So much is happening right now that is showing us that pensions are the solution to climate action that we continue to overlook.
Several Red States, lead by Texas are trying to make it the law that pensions must maximize financial returns, as retaliation for ESG, shareholder activism and investing away from climate change and towards changing our global energy economy.
New York’s Controller, who runs the New York pension investments, is chastising BlackRock publicly for being faithless to its climate action promises.
John Kerry is stating publicly that Government cannot solve the climate crisis.
Mark Carney is learning that the Markets won’t. It’s not their job.
Kerry is right. The private sector has to act.
And where in the private sector going to find the tens of trillions it will take to redesign and restructure our global energy economy for climate responsibility?
Pensions. The tens of trillions of society’s shared savings aggregated, collectively, worldwide, into social superfunds for retirement security (pensions) and other social goods (endowments) with the super power to negotiate and the legal duty to negotiate towards a fiduciary future that is climate responsible.
But we’ve got that Money commingled with the Markets, rendering it impotent. Like Superman weakened by kryptonite.
We need to take the kryptonite of maximization away, so our Pension & Endowments superfunds can step forward as the Heroes of Climate Action that Government can’t be and Markets won’t be.
I certainly agree that the big banks are devastating our future for profit but are they really the biggest problem. They operate as they do with the apparent support and approval of the government of the United States. Clearly they do what they can get away with.
Of course it goes much deeper than that. We are subsidizing our own destruction if we continue to fund programs and projects by the Department of Agriculture, Energy, EPA, Defense, etc. that increase our emissions and impact on the natural world. In the new bill there is a billion dollars for updates to airports, this on top of the staggering bailouts to airlines and cruise ship lines. Where is the comparable investment in electric passenger rail and public transportation?
Bill, it would be great if you could have a staffer research who the best banks are in terms of their divestiture of oil and gas stocks and absence of fossil fuel lending. I'll be a lot of us would switch if we knew who to switch to.
I keep thinking about this article and how irresponsible it is. We have an escalating war with the possibility of nuclear annihilation on the horizon, a possibility that makes all your concern about climate change rather trivial in comparison, and here you print that the Russian's are committing "genocide". What exactly is your aim here? To promote more conflict and bloodshed? Because what this article seems to be promoting is that the Ukrainians are the "good guys" and Russians are the "bad guys". And why would good guys ever stop fighting bad guys? That's giving up! What you are promoting here is endless bloodshed, endless war, endless profits for the weapons industry.
I think you should make a statement, something which I hope you believe in, a statement that we need PEACE. We need detente, deescalation, and compromise. We need the war to end NOW. Stop the weapons sales, stop the warmongering, divide up Ukraine and be done with this damn war now. Because if this proxy war between two major world powers turns into a nuclear shootout, all your fretting about the climate becomes rather academic doesn't it?
And even if no nukes are ever fired, how many more dead Ukrainians and Russians will it take before you feel like we can have peace?
Once upon a time, liberals used to be anti-war. They saw that the military industrial complex would pay-off politicians and DC insiders, and America would go to war all over the world and make the weapons manufacturers rich. Now if you convince a liberal, using very selective evidence, that human rights abuses are taking place, it's "send them billions upon billions in weapons!" Even climate activists are parroting US military propaganda now. What a sad state of affairs.
Funny you mention a quote from an Azov Battalion soldier. I don't want to downplay that this soldier may have been mistreated and starved, but if you are going to talk about war crimes, you should be even-handed about it. Go look at the Wikipedia page for the Azov Regiment. You will find this.
"The group has drawn controversy over its early and allegedly continuing association with far-right groups and neo-Nazi ideology,[13] its use of controversial symbols linked to Nazism, and early allegations that members of the group participated in torture and war crimes.[14][15][16][17][18] Some experts are critical of the regiment's role within the larger Azov Movement, a political umbrella group made up of veterans and organizations linked to Azov, and its possible far-right political ambitions, despite claims of the regiment's depoliticization.[19][9] Others argue that the regiment has evolved beyond its origins as street militia, tempering its neo-Nazi and far-right underpinnings as it became part of the National Guard.[20][21][11] Since 2014, criticism of the Azov Regiment has been a recurring theme of Russian politics,[22] and the unit has been designated a terrorist group by Russia since August 2022.[23]"
There is even a whole section on human rights abuses!
