GWPF | 2 May 2016
The Mark Carney Effect
The number big investors ignoring climate change risk increased last year despite a stark warning from Bank of England Governor Mark Carney’s about the potential for “huge” losses from a sudden shift in regulation designed to curb global warming and fossil fuels. Almost half of the world’s top 500 investors are failing to act on climate change — an increase of 6 percent from 236 in 2014, according to a report Monday by the Asset Owners Disclosure Project, which surveys global companies on their climate change risk and management. –Jessica Shankleman, Bloomberg, 1 May 2016
Berkshire Hathaway shareholders have overwhelmingly rejected a resolution calling for the company to write a report about the risks climate change creates for its insurance companies. CEO Warren Buffett says he agrees that dealing with climate change is important for society, but he doesn’t think climate change creates serious risks for Berkshire’s insurance businesses. The activists who proposed the motion tried to urge Buffett to take a public stance in favor of measures to reduce consumption of fossil fuels, but he resisted. —The Washington Post, 30 April 2016
1) Mark Carney Effect: Investors Ignoring Climate Risks Rose Last Year
Bloomberg, 1 May 2016
2) Warren Buffett & Berkshire Investors Reject Climate Risk Report
The Washington Post, 30 April 2016
3) Warren Buffett Tells Greenie Crusaders To Buzz Off At Berkshire Annual Meeting
The Daily Caller, 1 May 2016
4) Christopher Booker: The Climate Change Brigade Vs Press Freedoms
The Sunday Telegraph, 1 May 2016
5) Editorial: The Climate Police Escalate
The Wall Street Journal, 30 April 2016
6) Climate Hustle: ‘The Most Dangerous Documentary Of The Year’
The Washington Times, 1 May 2016
There recently arrived on the desk of the editor of The Times an extraordinary three-page letter, signed by 13 members of the House of Lords. They informed him in no uncertain terms that, if he wished to save his paper’s reputation, he must stop printing articles which don’t accord with the official orthodoxy on climate change. Headed by Lord Krebs, its signatories read like a check-list of our “climate establishment”. The gist of their letter, written in consultation with Richard Black, the former BBC environmental reporter who now runs an ultra-green propaganda unit, was to express outrage that The Times had published two articles which appeared to question the official orthodoxy on global warming. Nothing was more revealing in this letter than its signatories’ claim that in no way did they wish to interfere with the freedom of speech – when everything else in the letter showed that this was precisely their intention. –Christopher Booker, The Sunday Telegraph, 1 May 2016
Sometimes we wonder if we’re still living in the land of the free. Witness the subpoena from Claude Walker, attorney general of the U.S. Virgin Islands, demanding that the Competitive Enterprise Institute cough up a decade of emails and policy work, as well as a list of private donors. Mr. Walker is frustrated that the free-market think tank won’t join the modern church of climatology, so he has joined the rapidly expanding club of Democratic politicians and prosecutors harassing dissenters. This is a dangerous turn for free speech, and progressives ought to be the first to say so lest they become targets for their own political heresies. Rather than play defense, the targets of the climate police need to fight back with lawsuits of their own. –Editorial, The Wall Street Journal, 30 April 2016
Even before the skeptical documentary “Climate Hustle” hits U.S. theaters Monday, it already has unsettled the climate change debate. Weather Channel founder John Coleman rushed to the defense of the film, which challenges the catastrophic climate change narrative, after “science guy” Bill Nye slammed it in a clip released over the weekend as “not in our national interest and the world’s interest.” The film has won praise in reviews on conservative and free market outlets including National Review, Breitbart and The Daily Caller. Hollywood in Toto’s Christian Toto called “Climate Hustle” “brutally effective” and “the most dangerous documentary of the year.” –Valerie Richardson, The Washington Times, 1 May 2016
1) Mark Carney Effect: Investors Ignoring Climate Risks Rose Last Year
Bloomberg, 1 May 2016
Jessica Shankleman
The number big investors ignoring climate change risk increased last year despite a stark warning from Bank of England Governor Mark Carney’s about the potential for “huge” losses from a sudden shift in regulation designed to curb global warming and fossil fuels.
Almost half of the world’s top 500 investors are failing to act on climate change — an increase of 6 percent from 236 in 2014, according to a report Monday by the Asset Owners Disclosure Project, which surveys global companies on their climate change risk and management.
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Japan Post Insurance Co Ltd., Kuwait Investment Authority and China’s SAFE Investment Company, are the four biggest funds that scored zero in the survey. The 246 “laggards” identified as not acting hold $14 trillion in assets, the report said.
