Thursday, February 13, 2014

Overtaken by events

Ron Fournier can't pretend anymore: "It’s getting difficult and slinking toward impossible to defend the Affordable Care Act."

And climatologist Roy Spencer says: "I’m seeing a lot of wrangling over the recent (15+ year) pause in global average warming…when did it start, is it a full pause, shouldn’t we be taking the longer view, etc.  These are all interesting exercises, but they miss the most important point: the climate models that governments base policy decisions on have failed miserably."

10 comments:

SR said...

You're blogging up a storm today! Har-D-Har! Thanks for the links and stay safe.

Eric said...

Yeah, working from home, which is a nice change sometimes.

And what about that snow said...

Uh oh. Better not tell that to the hundreds of major companies, from Dupont to Bayer to Google to Nestle to Walmart to Diageo to Microsoft to ExxonMobil, who have begun investing their stockholders' money and preparing longterm business models based on the miserable, failed science of real climate change.

Surely they'll all reverse course, though, when they hear from Roy Spencer, a climatologist who says "Earth and its ecosystems, created by God's intelligent design and infinite power and sustained by His faithful providence, are robust, resilient, self-regulating, and self-correcting."

Eric said...

Oh, for sure, for sure. Because no big organization would lie about their green bona fides just to placate the granola crowd.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/524391/the-sochi-olympics-arent-as-green-as-advertised/

Q.E.D. said...

And this one-off is relevant to corporations' own assessments of their annual bottom lines because...?

Because the Sochi Olympics, which couldn't even build bathrooms, have screwed up their energy quotas? So that means ExxonMobil's NOT budgeting for future climate change costs anymore?

Anonymous said...

After one has folded one's arms and said "NO! NO! NO!" to near-universal scientific agreement on colossal amounts of data, convincing oneself that companies aren't really preparing for climate change is a snap.

Eric said...

"...always more marketing hype than corporate commitment"

http://www.forbes.com/sites/lorensteffy/2013/06/28/alternative-energy-and-big-oil-poor-returns-versus-lies/

That's right: we're the ones ignoring empirical data. If you click on the blue words in the post, Anon, you'll see a graph.

Blowing smoke said...

You're mixing up different things. There's investing (or not) in green energy (the Forbes link), there's falsely promoting oneself as green (the Olympics link), and then there's the original observation: hundreds of companies across the world accept that global warming is occurring, and they foresee new costs because of it.

These costs can range from anticipated offset fees to reduced crop yield to adaptation measures to infrastructure damage to amortization of affected investments. Different companies give differing weight to these different concerns. But the corporations are budgeting for those additional costs now, instead of waiting to see what a big hoax the whole thing is. For example, ExxonMobil disclosed in 2013 that it has integrated an assumed carbon price of $60 per metric ton into its ongoing strategies, a big jump from its earlier projections. Google is basing its fiscal decisions on the assumption that its current carbon price will more than double in the next 15 years. Walmart brags that its analysis of upcoming carbon costs gives them a competitive advantage over retailers who have yet to make such calculations.

Companies are also analyzing climate change to find new business opportunities and incentives in it. What they're not doing is assuming global warming is a fad that will go away.

You may not like it, but the market has already decided.

Eric said...

I don't mean to be argumentative but the fact that corporations are budgeting for carbon costs - in and of itself - does not create evidence of global warming.

The Reuters article where you seems to cite your facts makes no mention of climate change or global warming. Instead it simply makes predictions on where fossil fuel prices are going, whether through EPA regulation and a feared "emissions fee" or global demand.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/05/usa-energy-carbon-idUSL2N0JK0V220131205

Emission statements said...

Like previous posts, this one is taken from a variety of sources, not one:

CMS Energy: "Climate change has also influenced our long term strategies through our capacity planning process. In this process we evaluate a number of factors including a carbon price for CO2 emissions in our generation capacity planning."

General Electric: "To the extent climate change presents regulatory risks, GE has been preparing for, and complying with, related requirements for years."

Wells Fargo: "The scope of our risk management procedures with regard to climate change risks and opportunities includes consideration of the impacts of regulation, customer behavior changes and needs, reputational risks, and weather risks within the next five years"

Coca-Cola: "We believe that climate change, caused by man-made greenhouse gas emissions, is the greatest threat to our planet. There is an urgent need for a step-change to achieve not only the significant emission reduction targets we have set but also a low-carbon future. To that point, we have to look beyond our own operations and take responsibility for the whole product value chain."

Disney: "Current scientific conclusions indicate that urgent reductions in greenhouse gas emissions are required to avert accelerated climate change"

PG&E: "PG&E recognizes that the link between greenhouse gas emissions and the Earth’s warming climate is convincing, the potential consequences are serious and the need for action is urgent."

Conoco Phillips: "There is a general consensus among climate scientists that, without significant intervention, climate change will result in dramatic weather events, rising sea levels, drought in some areas and significant impacts on human and ecosystem health. The Pentagon also believes that climate change will have significant national security implications. Climate change will therefore have profound negative effects on global economies, confronting business leaders with major challenges."

Microsoft: "Microsoft believes climate change is a serious issue that demands immediate, worldwide attention and we are acting accordingly."

ConAgra: "Climate change remains one of our most significant environmental challenges, impacting our agricultural supply base, potentially threatening our water supply and fundamentally altering growing regions, as we now know them. It is imperative that we reduce greenhouse gas emissions within our own operations and throughout our supply chain to mitigate these risks and build a business that is resilient to climate change... We believe rather than purchase carbon offsets, it is most impactful and cost effective to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. Consistent with this approach, we did not purchase carbon offsets in FY13."

DuPont: "We believe the global scientific understanding of climate change is sufficient to compel prompt, effective actions to limit emissions of greenhouse gases... We believe any strategy to address climate change must be both environmentally effective and economically sustainable."

Here's one of the many articles explaining how companies see global warming not just as a cost of business, but an opportunity. Hedge funds snapping up water rights, a seawall-building company seeing its stock rise, oil companies telling investors that their holdings in previously frozen waters will become their most profitable leases:

http://ideas.time.com/2014/02/03/the-big-business-of-global-warming/