[✔️] May 29, 2021 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Sat May 29 09:40:31 EDT 2021
/*May 29, 2021*/
[harsh political reality]
*Biden’s Fossil Fuel Moves Clash With Pledges on Climate Change*
“To use an oil analogy, we’re not changing a speedboat. We’re
shifting course of a giant supertanker. It’s not going to happen
overnight,” Ms. Jaffe said, adding, “It’s a time-consuming and
thoughtful process to move an entire country the size of the United
States, with the complexity of the economy we have, to a major
energy transition.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/28/climate/biden-fossil-fules-climate-Willow.html
[formerly a sink -- now changed to a source - because of deforestation]
*Why has the Amazon flipped from carbon sink to carbon source?*
May 27, 2021
Just Have a Think
The Amazon was once called the 'lungs of the planet'. New research
suggests those lungs are now so badly diseased that they may be
irreparable. Human activity hasn't just lowered the amount of CO2 the
region can store, it's also kicked off numerous other feedback loops
that are now tipping out of control. So what are those variables, and
what's the prognosis?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A01ddGNHLoE
[upper atmosphere is the worst place to pollute]
*A Big Climate Problem With Few Easy Solutions: Planes*
The airline industry might not be able to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions for decades because most solutions are not yet viable.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/28/business/energy-environment/airlines-climate-planes-emissions.html
[we knew, now we're reminded]
*New climate predictions increase likelihood of temporarily reaching 1.5
°C in next 5 years*
https://www.preventionweb.net/news/view/78092
- -
[IPCC Report]
*Global Warming of 1.5 ºC*
An IPCC special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5 °C above
pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission
pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the
threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to
eradicate poverty. The translations of the SPM and other material can be
downloaded from this link
https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/
[Barrons opinion- follow the money]
*Exxon’s Shareholder Revolt Is a Warning for Boards Everywhere*
By Heidi Welsh - May 27, 2021
Market reality has finally collided with the most important U.S. energy
company. Yesterday, Exxon Mobil shareholders elected at least two of the
dissident directors proposed by the activist hedge fund Engine No. 1.
Investors have lost patience with the basic business assumption that oil
and gas will rule forever. But investor confidence in corporate boards
is eroding on other contentious public policies issues as well. Boards
should take note.
The vote at Exxon Mobil (ticker: XOM) was the predictable result of
long-term proxy season trends. My organization, the Sustainable
Investment Institute, has been tracking proxy voting trends since 2010.
Support for social and environmental shareholder resolutions, which
raise the most fraught corporate responsibility questions, has been
rising steeply—stunningly so. More than two dozen such proposals this
year at public U.S. companies have earned majority support. In the last
10 years, 95 social and environmental proposals earned majority support,
and half of those votes came last year and this. Further, more than half
the resolutions voted this year so far have earned more than 30%
support, a level widely seen to trigger board attention. By contrast, as
recently as 2012, there was only one majority vote and less than a
quarter of the votes exceeded 30%.
(We are only halfway through tallying up the 2021 votes, which are
likely to number about 190, a figure that hasn’t budged for three years.)
Eight of the majority votes this year call for more disclosure and
action on climate change, nine are about workplace and board diversity,
and another six seek more oversight and disclosure on election
expenditures and lobbying.
As vote totals began to rise in recent years, they initially seemed to
prompt more agreements between companies and shareholder proposal
sponsors. Withdrawn proposals exceeded those voted on for the first time
in 2018; this held true through 2020. (A withdrawn proposal is almost
always the result of an agreement for more disclosure or action.) This
year, in what may be a harbinger of both more aggressive requests and
rising expectations for board action that could be preventing more
agreements, the number of votes and withdrawals is about even.
As persistent calls for climate change mitigation have failed to move
boards, the institutional investors who move the market have turned
their sights to board-member elections. This is part of an emerging
corporate-governance playbook: The buck stops at the board. We saw this
shift first with board diversity, when funds on the cutting edge of
corporate governance started voting against nominating committee members
or the entire board when no women held seats. Now a vanishingly small
number of S&P 500 boards is without a woman, and Goldman Sachs won’t
lead underwrite IPOs if there are no female directors. The evidence is
overwhelming that diverse boards produce stronger returns.
