Fink Turns On ESG; New York Disowns Pizza; & Lefty Scientists Forsake the Sun
Fink Turns On ESG; New York Disowns Pizza; & Lefty Scientists Forsake the Sun
Enemies of the People: Larry Fink
Joan Sammon wrote about one of the apostles of ESG distancing himself from the term.
Who's Afraid of E-S-G?
While missed by some, but understood by all, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink recently announced his transition. Lacking the lipstick and whimsy of the Dylan Mulvaney transition announcement (think Bud Light), but requiring the same suspension of reality, Fink’s announcement was far more unbelievable. “I’m ashamed of being part of this conversation,” Fink said during an interview last Sunday, at the Aspen Ideas Festival.
Referring to the debate and growing discord about the environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting and scoring construct that pervades Wall Street and increasingly impedes Main Street, Fink is trying to distance himself from the three letters E-S-G, that describe the construct, while maintaining his rabid support of the concept itself. While the letters are upsetting to him, he remains a loyal advocate of the change it portends. “I’m not going to use the word ESG because it’s been misused by the far left and the far right,” he asserted.
Claiming that ESG has been “weaponized” and that it has become “too politicized,” he has seemingly forgotten why the acronym was created in the first place, and by whom. Weaponization and politicization are central to the entire initiative. But like with most transitions these days, Fink is focused on the word, not the reality. Whether it’s called decarbonization or conscientious capitalism, as he suggests, matters not at all. He remains as strident as always in his commitment to ESG’s purpose. Like Mulvaney, changing a name doesn’t change the fundamental anatomy of what is ultimately a destructive effort to remake society.
Tom Finnerty blogged about the attempt to pull the birthday of our nation into the climate narrative.
Hottest Independence Day Ever? Nope!
You probably noticed the whirlwind of frantic headlines and social media buzz earlier this month claiming that the Fourth of July had been the world's hottest day on record, hotter than any day in the past 125,000 years!
Wow, scary! Except, somehow all of the stories managed to leave out the fact that "on record" refers to when they first started keeping global records, namely 1979. But it doesn't sound as terrifying to say "the hottest July 4th in forty-four years!" And the 125,000 years bit is especially ridiculous. As Steve Milloy of Junk Science pointed out on Twitter, "the claim that July 3 & 4 were the 'hottest days in at least 125,000 years' are based on biased computer model guesswork & incomplete satellite data. What satellite data is there for 125,000 years ago?"
Milloy poked a few more holes in this narrative in a piece for the Wall Street Journal, in which he argued that "the notion of 'average global temperature' is meaningless." That's because "Earth and its atmosphere is large and diverse, and no place is meaningfully average." It's an unreliable metric, he argues, since "temperatures are higher globally during the Northern Hemisphere’s summer because of more sunlight-trapping land."
Rich Trzupek was on a roll this week. First he wrote about some recent unsettling proposals coming from climate scientists.
What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
It appears that a dastardly plot to manipulate the planet’s weather is afoot. The forces behind the scheme are not the usual suspects. Neither Dr. Evil nor GALAXY appears to be involved, so both Austin Powers and Derek Flint can stand down for the moment. The antagonists are far more dangerous and powerful than any those super-spies faced: the United States government.
The Democrat Party likes to claim that it’s the “party of science,” but it is becoming increasingly clear that it is in fact the party of mad scientists. A report released by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy says that the administration has been researching "geoengineering" methods to reduce the power of the sun rays and thus cool the planet. Blocking sunlight is indeed an effective mechanism to reduce temperatures. Volcanoes are particularly skilled at this. In the most recent example, the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991 blocked around 10 percent of sunlight for a period of about three years, dropping temperatures worldwide and reducing agricultural yields. Other big eruptions, like Krakatoa and Mount Aetna have had similar effects. Future volcanic eruptions, like the overdue massive explosion of the Yellowstone caldera, have the ability to plunge the earth back into another Ice Age when they occur.
The point here being that messing around with sunlight is probably not something we should do without a great deal of forethought. Worse, handing government bureaucrats the ability to manipulate sunlight, and therefore the weather, doesn’t sound like the wisest of plans. The public sector has never been especially good at dealing with the Law of Unintended Consequences. It’s hard to imagine any government program more likely to generate catastrophic unintended consequences than attempts to manipulate sunlight.
