Weekly clippings #33 - perfect climate, ESG bubble, fake reporting, stop oil, climate insurance disaster, youth leaving ESG

This week in science a graph showing the exponential decline in deaths from weather and climate extremes. 

In Investment/Economics the rise of fake DEI/ESG reporting along with a couple of articles about fossil fuel necessity, one about California’s policy-induced climate-related property insurance crisis, and one about a large drop in young people’s support for ESG causes. 

To wrap, the Absurdity category references the case of an EV battery costing more to replace than the price of the car. 

When the Climate Was Perfect - Was the global climate of 1850-1900 really so great? "One important reason that the period 1850-1900 serves as a useful baseline of climate utopia is that almost no one has any idea what the climate looked like back then, much less the climate impacts actually experienced. Most modern climate records start in the 20th century, and to the extent that the IPCC considers pre-20th climate it is in terms of physical quantifies and not impacts or risks.

"Beyond the massive impacts associated with the 1877/1878 El Niño, there were also many other extreme events with impacts well beyond those of recent times, such as the Great Midwest Wildfires of 1871 which killed as many as 2,400 people, the 1872 Baltic Sea flood, an 1875 midwestern U.S. locust swam of an estimated 12.5 trillion locusts, the 1878 China typhoon that killed as many as 100,000 people, and the U.S. experienced 6 landfalling major hurricanes in the 1870s, compared to just 3 in the 2010s.

"This cursory overview of various events of the 1870s indicates that notion that the period 1850 to 1900 was somehow safer or less extreme in terms of climate extremes and impacts is simply false. If the weather gods offered me the opportunity to replay over the next decade the weather and climate of the1870s, instead of the uncertain future before us, I’d take the uncertain future for sure. The 1870s were one of the most extreme climatic decades in modern human history."

Is the ESG Investment Bubble Bursting? "All in all, this year investor behavior and attitude towards ESG funds has reflected the deepening troubles of transition-related industries. Wind power project costs soared so high that some projects became unviable. For others, project developers asked for and received commitments for higher electricity prices once the projects became operational."

ESG, DEI, and the Rise of Fake Reporting "Grab’s report thus seems like it addresses ESG- and DEI-related issues, but no real-world mechanism ties them to actual outcomes, and there is no realistic external verification. Even seemingly simple things, like counting how much fuel a company buys directly for its processes and thereby estimating the size of its ‘carbon footprint,’ are like child’s play to game, as demonstrated by Grab’s masterly reporting: simply forcing workers and subsidiaries to buy their own fuel (compensated via higher wages or other things) will make the footprint of the company itself seem dramatically lower, while requiring nothing substantial to change. It’s all an elaborate show.

"Like the woke movement, ESG and DEI are at heart parasitical developments, originating from a decaying West, championed by the useless and the clueless, and benefiting the shrewd and the corrupt.

"Such malignancies weaken our society and should be discarded at the earliest opportunity. Much like Elon Musk showed the door to 80% of Twitter staff with no loss of functionality, and just as we have advocated previously that 80% of employment in ‘health’ professions is useless, so too do we think that firing all professionals whose primary business involves ESG and DEI can be done without any loss of functionality. We don’t think this will happen anytime soon."

Chris Sankey: Fossil fuels aren’t going anywhere, we benefit too much from them "Over the last eight years we have experienced an unprecedented push from environmental activists to phase out fossil fuels. The Government of Canada seems to think it is possible. During question period in the Senate earlier this year, Sen. David Wells noted that, according to the Liberals, the energy transition “will cost $100-$125 billion per year at least to 2050,” and asked “When Canada only emits 1.5 per cent of global emissions, how does this expenditure make sense?”

Just Stop Oil? You Sure About That? "On their websites, these glorified high school child vandals like to compare what they’re doing to the noble work of civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King based on their view that the brand of climate alarmist cultism they practice is going to somehow save the world. This is of course utter nonsense, given the stark reality that if these spoiled children achieved their goal of immediately halting the production and use of oil and its related products, the end of modern society will quickly follow."

The Man at the Center of America’s Biggest Insurance Crisis. Ricardo Lara said climate change was a threat in California, then insurers fled the state. "With his pledge to “defend all Californians from the threat of climate change” seemingly in tatters, the 49-year-old regulator is trying to make deals to bring insurers back to the state."

Young Investors' Support for ESG Causes Declines in 2023 'Gut Check' "Less than half of Millennial and Gen Z investors, those aged 41 and younger, said they were “very concerned” about environmental issues this year, down from 70% in 2022. That same group is also much less willing to give up market returns to meet their social ideals, according to the survey of about 1,000 investors conducted this fall."

Canada Man Shocked - Shocked! - By The Cost For A New EV Battery "The bill to replace the battery (and I assume also the cost to repair the car’s undercarriage damage so it won’t cause the freaking battery to explode) comes to $6,000 more U.S. than he paid for the car when it was brand new. Obviously, the resulting insurance implications are enormous, with Mr. Hsu facing a rate increase of up to 50% if he files the claim."