Looking at the third major area of concern expressed in proxy season,
we’ve yet to see any evidence for a move to tie director votes to
corporate political-influence efforts. But this could be the result of
rapid uptake of the requested board oversight and, to a lesser extent,
disclosure on how and why shareholders’ money flows from the corporate
treasury into elections and lobbying. Unlike with climate change, but
similar to board diversity, companies increasingly have adopted policies
and reported on their political spending. Not incidentally, proxy season
support for political-influence proposals has grown—producing seven
majorities this year already (two on climate-related influence), and an
average of 41% so far on 28 proposals, up about five points from last
year. Our research shows that 95% of the S&P 500 now has a policy on
political spending and three-quarters also address lobbying. Whether
that’s adequate remains to be seen.
The spring corporate annual meeting season is a proven barometer of
investor sentiment about how much companies should tell them about the
“nontangible” risks and opportunities that now account for up to 90% of
valuation. As the practice of sustainability reporting has matured,
gauzy sentiments about corporate values are being replaced with harder
data, although the quants will be arguing about the details for some
time. What they conclude may not even matter that much, though, if one
agrees with a new book, Moving Beyond Modern Portfolio Theory by Jon
Lukomnik and James P. Hawley. They argue long-term investors must look
beyond company-specific metrics, to make the capital market forest and
not just the corporate trees thrive, since so much of long-term investor
return depends on overall market trajectory.
Engine No. 1’s results were only possible with support from the likes of
BlackRock, Vanguard, and Fidelity, although we don’t yet know how all
the big mutual funds voted. As mainstream Wall Street firms have
increasingly tried to integrate environmental, social, and governance
factors into investment management, pressure for consistency between
investing practice and proxy voting has grown, on both climate change
and issues like diversity. This mainstreaming of formerly minority
concerns is also driven by the proxy advisory firms, which themselves
serve as a second-tier barometer of institutional investor sentiment
since their policies reflect the collective views of their clients.
It will take time to see the full impact of Exxon Mobil’s board upset.
Comparatively speaking, it’s a lot easier to put women on boards than it
is to retool the world’s largest industrial corporation. Yet the
consequences of not weaning ourselves from oil and gas are larger still.
Heidi Welsh is the founding executive director of the Sustainable
Investments Institute.
https://www.barrons.com/articles/exxons-shareholder-revolt-is-a-warning-shot-for-boards-everywhere-51622143164
[gnarly tracking over 3 decades]
*Warming Oceans, Stronger Swells: Big Wave Surfers Ride More Powerful Waves*
Mark Sponsler, a revered surf forecaster and founder of the site
stormsurf.com, has described a “golden age” for big wave surfing caused
by hotter temperatures and ocean water.
As temperatures and ocean waters warm, evaporation increases, which
pumps more energy into the jet stream, generating more ferocious storms
over the open ocean, the genesis of Mavericks towering waves.
Bianca Valenti, a San Franciscan and one of the best big wave surfers in
the world, charged at Mavericks' monster waves more than a dozen times
this past winter...
more at -
https://www.kqed.org/science/1974937/warming-oceans-stronger-swells-big-wave-surfers-ride-more-powerful-waves
[sociologist Schnaiberg]
*Can We Be Heroes Again? Confronting the Banality of Modern Evil*
May 28, 2021
Like Stories of Old
About this video essay:
An analysis of the dissonance between morality and heroism in stories,
and the reality and moral complexities of our modern society.
0:00 Introduction: Dreams of Heroism
7:38 Part 1: Organized Irresponsibility
15:41 Part 2: Carrying the Cross
23:03 Part 3: The Banality of Evil
31:09 Part 4: Reclaiming Morality
Sources:
Allan Schnaiberg – The Treadmill of Production: https://amzn.to/3hWv6rR
Ulrich Beck – Risk Society: https://amzn.to/3usjwr9
Ulrich Beck – World Risk Society: https://amzn.to/3ft7g5k
Ivie – Can ‘Ethical’ Consumption Exist Under Capitalism? (no):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXUIP0mLgn8&t=0s
Kaylene C. Williams – Fear Appeal Theory:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265807800_Fear_Appeal_Theory
Kim Witte and Mike Allen – A Meta-Analysis of Fear
Appeals:https://www.researchgate.net/publication/12314742_A_Meta-Analysis_of_Fear_Appeals_Implications_for_Effective_Public_Health_Campaigns
Leigh Singer – Barbaric poetry: can we really film the Holocaust?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOoIYmrmlSs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tooiNm9WmkM
[news archive --wow, it only took 12 years]
*On this day in the history of global warming May 29, 2008 *
The New York Times reports:
"ExxonMobil’s chairman and chief executive, Rex W. Tillerson,
defeated a shareholder effort on Wednesday to take away one of his
jobs at an annual meeting punctuated by a debate of the company’s
policy toward renewable energy and global warming."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/29/business/29exxon.html?_r=1&
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