“It is shocking that nearly half the world’s biggest investors are doing nothing at all to mitigate climate risk,” said Julian Poulter, chief executive officer of the research group. Pension funds and insurers that ignore climate change “are gambling with the savings and financial security of hundreds of millions of people around the world and risking another financial crisis,” he said.
He attributed the rise to a change in methodology — Asset Owners Disclosure Project stopped giving credit to companies who were transparent about their decision not to act on climate and to companies that only pledged to take action without delivering change.
See also:
* Mark Carney Under Attack From Investors
* Mystic Mark Carney, the Bank of England’s New Seer
* Nigel Lawson Grills BoE Governor Mark Carney On Energy Risks
2) Warren Buffett & Berkshire Investors Reject Climate Risk Report
The Washington Post, 30 April 2016
Berkshire Hathaway shareholders have overwhelmingly rejected a resolution calling for the company to write a report about the risks climate change creates for its insurance companies.
Berkshire Hathaway Chairman and CEO Warren Buffett, center, doesn’t think climate change creates serious risks for Berkshire’s insurance businesses.
CEO Warren Buffett says he agrees that dealing with climate change is important for society, but he doesn’t think climate change creates serious risks for Berkshire’s insurance businesses.
Buffett says the fact that Berkshire generally writes insurance policies for one-year periods allows it to regularly re-evaluate risks, such as climate change.
The activists who proposed the motion tried to urge Buffett to take a public stance in favor of measures to reduce consumption of fossil fuels, but he resisted.
3) Warren Buffett Tells Greenie Crusaders To Buzz Off At Berkshire Annual Meeting
The Daily Caller, 1 May 2016
Chris White
Billionaire Warren Buffett and shareholders with Berkshire Hathaway overwhelmingly rejected a resolution Saturday asking the holding company to write reports on the risks so-called man-made global warming causes to insurance companies.
The rejection came despite a strong campaign push on behalf of the resolution from NASA climate scientist James Hansen, Illinois State University professor and insurance expert Jim Jones, and activists from environmentalist group Nebraskans for Peace.
Tens of thousands of environmentalists associated with Nebraskans for Peace, as well as many others, spent their Saturday listening to the hours-long annual meeting in Omaha, which was composed mostly of discussions between Buffett and Vice Chairman Charlie Munger over business minutia.
Buffett eventually got down to brass tacks on the climate change report, telling activists at the meeting he is standing firm on his decision to nix the climate change report resolution. He said he believes global warming is an important issue but ultimately doesn’t think it poses a threat to Berkshire’s insurance businesses.
Buffett also defended NV Energy, an energy group he founded that won a battle over Elon Musk’s SolarCity following Nevada’s decision to introduce sharp cutbacks to its net metering program in December.
If the billionaire’s decision to nix the climate resolution was a poke in the collective eye of all climate justice warriors, then surely remarks defending earlier decision to reduce solar panel subsidies will be seen as an all out assault on the environment.
4) Christopher Booker: The Climate Change Brigade Vs Press Freedoms
The Sunday Telegraph, 1 May 2016
Nothing was more revealing in this letter than its signatories’ claim that in no way did they wish to interfere with the freedom of speech – when everything else in the letter showed that this was precisely their intention.
There recently arrived on the desk of the editor of The Times an extraordinary three-page letter, signed by 13 members of the House of Lords. They informed him in no uncertain terms that, if he wished to save his paper’s reputation, he must stop printing articles which don’t accord with the official orthodoxy on climate change. Headed by Lord Krebs, its signatories read like a check-list of our “climate establishment”.
”Four are members of the supposedly “independent” Committee on Climate Change, including its chairman Lord Deben (aka John Gummer). Others included Lord (Nicholas) Stein and Lord Oxburgh, chair of the inquiry set up by East Anglia University which cleared its Climatic Research Unit of any impression of scientific wrongdoing given by the Climategate emails. Although these signatories are all fully committed “climate alarmists”, none is in any way a climate scientist, and several have declared financial interests in “renewables” and “low-carbon” energy.
The gist of their letter, written in consultation with Richard Black, the former BBC environmental reporter who now runs an ultra-green propaganda unit, was to express outrage that The Times had published two articles which appeared to question the official orthodoxy on global warming. One was of such “low quality” that “on the social media it has been a laughing stock”. If the editor continued to publish such stuff, his paper would no longer be trusted it on anything, “even your sports reports”.
