20 Years ago maybe, but it's too late for an emissions based solution now. We need to mitigate and adapt now...
ESG should be boiled down to one simple measure: emissions
151–160 of 189 posts
Re: ESG should be boiled down to one simple measure: emissions
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does ethanol, wood and other non fossil carbon sources get a pass?
If the goal is to reduce CO2, then the source of the fuel is irrelevant. The only relevant thing is the carbon content, which gets turned into CO2 via combustion.
Isn't the goal to reduce net CO2?
Seems to be somewhat hardcore to reduce the entire debate down to (effectively) "any CO2 is bad CO2"
Re: ESG should be boiled down to one simple measure: emissions
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't live in a city. I'm 20 miles from the nearest grocery store. I build real physical things with my hands that require physical materials like lumber to haul around. I can't haul 2000 lb of lumber on the back of my road bike.
What would be the issue with just having your stuff delivered then? And yeah every rule needs exceptions, of course there should be ways to rent cars for special occasion, I am just against general private car ownership for most people. Edit: General private car ownership of people living in the cities that is
I hate cars as much as the next guy, but transitioning all urban life away from cars is a much more difficult project than transitioning urban life to electric cars.
The no-cars world requires a huge amount of political buy-in and you’d be going through the most politically annoying group in the US – homeowners. The transition to electric cars can be done through simple laws that change the incentives (like by implementing a federal gas tax so it’s cheaper to drive electric, or heavily subsidizing electric cars)
Re: ESG should be boiled down to one simple measure: emissions
#154I think Tariq Fancy does a good job of breaking down why ESG and sustainable investing as a whole is bunk: https://medium.com/@sosofancy/the-secret-diary-of-a-sustaina... He also summarizes his thoughts on Doug Henwood's podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9zaG91dC5sYm8tdGF...
He still doesn't really get it. The big problem with ESG is that the entire fundamental premise pushed by the media that inspired it is a lie: the world isn't emitting masses of greenhouse gases just because it means more profits for big corporations, and the main consequence of fossil fuel corporations not pumping out so much fuel isn't that they and their shareholders make less money. Ordinary comsumers really do get direct benefits from fossil fuels, this isn't just some clever propaganda line big fossil fuel came up with to protect their profits.
We've actually seen this demonstrated, though not via BlackRock (because the idea that they were somehow responsible was another lie pushed by the media to give people someone to hate). ESG campaigners have successfully discouraged investment in new fossil fuel extraction in much of the world. The world's consumption of fossil fuels is now being strangled at the source, exactly as publications like the Guardian campaigned for them to be. The consequences? Fossil fuel corporation profits at record highs and ordinary people unable to afford food and heating - which is of course exactly what you'd expect to happen when there's insufficient supply, with prices being driven up until people are forced to reduce their use of fossil fuels and the profits going to those that chose to carry on produciung and not starve and freeze the poor further.
Re: ESG should be boiled down to one simple measure: emissions
#155I think Tariq Fancy does a good job of breaking down why ESG and sustainable investing as a whole is bunk: https://medium.com/@sosofancy/the-secret-diary-of-a-sustaina... He also summarizes his thoughts on Doug Henwood's podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9zaG91dC5sYm8tdGF...
He still doesn't really get it. The big problem with ESG is that the entire fundamental premise pushed by the media that inspired it is a lie: the world isn't emitting masses of greenhouse gases just because it means more profits for big corporations, and the main consequence of fossil fuel corporations not pumping out so much fuel isn't that they and their shareholders make less money. Ordinary comsumers really do g…
"Let's not call the fire department, because they would break the windows. Let's sit here in the living room and wait for the fire to burn out."
So what's your game plan, then?
Continue to burn fossil fuels and guarantee +5Cº and up? This is death for our descendents and for a million non-human species.
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Also, I note a large number of claims about the real world, claims which seem wildly false, yet none of them do you actually prove with facts, data, citations or anything.
Given that your basic argument is, "We can't afford not to kill our ecosystem," I think you are going to need more than that.