"In 2016, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch received several credible allegations of abuse and torture by the regiment.[223] Reports published by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) documented looting of civilian homes and unlawful detention and torture of civilians between September 2014 and February 2015 "by Ukrainian armed forces and the Azov regiment in and around Shyrokyne".[224][225]"
So before you selectively decide the Ukrainians are the hero's to be supported and Russians are the bad guys to be fought at all costs, maybe do a little homework first. War is hell.
L L Bean which has such "get healthy outdoors/ environment- dependent " image issues credit cards from one of the banks (Citi). why not pressure businesses to use other credit card issuers than those so fossil fuel friendly?
This is something I really didn't have my head around. It's profoundly depressing but I guess it also shows us where we need to concentrate our efforts if we want to see real change.
Someone needs to ask Kara Hurst, the Vice President of Amazon’s Worldwide Sustainability division, why the world’s largest retailer’s Sustainability Report doesn’t mention that Amazon uses the world’s largest funder of pollution, JPMorgan Chase, to provide Amazon’s customers with Visa credit cards.
You keep sharing how bad things are in terms of capitalism the banks etc. but you point to some hope also. I’d love to have an affective campaign to have people dump their credit cards. And also focusing on trying to close refineries or picket In front of the big four. We need more people though to turn out. To feel empowered enough to be visible.
Should we refer to Mr. Dimon as #DevilDimon since he knows all about hell?
So much is happening right now that is showing us that pensions are the solution to climate action that we continue to overlook.
Several Red States, lead by Texas are trying to make it the law that pensions must maximize financial returns, as retaliation for ESG, shareholder activism and investing away from climate change and towards changing our global energy economy.
New York’s Controller, who runs the New York pension investments, is chastising BlackRock publicly for being faithless to its climate action promises.
John Kerry is stating publicly that Government cannot solve the climate crisis.
Mark Carney is learning that the Markets won’t. It’s not their job.
Kerry is right. The private sector has to act.
And where in the private sector going to find the tens of trillions it will take to redesign and restructure our global energy economy for climate responsibility?
Pensions. The tens of trillions of society’s shared savings aggregated, collectively, worldwide, into social superfunds for retirement security (pensions) and other social goods (endowments) with the super power to negotiate and the legal duty to negotiate towards a fiduciary future that is climate responsible.
But we’ve got that Money commingled with the Markets, rendering it impotent. Like Superman weakened by kryptonite.
We need to take the kryptonite of maximization away, so our Pension & Endowments superfunds can step forward as the Heroes of Climate Action that Government can’t be and Markets won’t be.
I certainly agree that the big banks are devastating our future for profit but are they really the biggest problem. They operate as they do with the apparent support and approval of the government of the United States. Clearly they do what they can get away with.
Of course it goes much deeper than that. We are subsidizing our own destruction if we continue to fund programs and projects by the Department of Agriculture, Energy, EPA, Defense, etc. that increase our emissions and impact on the natural world. In the new bill there is a billion dollars for updates to airports, this on top of the staggering bailouts to airlines and cruise ship lines. Where is the comparable investment in electric passenger rail and public transportation?
Bill, as I read and watched Antonio Guterres just now I recall your recommending your followers follow him … google brought me here … voila!
So if you or anybody else is keeping track, ICYMI check it out here https://youtu.be/mCkUcJUuCPE,
here https://twitter.com/antonioguterres/status/1585594658670911488?s=46&t=0VNyAZq0ldRKAzy_359jqw,
here https://twitter.com/antonioguterres/status/1585475990389772291?s=46&t=gpBtdo4Ay1t0c93tLlObzQ,
here https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/10/1129912,
and here
https://www.unep.org/resources/emissions-gap-report-2022
Cheers,
@Doug350
Bill, it would be great if you could have a staffer research who the best banks are in terms of their divestiture of oil and gas stocks and absence of fossil fuel lending. I'll be a lot of us would switch if we knew who to switch to.
