On Tuesday, PG&E Corp. quit the US Chamber Of Commerce over its “extreme position on climate change.” Now New Mexico power company PNM has given up seat on the Chamber’s Board of Directors, issuing this statement:
We strongly disagree with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s position on climate change legislation and particularly reject its recent theatrics calling for a ‘Scopes Monkey Trial’ to put the science of climate change on trial. We believe the science is compelling enough to act sooner rather than later, and we support comprehensive federal legislation to meaningfully reduce greenhouse gas emissions and protect customers against unreasonable cost increases.
Again, they would seem to be leaving the Chamber’s Board because it has been overrun by climate science deniers and disinformers (see “Are Chamber President Tom Donohue’s Ties to Union Pacific Railroading the Companies that Support Climate Policy?” and “Chamber admits calling for ‘Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century’ was dumb — but it still apes the deniers“).
NRDC’s Pete Altman notes that on Monday “Nike circulated this statement regarding their serious disagreement with the US Chamber for its recalcitrant position on climate policy”:
“Nike fundamentally disagrees with the US Chamber of Commerce’s position on climate change and is concerned and deeply disappointed with the US Chamber’s recently filed petition challenging the EPA’s administrative authority and action on this critically important issue.
Nike believes that climate change is an urgent issue affecting the world today and that businesses and their representative associations need to take an active role to invest in sustainable business practices and innovative solutions to address the issue. It is not a time for debate but instead a time for action and we believe the Chamber’s recent petition sets back important work currently being undertaken by EPA on this issue.
Nike helped to found BICEP, a coalition of businesses supporting congressional action to address strong U.S. climate and energy legislation. Nike has worked to address its own environmental footprint through the development of more sustainable products, energy efficiency programs and emission reductions.”
NRDC’s Altman, who has been doing terrific work on the Chamber, further notes:
Why is the Chamber so hard-headed in the face of all these companies that want to move forward? It is interesting to note – as I have earlier this week - that US Chamber President and CEO Tom Donohue serves on the board of Union Pacific, which earns a significant portion of its revenues from hauling coal.
Mr. Donohue has earned a significant revenue of his own from Union Pacific – over $1.1 million in cash over the last ten years and $3.8 million worth of stock. But that comes at a price, as Union Pacific puts some heavy handcuffs of gold on its directors:
“Directors may not engage in any conduct or activities that are inconsistent with the Company’s best interests or that disrupt or impair the Company’s relationship with any person or entity with which the Company has or proposes to enter into a business or contractual relationship.”
Gee, what happens when the US Chamber of Commerce must choose a policy position and some of its members have interests that are “inconsistent” with Union Pacific’s?
It is time to turn the lights out on the unenlightened folks at the Chamber.
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In 1971, John Holdren edited and contributed an essay to a book entitled Global Ecology: Readings Toward a Rational Strategy for Man. He wrote (along with colleague Paul Ehrlich) the book’s sixth chapter, called “Overpopulation and the Potential for Ecocide.” (Click here to view a photograph of the table of contents, showing Holdren’s essay on pages 64-78; click on the image to the left to view the cover.) In their chapter, Holdren and Ehrlich speculate about various environmental catastrophes, and on pages 76 and 77 Holdren the climate scientist speaks about the probable likelihood of a
“new ice age”
caused by human activity (air pollution, dust from farming, jet exhaust, desertification, etc.).
This the sign of ice ages.
[JR: Gosh nearly 40 years ago, a few scientists, not in a peer-reviewed publication, speculated about future threats based on the data available at the time. What a friggin' shock! Even back then, however, the peer-reviewed literature was far more concerned about global warming. In any case, the beauty of science, unlike your ideology, is that it allows facts to drive analysis and conclusions. For many decades now, the science and evidence has gotten stronger and stronger to the point where it became overwhelming more than a decade ago that the gravest threat we face is unrestricted emissions of greenhouse gases.]
According to the American Railroad Association, coal accounts for 44% of rail tonnage (presumably freight ton-miles), and 21% of revenue.
http://www.grinzo.com/ energy/ index.php/ 2009/ 07/ 13/ gotw-coal-flow-chart/
I don’t know what portion of that is Union Pacific’s work and revenue, but as I said in the above post:
“44% of all freight ton-miles??? Does anyone else here think the railroad industry has to be almost as unhappy over coal’s dim prospects as the mining companies are?”
unless everyone starts using rail instead of air for travel.
Acorn? Nuts!!!
If those numbers are right, it implies that at least some of the other freight and passengers are more profitable than coal, at least to the industry as a whole.
The future ought to be bright for increased use of electrified railroads for more freight and passengers, as fuel prices rise, even without carbon taxes.
It’s a curiosity to me why the railroads (or at least UPRR) are anti-climate change legislation. Lou’s post above confirmed my suspicion that coal really isn’t a huge money maker for the railroads; it may be easy to manage, but not their most profitable product by far. By simple subtraction based on the above statistics 79% of their revenue comes from the 56% of their business that doesn’t involve coal (including some small portion that probably doesn’t involve moving cargo at at, such as renting track time to Amtrak, etc. – but for the sake of simplicity, let’s ignore that). So it would seem that a roughly 25% increase in non-coal traffic would basically make up that revenue gap if all coal traffic was stopped (which isn’t going to happen over night). It seems that climate change legislation would probably result in at least that much increase in non-coal cargo on the railroads, by pushing cargo off trucks that do poorly on a CO2 per ton-cargo-mile. On top of that, the legislation often includes money to improve rail corridors and other items directly beneficial to the railroads. Is this an ideological thing for UPRR, or do the railroads really have that much to lose? My gut tells me they don’t, so is this just a political move rather than a financial one? This seems especially perplexing since these same railroads are spending a lot of TV advertising dollars greenwashing their industry all the while. Does anyone have any insight into what their thinking really is?
The Chamber CEO isn’t the only one making these calls at the Chamber. Like all trade associations, it’s reactionary, and protects its weakest and most outdated members. Plenty of big banks, for instance, are looking very hard at climate change’s effects on their long term planning.
Companies’ pulling out is a very positive step in general, though. It’s about time we asked everyone to take a stand one way or another.