When President Joe Biden isn’t begging OPEC to produce more oil to bring prices down and save his political bacon, when he isn’t endorsing gimmicks to encourage more gasoline use with a gas tax holiday, his administration is still out there paying lip service to the idea that climate change is an imminent threat to human survival.
Of course, Biden doesn’t believe this at all. None of them believe it, and neither should you.
Biden’s SEC is currently trying to work out a way to make companies disclose how much energy they use and what measures they are taking to deal with business risks supposedly associated with climate change. This is intended to impose some kind of cost upon investors for the act of using or producing or just investing in energy.
The SEC is debating the extent to which it can compel companies to disclose details about how much energy they buy and how they handle climate risks. Such self-reported disclosures to investors have already become commonplace in business, and adding government-mandated ESG disclosure rules is a big goal for the administration.
If any of this silliness comes to pass, the best thing every company involved could do is simply tell the truth. Call Biden’s bluff.
Climate change has never caused any bank or business to fail. It poses zero risk to our company. We are taking no precautions regarding climate because none are necessary.
In an ideal world, every business would be allowed to give such a simple answer, and every business would indeed give it. In nearly all cases, it has the benefit of being true. Those companies that want to adopt the trappings of environmental consciousness know, in nearly all cases, that their minimal commitment affects nothing.
And if BlackRock or some other activist fund decides not to invest because you refuse to play this game, then your company should welcome divestment. Who needs Trojan horse investors whose main goal is to destroy your livelihood? You’re better off buying back your own stock at a cheaper price when they get out, because guess what — people actually need oil and gas. They’re going to keep buying it for decades to come because they need it.
As you read this, some kind of fossil fuel is almost certainly powering your computer. It’s heating your home, fueling your car, cooking your meals. It will fuel your next plane trip. This will be the case until nuclear fusion is widely available because other renewable sources of energy are simply not reliable. That day is coming, but it isn’t here. (If BlackRock would like to help humanity, it should be investing some portion of its $10 trillion in that research and in conventional nuclear power, the only reliable, carbon-free form of electrical generation.)
At this point, human civilization literally depends on carbon-based fuels to survive. Within a month, we would all be dead without them — that is a scientific certainty, whereas predictions of a climate apocalypse are just conjecture.
The minor supply disruptions of the last six months are nothing compared to what we would all face if there were ever a true disruption to the supply of gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel, natural gas, or even coal, despite its diminishing significance. Without these, your home would be cold for winter, there would be no food to buy in stores, you wouldn’t be able to travel or even commute — you wouldn’t be able to charge your iPhone.
Modern man is so inured to the comforts of easily available energy that he can afford to indulge in the frivolity of climate crusading. But it’s all a charade. Biden’s own behavior shows that he knows it, and you can bet that all of his staff know it, too.