Re: ESG should be boiled down to one simple measure: emissions
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
no, because the amount of carbon in each energy input doesn't directly correlate with the amount of pollution and harm, and it's a courser measure than taxing the polluting components relative to their externalized impact on health and wellbeing. we need to directly tax each of the things we don't want proportional to harm, rather than trying to simplify the problem and thereby creating unintended distortions and con…
Uh, the carbon content of fuels winds up as CO2 emissions, which are blamed for climate change. Taxing the carbon content of fuels is a very targeted, direct tax. It's simple, too, orders of magnitude simpler than any other proposed method.
I think the person you're replying to has an embedded assumption of "climate change is fake news"
Re: ESG should be boiled down to one simple measure: emissions
#157I sometimes toy with the idea of investing only in vice companies. Creating my own personal index and allocating across it. Sectors I'd include: Oil, gas, coal, tobacco, pharmaceuticals (but only makers of opiates), payday loans, gambling, etc. It's a bit sociopathic, sure. But if enough people sleep on these tickers, I might as well get 'em cheap and earn those dividends.
The article alludes to that: > The industry’s second problem is that it is not being straight about incentives. It claims that good behaviour is more lucrative for firms and investors. In fact, if you can stand the stigma, it is often very profitable for a business to externalise costs, such as pollution, onto society rather than bear them directly. As a result the link between virtue and financial outperformance is…
Another one of these is "diverse teams outperform non-diverse teams." Sure, maybe this is true in some abstract way, but given the race and gender makeup of the early founding teams at Silicon Valley's most storied successes, it's clear that a diverse team is at a bare minimum, wholly unnecessary to achieve even the highest levels of success.
Re: ESG should be boiled down to one simple measure: emissions
#158Considering almost all company's produce something to sell (even software or services) and those things rely on consumption and emissions, then shouldn't all companies be rated as net harmful or "C" or whatever?
Are you implying that it is impossible to be carbon neutral? Or are you saying something else?
Yes. Every company will be the direct or proximate cause of carbon emissions (products they buy in the course of operations, employees commuting, etc.)
Re: ESG should be boiled down to one simple measure: emissions
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
'Take away cars and meat from the poors and forcibly relocate them into tiny pods in Mega-City One' Don't you see any problems with that plan?
I have never owned a car in my life. Am I living in 1984? It is really not a big deal.
It's not about car-free life. It's about dense cities being terrible places to live unless you're at a level of wealth high enough to isolate yourself from the poverty, crime, noise, etc in a secure luxury apartment in an upmarket area.
IMHO, big cities are dying, they're a relic of the past. The Internet had already killed physical retail. The pandemic killed off more businesses while WFH workers fled the cities. Soft-on-crime policy trends seem to be hastening the decline.
And in a digitally connected world there's simply fewer reasons to physically pack ever more people into small spaces.
Re: ESG should be boiled down to one simple measure: emissions
#160I think Tariq Fancy does a good job of breaking down why ESG and sustainable investing as a whole is bunk: https://medium.com/@sosofancy/the-secret-diary-of-a-sustaina... He also summarizes his thoughts on Doug Henwood's podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9zaG91dC5sYm8tdGF...
He still doesn't really get it. The big problem with ESG is that the entire fundamental premise pushed by the media that inspired it is a lie: the world isn't emitting masses of greenhouse gases just because it means more profits for big corporations, and the main consequence of fossil fuel corporations not pumping out so much fuel isn't that they and their shareholders make less money. Ordinary comsumers really do g…
That is such a short sighted answer I don't even know if I should reply to it as it is most probably intentional propaganda, but here it goes:
Obviously, the end consumer profits from cheap energy. However, the energy from fossil fuels is only cheaper because it massively destroys our planet, a cost which is not currently paid by those producing or using those fossil fuels. Also, renewable energy nowadays would be cheaper than fossil fuels even if you ignore the reparation costs, if there were enough of them built yet. However, some politicians (in cooperation with fossil fuel companies) do what they can to prolong this process because they want to profit from fossil fuels as long as possible.