I keep thinking about this article and how irresponsible it is. We have an escalating war with the possibility of nuclear annihilation on the horizon, a possibility that makes all your concern about climate change rather trivial in comparison, and here you print that the Russian's are committing "genocide". What exactly is your aim here? To promote more conflict and bloodshed? Because what this article seems to be promoting is that the Ukrainians are the "good guys" and Russians are the "bad guys". And why would good guys ever stop fighting bad guys? That's giving up! What you are promoting here is endless bloodshed, endless war, endless profits for the weapons industry.
I think you should make a statement, something which I hope you believe in, a statement that we need PEACE. We need detente, deescalation, and compromise. We need the war to end NOW. Stop the weapons sales, stop the warmongering, divide up Ukraine and be done with this damn war now. Because if this proxy war between two major world powers turns into a nuclear shootout, all your fretting about the climate becomes rather academic doesn't it?
And even if no nukes are ever fired, how many more dead Ukrainians and Russians will it take before you feel like we can have peace?
Once upon a time, liberals used to be anti-war. They saw that the military industrial complex would pay-off politicians and DC insiders, and America would go to war all over the world and make the weapons manufacturers rich. Now if you convince a liberal, using very selective evidence, that human rights abuses are taking place, it's "send them billions upon billions in weapons!" Even climate activists are parroting US military propaganda now. What a sad state of affairs.
Funny you mention a quote from an Azov Battalion soldier. I don't want to downplay that this soldier may have been mistreated and starved, but if you are going to talk about war crimes, you should be even-handed about it. Go look at the Wikipedia page for the Azov Regiment. You will find this.
"The group has drawn controversy over its early and allegedly continuing association with far-right groups and neo-Nazi ideology,[13] its use of controversial symbols linked to Nazism, and early allegations that members of the group participated in torture and war crimes.[14][15][16][17][18] Some experts are critical of the regiment's role within the larger Azov Movement, a political umbrella group made up of veterans and organizations linked to Azov, and its possible far-right political ambitions, despite claims of the regiment's depoliticization.[19][9] Others argue that the regiment has evolved beyond its origins as street militia, tempering its neo-Nazi and far-right underpinnings as it became part of the National Guard.[20][21][11] Since 2014, criticism of the Azov Regiment has been a recurring theme of Russian politics,[22] and the unit has been designated a terrorist group by Russia since August 2022.[23]"
There is even a whole section on human rights abuses!
"In 2016, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch received several credible allegations of abuse and torture by the regiment.[223] Reports published by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) documented looting of civilian homes and unlawful detention and torture of civilians between September 2014 and February 2015 "by Ukrainian armed forces and the Azov regiment in and around Shyrokyne".[224][225]"
So before you selectively decide the Ukrainians are the hero's to be supported and Russians are the bad guys to be fought at all costs, maybe do a little homework first. War is hell.
This is a blockbuster letter, thank you for sharing
L L Bean which has such "get healthy outdoors/ environment- dependent " image issues credit cards from one of the banks (Citi). why not pressure businesses to use other credit card issuers than those so fossil fuel friendly?
We have a long way to go to have the ability to charge our electric cars. see this from the LA Times: https://www.latimes.com/environment/newsletter/2022-09-22/boiling-point-californias-ev-charging-network-could-use-a-jolt-a-trip-down-i-5-shows-boiling-point?utm_id=68533&sfmc_id=4512221
Let’s get moving!
This is something I really didn't have my head around. It's profoundly depressing but I guess it also shows us where we need to concentrate our efforts if we want to see real change.
Someone needs to ask Kara Hurst, the Vice President of Amazon’s Worldwide Sustainability division, why the world’s largest retailer’s Sustainability Report doesn’t mention that Amazon uses the world’s largest funder of pollution, JPMorgan Chase, to provide Amazon’s customers with Visa credit cards.
You keep sharing how bad things are in terms of capitalism the banks etc. but you point to some hope also. I’d love to have an affective campaign to have people dump their credit cards. And also focusing on trying to close refineries or picket In front of the big four. We need more people though to turn out. To feel empowered enough to be visible.