"Denialism" used to have a limited shelf-life.
Reality and its evermore costly consequences of such Denial, should give it that once again. Perhaps much sooner than the Deniers dare think.
Afterall the one thing that the Deniers know more than Science -- is that Money Talks! Listen to it whisper now ...
Climate change is a business problem
by Mike Scott, Financial Times, Investment Strategy, ft.com -- May 25, 2014
[...]
Some investors have started demanding that the companies they invest in find out what their climate risks are and explain how they are dealing with them. Perhaps the biggest fish of them all, ExxonMobil, the US oil group, has just published its assessment of its carbon risks after pressure from investors. While many were dismayed by its view that it faces no risk of its assets becoming stranded because governments lack the political will to implement the policies needed to limit temperature rises, it gives investors a platform on which to engage the company.
And despite Exxon’s apparent complacency, it is becoming more and more difficult for governments to ignore the pressures caused by climate change, says Stuart McLachlan, chief executive of Anthesis, the sustainability consultancy. “The evidence for climate change is such that there is growing certainty that governments are going to react.”
[...]
Exxon (and its sister carboneering companies) think they have enough Government Officials in their vest-pocket -- funny thing is,
Tobacco companies used to think that too.
But you don't see many investors clamoring for Tobacco companies in their portfolios these days ... now that their long running Denialism was proven to be a deliberate and destructive fraud.
You lie, you lose. You sell death, you lose. Worse yet on Wall Street, you play dumb, you lose -- BIG Time.
Funny thing is, some investors actually believe in Doing the Right Thing --
Both fiscally and morally. Some long-view institutional investors can read the writing on the future wall ...
[... continuing ...]
A small but growing number of investors, including Rabobank, the Netherlands-based lender, and Storebrand, the Norwegian insurer, are selling out of fossil-fuel stocks because of the risk that the companies’ assets will become stranded in a low-carbon world. So far, the divestment campaign is mainly confined to university endowment funds and local authority funds, but Norway is considering whether its sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest at more than $840bn, should divest its fossil-fuel stocks, which make up about 8 per cent of its portfolio. If it does so, the ramifications will be felt around the world.
[...]
THAT should be the
Denier's wake-up call for Wall Street.
And here's the Denier's wake-up call for City Hall and Main Street:
Insurer Files Class Action Climate Change Suit Against Illinois Communities
by Mica Rosenberg, Claims Journal, claimsjournal.com -- May 20, 2014
A major insurance company [Farmers Insurance] is accusing dozens of localities in Illinois of failing to prepare for severe rains and flooding in lawsuits that are the first in what could be a wave of litigation over who should be liable for the possible costs of climate change.
[...]
The legal debate may center on whether an uptick in natural disasters is foreseeable or an “act of God.” The cases raise the question of how city governments should manage their budgets before costly emergencies occur.
“We will see more and more cases,” said Michael Gerrard, director of the Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School in New York. “No one is expected to plan for the 500-year storm, but if horrible events are happening with increasing frequency, that may shift the duties.”
[...]
Government Officials (and Corporate CEO's too) are fond of saying, when an extreme weather disaster strikes:
"But nobody could have ever predicted those unfortunate events."
But as we move further and further, into the age of
Climate Insecurity, it's going to be harder and harder for them to say that with a straight face --
and still have a chance of holding onto their major investors;
and still have an evidence-based excuse, that will actually hold up in court, against the dam-burst of class action suits. Insurers aren't dumb. They know where the fiscal blame lies.
Like Secretary of State John Kerry has said:
"When I think about the array of global climate -- of global threats -- think about this: terrorism, epidemics, poverty, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction -- all challenges that know no borders -- the reality is that climate change ranks right up there with every single one of them."
When the Pentagon and the Dept of Defense can predict it (and the SOS and the SOD) -- then those Government Officials (and Corporate CEO's) looking to excuse their own fiscally irresponsible inaction, will have less and less of a 'melting ice-floe' to stand on ...
when it comes to claiming a 'credible excuse', that won't ultimately leave them "treading unfriendly fiscal waters." And dodging perennial legal log-jams.
Government Officials (and carbon-profiting CEO's) have better stop making do-nothing excuses -- and start reading the findings of all those science-based reports -- and finally decide to Act responsibly. And perhaps to 'stay in business' by reading those new investment opportunity 'street signs', as plain as a drought-stricken day, all around them.
Maybe, just maybe, SOMEBODY could've predicted -- those deliberately encouraged and extremely destructive, not-so-unusual, recurring weather anomalies?
Over 99% of the world's Scientists already have. It's long past time our Denial Officials join the Reality-based club. That's what the "market whisperers" are saying to them anyways.