Climategate: SEC Demands U.S. Firms Disclose Global Warming Risks to Shareholders — Really (PJM Exclusive)
There’s still an urgent debate on whether the recent global warming has been caused by man-made CO2 or solar variation. The correlation between CO2 and our thermometer record is a meager 22 percent; the correlation with sunspots is a much stronger 79 percent.
Ice cores, seabed sediments, fossil pollen, and ancient Chinese court records all clearly indicate a long, moderate climate cycle of 1,500 years, plus or minus 500. The cycle puts an abrupt 2-4 degree Celsius kink in the temperature record every few hundred years at the latitude of Washington and Beijing. There have been five such previous warmings just since the end of the last ice age — all of them moderate. The warmings were the good times for humanity. The “little ice ages” were bitter and harsh, featuring famines, frostbite, and disease epidemics — all extremely bad for business.
Never have we seen the “runaway warming” predicted by Dr. James Hansen when he appeared before a Senate committee in 1988. When he testified again in 2008, global temperatures had actually declined. Clearly, the computer models have failed to predict the climate future.
In 2003, meteorologist Eugenia Kalnay used temperature records from satellites and high-altitude balloons to backcast U.S. surface temperatures “without cities or land-use changes.” She concluded U.S. land temperature increases since 1940 have been overestimated by 40 percent. James Goodridge, then California State Climatologist, reported in 1992 that the state’s urban counties (more than a million residents) had had temperature gains of more than 3 degrees Fahrenheit per century, while rural counties showed no temperature trend. Thus the real warming of the past 70 years is probably no more than 0.1 degree Celsius — well within the range of normal variability.
Our company cannot forecast how long the current warming will last, but we sincerely hope it will persist for several more centuries. The next climate cooling could be merely harsh or a full-bore ice age, with temperatures dropping 10 degrees Celsius.
Either would be very bad for business.
Thank you. We look forward to your continued support.
If the SEC demands a more politically correct agreement with the global warming alarmists, let them dictate it — and sign it.
Resources:
E. Kalnay and M. Cai, 2003, “Estimating the Impact of Urbanization and Land Use on U.S. Surface Temperature Trends: Preliminary Report,” Nature 423, pp. 528-531.
James D. Goodridge, 1992, “Urban Bias Influences on Long-term California Air Temperature Trends,” Atmospheric Environment 26B, pp 1-7
What should the companies producing beans and/or canned beans write to their shareholders ?
How about an SEC requirement that companies put in a warning about the affects of Obama on their business? Those should be fun too.
My advice would be… “Our activities will have no measurable effect on the planet, however, the scientists who say they will are getting more money from government grants to say that we are causing climate damage then we can possibly make doing business. Therefore, I suggest you all go get government jobs. In climate change studies, if at all possible. Furthermore, I suggest that the company change its mission from providing a product to studying the effects of industry on climate. We can corral a lot of grant money to study the effects of what we have been doing all along. Possibly enough to pay the new Cap-and-Trade taxes.”
Here’s a warning all corporations should now be giving whether the SEC forces them to or not: “If the current Congress and Administration are successful in imposing legislation based on dubious global warming “science”, energy prices will necessarily skyrocket. In turn, we, as a corporation, will be forced to look elsewhere to conduct business in a climate more conducive to wealth creation. In the mean time, we will be forced to cut our work force because of the impending drastic cost increase in doing business in the United States. This all can be avoided of course if the current Congressional leadership is removed on November 2, 2010.”
Saul Alinsky is coming to get you tra la tra la!
They are fighting conservatives and producers on every front, via every regulatory means necessary and available.
Vote all of them out.
The real risk is a regulatory one. The government is the danger, not co2. Presumably the regulatory risk will be reduced at the mid terms, and the next presidential election.
They would do better, and be more truthful, to do a risk assessment of voting democrat.
The fact that AGW has taken a long walk off a short peer has not sunk in yet to the socialist frauds that inhabit our MSM, academia and government. To defeat the drones still clinging to the AGW fraud we must defeat the socialist democrats, who were more than willing to stab america in the back in the name of global environmental socialism, and boot their non american commie rea ends all the way to cuba in the next elections.
Legal foot-dragging until 2010 should do it.
If the SEC persists, then state government LFD.
Or go on the Offensive and fund independent studies
to discredit the AGW analyses so far _and_ provide
a solid scientific statement of our current state
of ignorance on the matter; cheaper than lawyers.
Are U.S. firms required to disclose the financial impacts of “acts of war”? And if so, I wonder how you would state the probable economic impacts of Israel nuking Teheran? If you can’t conventionally destroy their nuclear weapons program, or bargain them away, at least you can take out their ruling bellicose elite while making a definitive deterrent statement at the same time. I wonder how that black swan event would compute on the linear stock exchanges of the world.
Let’s see,
Economic crisis-check got that figured out
Banking crisis-check got that figured out
Stock fraud and insider trading-yup, under control
shareholders rights-yup
Might as well make companies reveal global warming risks. Sharp as a marble those gubmint bureaucrats.
As usual, Dennis is right on. Except I wish he wouldn’t be so prescient. Once he opined to me that someday, by golly, he would be tickled pink when just once, all those global warming gurus and deep thinkers in Washington will have to swallow hard, shiver and endure an honest, gang-bang frigid and snowbound winter that would put the fear of God into their elitist, subsidy-hardened bureaucratic hearts.
Well, look out, here one comes. Where’s the shovel, Henry?
Dennis T. Avery’s piece had me viewing the SEC as the sole culprit in the matter–until I clicked the WaPo link and read this:
A number of large institutional investors had been urging the SEC to put more pressure on companies to disclose more details about the effects of climate change on their businesses.
