Climate change update: Something important may be happening with Wall Street

Humans put about 12 gigatons more carbon into the environment

than it can naturally recycle each year

How can we get that 12 gigatons under control?

The New York Times reports on what might be the beginning of a major shift in mindset and corporate power regarding climate change. So far, huge corporations in the energy and chemical sectors have opposed laws to combat climate change. For decades, their campaign contributions and smooth, quiet lobbyists have successfully blocked as much regulation and legislation as they could. In view of their vast power and wealth, they blocked a hell of a lot of regulation and legislation. They also deployed decades of sophisticated propaganda and successfully deceived and polarized a significant minority of the American people about the reality and urgency of anthropogenic climate change. 

For wealthy people and corporate climate change opponents, it was just capitalist business as usual. Money talks and everything else, including the environment, climate and inconvenient truth, walks.

But maybe those days are staring to wind down. Maybe. The NYT writes:

Climate Activists Defeat Exxon in Push for Clean Energy

Shareholders elected at least two of the four directors nominated by a coalition of investors that said the oil giant was not investing enough in cleaner energy.

HOUSTON — Big Oil was dealt a stunning defeat on Wednesday when shareholders of Exxon Mobil elected at least two board candidates nominated by activist investors who pledged to steer the company toward cleaner energy and away from oil and gas.

The success of the campaign, led by a tiny hedge fund against the nation’s largest oil company, could force the energy industry to confront climate change and embolden Wall Street investment firms that are prioritizing the issue. Analysts could not recall another time that Exxon management had lost a vote against company-picked directors.

“This is a landmark moment for Exxon and for the industry,” said Andrew Logan, a senior director at Ceres, a nonprofit investor network that pushes corporations to take climate change seriously. “How the industry chooses to respond to this clear signal will determine which companies thrive through the coming transition and which wither.”  

In another sign of change, shareholders of Chevron, the second-largest U.S. oil company, on Wednesday voted for a proposal to reduce emissions from the use of the fuel the company makes and sells to drivers and other customers. And in the Netherlands, a court required Royal Dutch Shell to reduce its emissions of planet-warming gases by 45 percent by the end of 2030 compared with 2019; the ruling applies only in Shell’s home country.

Exxon and other major American oil companies have strongly resisted taking the same approach as European oil companies, viewing renewable energy as a money loser that they have little expertise in. Exxon has invested heavily in recent years in deep water exploration off the coast of Guyana and in shale drilling in the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico.  

“This moment is not just about Exxon Mobil,” said Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund. “It is about major asset managers and other influential investors stepping up, making their voices heard and walking the walk, connecting the dots between their climate rhetoric and their actions.”

And, the bad news: What we really need ☹️

Although it is encouraging that significant external pressure is starting to come to bear on major polluters, the conversation always goes to wind and solar as replacements for carbon energy. Wind and solar alone are not enough. The only viable low-pollution alternative to carbon we have is nuclear power. But it is rarely mentioned. 

There are new nuclear power designs that are far safer than the current generation of plants that are aging out of service. But no one is championing nuclear power. That is a catastrophic mistake.

By now it is clear that rich countries don't want to suffer significant lifestyle changes that depend on a lot of power. Poor countries don't want to forego development and the power they need to do that. The only feasible option we have is nuclear power. If we build enough nuclear power capacity, we can continue to drive gas hogs like Hummers and F150s. Americans can live their high energy demand lifestyles with no adverse impact on climate, if and only if there is enough power available to offset our carbon emissions.

Two controlling facts are at play here. One is that nuclear power is the only technical option for sufficient power that is available right now. The other is that too many of the American people will not accept or tolerate significant impositions on their high energy lifestyles. Given those two facts, nuclear power is the only possible alternative we have now and for the foreseeable future. The longer we pretend otherwise, the worse and less amenable to fixes our situation becomes.[1]

Questions: Can we rely on the private sector to move into an environmentally protective mindset in the short run, or will it continue to resist environmental protections as long as it can in the belief that protecting the environment decreases profits? Are Americans too wedded to the convenience of single use plastics, e.g., plastic water bottles, plastic food packaging, etc., to be willing to go back to less convenient recyclable or biodegradable metal, glass and paper packaging? Is nuclear power really safe enough for widespread use, or is it just too dangerous and/or scary?

Footnote: 

1. Nuclear power might be able to significantly solve more problems that are apparent on first glance. For example, we have polluted the oceans with hundreds of millions of tons of non-biodegradable plastic. The reason America and now most other nations transitioned from recyclable containers and packages, mainly metal (aluminum, tin, etc.), glass and paper was cost and efficacy. Plastic was cheaper and often better. Plastic was falsely sold to the public as recyclable than thus environmentally benign. That was a lie right from the get go. Only about 9% of single use plastics are recycled. The other 91% winds up in the oceans, on the land and in our bodies as particles of various sizes.*** If there is a lot of nuclear power available, the cost of displacing some or most single-use plastic containers would make biodegradables and recyclables economically competitive. That ought to significantly decrease the vast amounts of plastics that are used once and then tossed away into the environment.

Another use for cheap nuclear power would be to make fuels such as hydrogen (H2) and oxygen (O2) from water. It takes a lot of energy to split water (H2O) into H2 and O2 gasses. Burning H2 with O2 in hydrogen fuel cells recreates the water the two gasses came from. Nuclear power could also be used to make methane from electricity. Methane or natural gas (CH4) can be made from carbon dioxide (CO2) and H2. The methane can be distributed cost-effectively in the current natural gas network. Or, it can be stored. All of that is mostly carbon neutral. 

The profit problem, again: For course, the phrase cheap nuclear power raises the question of how that can be possible. Companies charge as much as they can to make as much profit as they can as fast as they can. That tells me that nuclear power will never live up to its environment protective potential if it is left to the private sector. The government must build and operate nuclear power plants for the public good, not for corporate profit. Given our situation, it is fair to believe that when it comes to providing clean power the private sector has failed to serve the public interest. It is time for the government to take over the job of providing energy to protect the environment and the public interest.

*** We are just beginning to do research on the biological effects of plastic particles that humans ingest or breath in from air. A 2020 research paper comments: 

Plastic macroparticles, microparticles, and nanoparticles have the potential to affect marine ecosystems and human health. It is generally accepted that microplastic particles are not harmful or at best minimal to human health. However direct contact with microplastic particles may have possible adverse effect in cellular level. Primary polystyrene (PS) particles were the focus of this study, and we investigated the potential impacts of these microplastics on human health at the cellular level. We determined that PS particles were potential immune stimulants that induced cytokine and chemokine production in a size-dependent and concentration-dependent manner.