) and 2 heart afflictions. He was on fentanyl and cocaine, a deadly mix.
Add to it he panicked, which causes adrenaline surge.
There was no trauma to his neck or any indication he was choked, according to the medical examiner’s report. He died of cardiac arrest.
Correcting the record. George Floyd died of cardiac arrest. He was not choked to death. All per the medical examiners report.
Derek Chauvin was a victim of the Democrats political agenda. they needed a crisis. This was orchestrated by Tampon Tim and his unethical AG. The DOJ under Trump must reverse the judgement-not pardon him- so he can sue
This is the sudden collapse we’ve all been waiting (even praying) for.
While it still seemed inevitable, the various profiteers, parasites, and other bandwagon jumpers were angling to see what they could extract from it
Now that the writing is clearly on the wall, they’re fleeing like rats.
I don’t think Trump is the cause, he’s merely an impetus. They’ve been waiting forever to take advantage of the net zero wet dream but it always seemed to be a decade off, and in the last few years it has started to crumble at the foundations
The few outliers left like the UK are only damaging themselves further. Dropping it would be popular amongst electorates, they’ve simply reached saturation in terms of the messaging and are tired of sky high energy prices
Most I’m sure roll their eyes when the subject comes up. Soon it will only be the guardian left to trumpet this nonsense. I suspect even the BBC will tone it down considerably over the coming year or 2
Should be careful not to see Trump as some kind of Marvel movie superhero. Some of what he is putting in motion is needed, other stuff, well…..
What other stuff?
Probably referring to Canada as 51st state, annexing Greenland, Gulf of America, etc. I think those are just sideshows.
Alberta has sent a delegation to Washington to look into statehood. Greenland would be a great asset as it has access to Arctic ocean which adds to our Alaska access. There is oil in them waters.
“Greenland would be a great asset as it has access to Arctic ocean which adds to our Alaska access. There is oil in them waters.”
True, but we could do that without taking it over, through agreements.
From what I’ve heard, it appears the independence faction in Greenland has been emboldened by Trump’s stance
I’m quite agnostic about trump. I think the collapse of net zero was inevitable, he’s just hsstening it by not very long in my opinion
As regards his other other policies, I don’t agree with all of them, but he’s not the super villain he’s made out to be by most of the legacy media
Greenpeace UK clearly hasn’t got the memo that the Rainbow Warrior is sinking.
“But in my opinion this shows how little corporations and charities genuinely care about climate change, and the fundamental weakness of the climate movement.”
Yes, the fundamental weakness is that it is a fashion movement based on the appearance of a serious issue rather than substance. And the opportunity-driven “solutions” to the illusion of a problem – mainly intermittent wind & solar plus electrification of “everything” – are also a passing fad. It cannot be otherwise, as “common sense” (DJT’s new favorite expression) forces its way back into the corporate world.
Let’s just beware, though, that the corporate susceptibility to some new flashy fashion trend has not been resolved.
Yes, absolutely right. Susceptibility is the big cultural issue.
Fossil fuels have some what of a negative feedback; as climate warms less fossil fuel required to stay warm.
Of course that assumes co2 is part of the problem.
Maybe we are finally seeing a return to sanity.
I blame the universities and the educational establishment in general for this global warming non-sense. We expected reasoned well-thought-out discussion of important scientific issues from the academic world. Instead, what we got from them was a lot of me-too group think, some empty slogans and hysterical protest demonstrations, and censoring any serious debate. The colleges and universities used to believe in truth. Now they believe in politics.
Then you don’t see the big picture. Why does this happen?
Just human nature, many witch hunts down thru history, thank goodness the climate hysteria is fading away, it was all driven by free money, I knew it would have a hay day and then die out.
So they never believed in it in the first place, just pandering to score points and avoid adverse publicity – cowards.
Just got a delivery from Home Depot in a pouch mailer which says “Home Depot pledges to reduce our carbon emissions 50% by 2035.” LOL!
Yes lying will come back to bite you eventually.
A large number of those companies only have these programs and info on their websites as part of the their “green” initiatives because most government and university departments require it for people to do business with them. Any tender or purchase opportunity with these government departments specifically requires you to demonstrate your environmental / energy programs.
As soon as this requirement is/was dropped, you will see private companies drop it like a hot potato due it being a huge waste of money with no improvement to business outcomes.
Sorry, but the first thing that struck me is, who would name their daughter Attracta? Did she pick it herself as a pen name?
UK companies, or?..
And considering how that show went the last time, this tells us something.
You know who owns Heinz!