What made this even more bizarre was that the offending article had merely reported on a very measured, technical paper written for the Global Warming Policy Foundation by an eminent professor of statistics, an expert on computer models, questioning the reliability of the models officially used to predict future global temperatures, which have so consistently been proved wrong.
The response from the signatories of the letter was a perfect case-study in what Irving Janis, the former Yale professor of psychology, analysed as “groupthink”.
Those, caught up in a bubble, he showed, first succumb to a collective mindset which is in some way at odds with reality. They then elevate this into an illusory orthodoxy which cannot be challenged. Finally, because their groupthink is based on such shaky ground, they intolerantly lash out at anyone who dares question it.
5) Editorial: The Climate Police Escalate
The Wall Street Journal, 30 April 2016
Sometimes we wonder if we’re still living in the land of the free. Witness the subpoena from Claude Walker, attorney general of the U.S. Virgin Islands, demanding that the Competitive Enterprise Institute cough up a decade of emails and policy work, as well as a list of private donors.
Mr. Walker is frustrated that the free-market think tank won’t join the modern church of climatology, so he has joined the rapidly expanding club of Democratic politicians and prosecutors harassing dissenters.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman started the assault last autumn with a subpoena barrage on Exxon Mobil. His demand for documents followed reports by Inside Climate News and the Los Angeles Times that claimed Exxon scientists had known for years that greenhouse gases cause global warming but hid the truth from the public and shareholders.
Those reports selectively quoted from Exxon documents, which in any case were publicly available and often peer-reviewed in academic journals. Some Exxon scientists changed their views over the years, and several years ago the company even endorsed a carbon tax.
Mr. Schneiderman nonetheless says he is investigating Exxon for “defrauding the public, defrauding consumers, defrauding shareholders.” He also tipped a broader assault by claiming that the oil and gas company was funneling climate misinformation through “organizations they fund, like the American Enterprise Institute,” the “American Legislative Exchange Council” and the “American Petroleum Institute.” He wants to use the Exxon case to shut down all “climate change deniers.” […]
Mr. Walker is also over the line in demanding the names of nonprofit CEI’s donors, who can remain secret under federal law. Anyone on the list will become a new target for the Schneiderman climate posse.
CEI has filed to quash the subpoena, and the nonprofit has hired attorneys Andrew Grossman and David Rivkin, who recently founded the Free Speech in Science Project to defend First Amendment rights against government abuses. The project is much needed.
Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse has asked the Justice Department to use the RICO statutes to bring civil cases against climate dissenters. Attorney General Loretta Lynch recently referred to the FBI a request from two Democrat Congressmen seeking a criminal probe of Exxon. Democrats on Capitol Hill have sent letters pressuring companies to disavow the Chamber of Commerce for its climate heresy.
This is a dangerous turn for free speech, and progressives ought to be the first to say so lest they become targets for their own political heresies. Rather than play defense, the targets of the climate police need to fight back with lawsuits of their own.
6) Climate Hustle: ‘The Most Dangerous Documentary Of The Year’
The Washington Times, 1 May 2016
Valerie Richardson
Even before the skeptical documentary “Climate Hustle” hits U.S. theaters Monday, it already has unsettled the climate change debate.
Weather Channel founder John Coleman rushed to the defense of the film, which challenges the catastrophic climate change narrative, after “science guy” Bill Nye slammed it in a clip released over the weekend as “not in our national interest and the world’s interest.”
“I have always been amazed that anyone would pay attention to Bill Nye, a pretend scientist in a bow tie,” Mr. Coleman said Saturday on the website Climate Depot.
“As a man who has studied the science of meteorology for over 60 years and received the [American Meteorological Society] Meteorologist of the Year award, I am totally offended that Nye gets the press and media attention he does,” Mr. Coleman said. “And I am rooting for the ‘Climate Hustle’ film to become a huge hit — bigger than ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ by Al Gore.”
Indeed, the documentary by Climate Depot’s Marc Morano bills itself as a response to the former vice president’s Academy Award-winning 2006 documentary, which sparked international alarm with its warnings of imminent environmental disaster fueled by rising greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere.
“Climate Hustle,” which has a one-day screening at theaters nationwide Monday, argues that the climate change catastrophe scenarios are part of an “overheated environmental con job” aimed at creating hysteria to drive public support for bigger government and ever-increasing regulation.
The documentary’s full name is: “Climate Hustle: Are They Trying to Control the Climate … Or You?”…
The film has won similar praise in reviews on conservative and free market outlets including National Review, Breitbart and The Daily Caller. Hollywood in Toto’s Christian Toto called “Climate Hustle” “brutally effective” and “the most dangerous documentary of the year.”