Next he tackled the City Council of New York’s plot to ban the method of producing one of the last good things about the Big Apple.
The Gladys Kravitz Effect
Here’s the latest thing on an ever-lengthening list that is supposed to be bad for you: making pizza in a wood-fired stove. New York City is considering enacting a ban on some word-fired pizza ovens, arguing that it’s not a ban, which it’s not, except in the sense that it actually is. In an age where there are people who are frightened of stoves burning natural gas it's no surprise that wood-fired pizza ovens would terrify people too. This is the Age of the 'Fraidy Cat….
The most puzzling question is why is New York doing this?
The answer seems to be that wood-fired pizza ovens emit pollution, which is true, and pollution is bad, which is also true, so reducing it is a good thing. I haven't found any story about this issue that speaks to the motivation for this ban in anything but these kind of totally subjective terms. Blech. I am a scientist. I like numbers. But no one involved in this stupidity is going to bother to look up relevant numbers for the very good reason that the data shows this measure is idiotic.
The pollutant people talk about reducing the most in order to improve the environment and human health is particulate matter less than 2.5 microns in aerodynamic diameter, also known as PM-2.5. Environmental zealots will tell you that this pollutant contributes to wheezing, asthma, lung disease, cancer and a host of other ailments.
While there is a grain of truth in that statement it's not a completely honest assessment for two reasons. First the world we live in is full of sources of PM 2.5. Some of these sources are natural, many others are man-made. When we consider the man-made emissions we should consider them in context. That is we should ask ourselves how important to our happiness and well-being is the process or activity generating the emissions? Which brings us to our second point: how significant are the emissions generated in terms of all of the sources of the pollutant?
Let us consider the five boroughs that make up New York City. According to the E.P.A.'s latest National Emissions Inventory about 15,000 tons of PM 2.5 are generated in New York City annually. Uncontrolled wood-fired pizza ovens account for about 7 of those tons. If you're keeping score at home that's less than 0.05 percent of all PM 2.5 emissions in New York City.
And Peter Smith has some on a recent book by Australia’s former chief scientist.
The Junk Science of Finkel's Folly
Just read Powering Up by Alan Finkel, published in June this year. The subtitle is more telling: “Unleashing the clean energy supply chain.” Finkel held the position of Australian chief scientist from January 2016 to December 2020. He is a neuroscientist and electrical engineer. Looks sensible. Looks can be deceiving. Bound to be in an age in which superstition trumps reason. I bet many of those prosecuting witches in the 17th century looked like regular folk. Equally, Chicken Littles are now part of the furniture. Otherwise sane people believe that the planet faces a fate equivalent to the sky falling in. And soon. In ten years I think it was, almost ten years ago now. So you see there’s little time left; hence, Finkel’s renewable-energy fabulism.
Why buy the book? Good question. I heard a report that Finkel foresaw the need for wind turbines and solar panels so far as the eye could see. I thought he might be spoofing and was curious. No, unfortunately not. He opens at a dinner party explaining to a naïve greenie called Kathleen, the “staggering” size of the task ahead.
Replacing that rich diet [fossil fuels] with lean wind and solar energy is a task of barely imaginable proportions. Think of forests of wind farms carpeting hills and cliffs from sea to sky. Think of endless arrays of solar panels disappearing like a mirage into the desert.
And this pretty well sums up Finkel’s split mindset; emblematic of all alarmists. Lip service to realism: the task is huge. Followed by flights of fancy: but we can do it. He notes that the contribution to global energy consumption of oil, coal and gas has fallen only marginally from 87 percent in 1990 to 83 percent in 2021. And gets real before the fancy kicks in.
The stark reality is that despite only achieving a [global] four-percentage-point reduction in 31 years from 1990 to 2021 we have to eliminate the remaining 83 percentage points before 2050... The task ahead is daunting but I am a great believer in ingenuity to overcome such challenges… Zero-emissions electricity will completely replace our existing fossil-fuel-generated electricity and largely replace fossil fuels where they are used directly in transport, heating and industry.
That’s all for this week, but keep a look out for our upcoming articles at The Pipeline!