Dr. Jonathan Tiemann Would it really be possible to replace our existing energy system with renewables? Mark Jacobson, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford, thinks we can do so by 2050.1 Prof. Jacobson has done an impressive job of synthesizing demographic, economic, and engineering data to develop a formula that seems to show a path toward a fully [...]
By Dr. Jonathan Tiemann This February, a group calling itself the Climate Leadership Council published a paper titled, “The Conservative Case for Carbon Dividends.” The paper’s eight authors constitute sort of a blue-ribbon panel of thoughtful conservatives. They include former senior Republican officials (James A. Baker III, George Schultz, Henry Paulson), prominent economists (Martin Feldstein and N. Gregory Mankiw, who [...]
By Valerie Gardner BlackRock, an asset manager with over $5 trillion in assets, doesn't think so. According to Ben Moshinsky of Business Insider, BlackRock has issued a report warning investors that "Climate change is going to move a huge amount of money and not enough people are paying attention.1" For a group that holds major investments in various fossil fuel [...]
In a special 132-page report published in August 2015 entitled "ENERGY DARWINISM II: Why a Low Carbon Future Doesn’t Have to Cost the Earth," Citigroup, one of the world's largest financial insitutions, reported that it had studied the financial impacts and feasibility of whether we could afford to address climate change. It found that, in fact, opting to address climate [...]
Power to Save the WorldBy Sarah Tiemann, a research report for Mr. Signore in US History, 2° February 29, 2016The history of nuclear energy is a controversial one; from passionate support to radical opposition, people all over the world have debated whether nuclear power should be used as a reliable source of energy. Nuclear power is "a method of producing [...]
Is it time to think about how climate change might impact your portfolio? Apparently, some 120 CEOs and investment managers representing more than $12 trillion in assets think so. They were worried enough to send an open letter on May 25, 2015 to the Group of Seven (G-7) Finance Ministers to urge them to commit to reduce greenhouse gas emissions [...]
Despite the well-pronouced and increasingly strident warnings from scientists about the deleterious effects of burning fossil fuels on the environment, there is a surprising amount of "business as usual" going on in corporate America. This makes the news about the way Anne Stausboll, the chief executive of Calpers, addresses climate change all the more impressive. According to an article in [...]
The price of oil has fallen by more than 50% since June, 2014 when it was hovering around $110 a barrel. It is now below $50. This comes after nearly five years of relatively steady price growth and supply stability. However, at the November 27th meeting of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which controls nearly 40% of the world [...]
Lore has it, according to Thomas Friedman, that a Chinese emporor was so enthralled with the invention of the game of chess that he offered to fulfill any wish for the inventor. The simple wish: place 1 grain of rice on the first square of the chessboard, then place 2 grains of rice on the second square, 4 grains on the third square, 8 grains on the fourth and continuing doubling the grains across the entire board. The emporer granted the wish happily, only to discover that by the 64th square, he owed his kingdom in rice. Thomas Friedman included this among many brilliant observations and points made in a talk that he gave to Stanford's Precourt Institute last year. His point here being that trends that seem small and insignificat at the outset, can have huge and uncontrolled impacts if they maintain their incremental growth over time. He posits that we are on the second half of the chessboard in the way the markets work, the impacts we are having on Mother Nature and in the operation of Moore's Law on technology.
There is much irony to ponder in the news released last week that the Rockefeller heirs have chosen to divest from oil investments. As reported by John Schwartz in and article in the New York Times entitled Rockefellers, Heirs to an Oil Fortun, Will Divest Charity of Fossil Fuels, "John D. Rockefeller built a vast fortune on oil. Now his heirs are abandoning fossil fuels."
The news, coming as it did in advance of the start of the United Nations Climate Summit, nearly trumped financial news reporting of the fact that some 400,000 people representing over 3,000 organizations had turned out in New York City to protest inaction on climate change by marching across Manhattan in the People's Climate March. Additionally, massive supporting marches were held in major cities around the world, including Paris, London, Berlin and Rio de Janeiro. Unofficial counts put the total number of marchers worldwide at over half a million. Well, these numbers are staggering and record-breaking but, gosh (snark alert), it just can't be news since readers can already assume that those folks marching are tree-huggers.