OPINION:
The American Business Act on Climate Pledge continues to attract new customers. Last week the White House announced new commitments to its mantra that may become just another solemn affirmation required of businesses before they are handed lucrative federal government contracts at the expense of “we the people.”
The voluntary pledge, accessible at the White House’s press office website, is mercifully short. A company must support the upcoming November-December climate change agreement in Paris for a low-carbon, sustainable future. From there the business must submit to the conclusion that “multiple benefits [will result] with regard to sustainable economic growth, public health, resilience to natural disasters, and the health of the global environment.” Apparently, there is no downside to joining the fight against inexpensive, poverty-alleviating fossil fuels that have yet to be shown to be the true enemy of the global ecosphere.
Predictably, companies formed to usurp fossil fuel’s place in the energy market, have signed on (Abengoa Bioenergy and Pacific Ethanol, for example). In addition, corporate giants like American Express, Apple, AT&T, General Mills, General Motors, IBM, Pepsi, Coca Cola, and McDonald’s have pledged their support.
Each business provides details on their substantial commitments to operate more efficiently and cause less harm to the environment. There is no doubt about the benefits to the biosphere that these common-sense actions will yield, so the question is this: Why not do the right thing for the right reason? Increased recycling, energy efficiency activities, raw material substitutions, reduced water consumption and the like are what all businesses should be doing anyway to be better stewards of the environment and more conscientious business entities. But simply doing the right thing in this case seems to have a more sinister side when politics steps in.
The White House has apparently generated a list of companies and organizations that will eventually be deemed friendly to the environment and worthy of the government’s largesse and praise, while those not so listed will be shamed into signing, or be called enemies of the earth or simply greedy corporations.
It seems that by signing the pledge, American businesses are tacitly supporting the White House’s leftist ideology that relies on a supposed connection between low-cost fuels and catastrophic global warming to impose new burdens on the American people.
The White House puts its faith in climate prophesies that corroborate its own foregone, convenient conclusions and uses its bully pulpit to force others to convert or die — that is, be smeared and shunned.
The failure of computer models to predict climate change accurately over nearly two decades now shows that sufficient knowledge is definitely lacking to require a reworking of the world economy based on wind mills, solar collectors and biomass, rather than oil, natural gas and coal.
Americans seem to know the relative unimportance of man-made climate change as concerns about such change languish at the bottom of lists of issues that really trouble the citizenry — lists with the economy and terrorism at the top.
Yet, the White House will put the full faith and credit of its citizens on the line at the Paris climate confab to promote drastic economic changes that will do little, if anything, to combat the profound dominance of natural climate change. What is more likely to happen is that large global enterprises and governments interested in wealth redistribution will profit immensely, while the poor will be left, once again, to freeze (or swelter) in the dark.
Meanwhile, big businesses will benefit by pledging their allegiance to the White House, but will the republic, for which it should stand, benefit?
• Anthony J. Sadar is a certified consulting meteorologist and author of “In Global Warming We Trust” (Telescope Books, 2012).
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