Imagine you are a leader for a company that manages investments or insurance products, and you have spent a bunch of money adding ESG/sustainable/responsible and the like capabilities to your stable of money managers. You also added ESG overlays to all your other management teams, paid consultants to design and implement all this and put ESG prominently in your marketing. Then, the investing public, financial advisors, and regulators started to recognize the deep errors and biases in the whole ESG movement, and found that much of the terminology you used, the claims you made, the marketing materials you created and the products you offered were firmly based on false scientific claims, false economic benefits, false social values and in fact were terribly harmful to humanity. Might some reputational, regulatory, and even legal damages follow? This blog is an effort to persuade Canadian and international investment managers to tread much more carefully before adopting ESG and similar ideologies.
This week in Science we have three studies on different topics. First, even the temperature observations that have been boosted by the Urban Heat Island Effect fall at the low end of modeled predictions, meaning almost all the models don't relate well to reality. Second, 600 studies having graphs that are NOT hockey-stick shaped. Finally, as found in other parts of the world, normalized hurricane damages are steady or falling.
In the Investment/Economics category we have some articles about the massive failures of electric buses, wasteful green subsidies, costly ESG policies, a non-transition, Germany spending billions to expand natural gas and Britain dumping more net-zero stuff.
In Absurdities we have solar farms "pre-maturely" aging due to sunlight, and Canada spending $200 billion on "climate action" to accomplish nothing.
SCIENCE
U.S.A. Temperature Trends, 1979-2023: Models vs. Observations "Updated through 2023, here is a comparison of the “USA48” annual surface air temperature trend as computed by NOAA (+0.27 deg. C/decade, blue bar) to those in the CMIP6 climate models for the same time period and region (red bars). Following Gavin Schmidt’s concern that not all CMIP6 models should be included in such comparisons, I am only including those models having equilibrium climate sensitivities in the IPCC’s “highly likely” range of 2 to 5 deg. C for a doubling of atmospheric CO2."
Our take: Notice that almost all the "highly likely" models run hotter than NOAA published measurements, and the grey bar of satellite measurements shows an even lower trend. Evidence of bias?
600 Studies that don't show a hockey stick At the same time noted "scientist" Michael Mann (inventor of the infamous hockey stick graph so eagerly and instantly adopted by the IPCC) is in court attacking journalist who criticized both him and his shoddy work, I came across a collection of 600 studies that have graphs NOT shaped like a hockey stick. Mann's graph purported to overturn the historical evidence for the medieval warm period and little ice age, and showed a thousand years of steady temperature followed by a rapid rise since industrialization. Proven false by a mountain of evidence but eagerly adopted and made super-prominent by the IPCC and others - a touch of confirmation bias perhaps?
Weather and Climate Disasters in Europe "As a proportion of GDP, losses decreased from just under 0.15% of EU GDP to about 0.10%. Given uncertainties in the data, it is more accurate to conclude that losses have not increased over this period, which is similar to trends in other rich parts of the world. The biggest decreases in losses as a proportion of GDP are in lower-income countries, and the overall global trend is
down."
INVESTMENT/ECONOMICS
Edmonton faces questions of calculated risk following $82-million electric bus failure “None of the buses have ever achieved 328 km on a single charge,” the proof of claim says. “On average, the bus range has been approximately 165 km in the winter and, at best, 250 km in warmer weather.” Proterra was starting to supply battery blankets to each bus as an interim measure to improve the range, the claim says, but then adds that the city has only received a portion of these. It’s also unclear if the blankets actually help. “As a result of the hardware issues, more than half of the buses are regularly out of service. At most, the city has 28 of the 60 buses on the road at any given time,” the proof of claim says.
Another Biden Fiasco—Electric Buses "The Biden administration continues to push electric buses despite problems showing up around the country as range, reliability and expenses are turning out to be much different than advertised idling many of them. EV buses cost multiple times more than their diesel counterparts, and their performance is marred by expensive and frequent repairs, charging equipment costs and much lower range than existing buses. Cities and school districts are left holding the bag, even as the Biden administration uses celebrity spokespeople like Vice President Kamala Harris and Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm to pitch Americans on them."
Green Subsidies More Wasteful Than Previously Reported - The era of reckoning for alternative energy continues "Why do bad things keep happening to customers of alternative energy? The obvious answer is that producing power with only wind or the sun is not efficient. But the fleecing of electricity customers is getting increasingly creative, even in a market that’s been hailed as a model for the future of green power."
'Costly’ ESG standards, climate policies will ultimately reduce food and energy supplies: report "Europe has tested many of these policies aggressively for years, and the results have been an unmitigated failure," they continued. "Despite these resounding warnings from European counterparts, U.S. policymakers have recommitted American industry to the same net-zero emissions standards and have imposed the same kinds of costly mandates on farms and businesses that will ultimately reduce food and energy supplies without achieving their intended benefits."
Face It: The Energy Transition Ain't Happening "Of all the oil majors, BP has gone the farthest in reducing oil and gas investments and expanding its presence in the “renewables” sector. But in the last few years, oil and gas investments have boomed, while investments in renewables have performed poorly. Now BP has attracted an activist investor taking the opposite side of the issue, demanding that it reduce its investments in renewables and recommit to oil and gas."
The fossil fuel expansion is needed to ensure long-term energy security, according to industry and the government. Germany shut down its final three nuclear reactors last April, despite warnings that it would cause more fossil fuel to be burned.
Britain Dumps Another Net-Zero Gimmick - Forcing firms to sell green tech is the same as making people buy it. "This is the latest example of how the true costs of net zero are becoming impossible to hide from the public as carbon targets become more onerous. Europe, much farther down the net-zero road than America, is noticing first and the results range from policy reversals in Britain to farmers’ protests in Germany and France and election wins for the insurgent right in the Netherlands. The mystery is why U.S. Democrats want to walk into this buzz saw, even if it runs on renewable power."
ABSURDITY
Solar Farms Are Prematurely Ageing, and You'll Never Guess What is Being Blamed "Climate change is leaving an indelible mark on the solar energy landscape in Australia, with new research revealing that the country’s solar panels are degrading at faster rates due to increasing temperatures and humidity. This trend has raised concerns about the longevity of photovoltaic (PV) modules and the potential rise in energy costs." That's right, the Sun is being blamed for the premature aging of solar panels.
$200 billion spent on 'climate action’ — for what? "Since the government estimates the carbon tax will be responsible for up to one-third of Canada’s emission reductions in 2030, we also don’t know how its more than 100 other government measures “to support climate action” are doing, which are responsible for achieving at least two-thirds of Canada’s emission cuts in 2030. That’s a lot not to know when the government is spending $200 billion of our money on it."
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