IMO Avery’s discussion is seriously incomplete.
I’ve had similar fantasies about American pharmaceuticals who might “respond” to runaway damage suits based on “correlations” between their products and random disorders that are construed as side-effects.
“We are announcing a new product called Viagra, which has received FDA approval. To preserve the health and well-being of Americans, we will sell Viagra only in Asia, Europe, Africa, South America, Australia, and Antarctica. No resident of America may take this drug legally. We apologize for our past misdeeds.”
Isn’t the SEC supposed to be non-partisan?
The SEC still hasn’t explained the market crash in ’08 that got Obama elected. That should be their top priority, not the AGW scam.
Why is everyone getting so upset over this SEC “global warning” disclosure requirement? Just think, if this proposal had been adopted by the SEC years ago, they would have uncovered the Madoff “Ponzi” fraud that much sooner.
Note 24 a)
We here at Coca Cola are quite proud of our record with regard to climate change. We support numerous studies finding Global Warming (frankly, the “Coming Ice Age Scare” of 35 years ago would have been disastrous for us. How much Coke could we sell in an Ice Age?) in every aspect of today’s life, and recently gave the WWF $20 MM for their silly-assed brownout, even dimming the lights here, even though shareholders have accused management of being dim for some time.
We are proud of our environmental management record, and vow to continue doing all we can to protect the environment in terms of relatively cheap payoffs to NGOs for dubious studies (although, of course we won’t return to using recyclable bottles now that our plastics division is a thriving profit center).
This note brought to you by Coca Cola – when you think of Global Warming, have a Coke.
Well then, sue.
I vaguely remember truth being a defense, or some such.
In a real question of disclosure, will companies disclose possible losses if “Cap and Trade” doesn’t pass Congress or if AGW is proven to be negligible require little to no useful action.
When I first read about this, I thought it was a very clever joke. But, depressingly, it turns out to be real.
This is yet another example of hyper-politicization, and of dishonesty so profound as to appear freakishly bizarre, in many government departments these days.
Perhaps the SEC should mandate reporting the shareholder risk from Santa Claus having an accident before Christmas, thereby lowering holiday merchandise sales. Or perhaps the Great Pumpkin might retire, thereby hurting Halloween candy sales. Come on, you stupid, lying, lunatic a-holes in DC! This could be serious!
More evidence that Green is the new Red.
Read Saul Alinsky’s book “Rules for Radicals” He actually mentions coalescing an organization around “pollution” as a means to take from the “haves”
SEC should be enforcing Prompt Corrective Action laws instead of this politically motivated make work.
Oh, wait, that would mean exposing their friends over in Citi as being functionally bankrupt. Well, we can’t have that, can we?
I think it’s important to point out that some of the risk disclosure the SEC is after has to do with over-regulation and the legal climate companies find themselves in, rather than the actual climate. I bet that’s why investors want to know.
It’s just incredible: An unnecessary law to assess the impact of other unnecessary laws. I wonder if the members of the SEC who voted for this recognize the irony of the fact that the law they just passed is exactly the kind of thing that would have to be disclosed?
When something that would look in place at The Onion is an actual article in the real world, then civilization is ending.
Seriously, if this exact article were on the Onion, we would call it clever satire.
Stupid is, as stupid does. That is all.
All these Man Made predictions.
Remember ‘Y2k,’
My good friend and computer geek told me that even if they fixed government and business computers my car and thousands of other products we use would be useless,
our computers matrix was out of time.
Those that wanted to survive ‘Y2k’ needed to buy MREs,
canned goods, 100 gallon water containers and move into the basement.
Computer geeks and Y2k company’s made billions fixing the problem.
Now we have ‘man made’ Global warming Climate change,
So…..
You need to buy more MREs,
canned goods, 100 gallon water containers and move into the basement..
I find it Ironic that Washington and these left wing-nuts are going to be buried under 2 feet of snow, my prediction-
February 5 2010.
My only man made prediction is that the Colts will win the Super Bowl and New Orleans will have to go back and clean up its act.
The risks this Company poses to ‘Man Made Global Warming’ are as follows.
1)This companies products do not in any way increase the likely hood of MMGW being any more real today then it was 50 years ago.
2) Advertising put forth by this company, could risk the MMGW group with exposure for the hoax it is.
3) As with the telling of truth to power in any dictatorship, there is risk, investing in this company may cause you, by association, to partake of that risk. If you are risk adverse it is recommended you invest in another company.
Here is what I would write if I were running a company affected by this.
Dear shareholders,
Our risks from climate change are minimal. We are adequately insured against loss or damage and can adapt to a changing environment if that turns out to be necessary.
Our risks from government over-regulation and mis-regulation in the name of climate science are large but impossible to state in a meaningful manner. Our gravest risk is that government regulation will cause a global depression that will cause our customers to have less money to purchase our products. In such a case we too would be forced to economize thereby contributing to a vicious spiral of layoffs and reductions in spending and investment. Our second greatest risk is that the government will force us or our suppliers to adopt practices or pay taxes and levies that will vastly increase our cost of doing business while presenting no benefit to us or our customers. If not stopped soon enough such actions will lead to the depression mentioned as our gravest risk.
The management
The main risk of global warming is to distract the paper shufflers at SEC away from characters like Madoff.
This isn’t funny. Think a bit what these goons, thugs and bureau-rats are doing with this request.
And what the ho-hum response of the public is.
Then run like hell.
So, in order to protect investors, this administration would require a company to fully disclose in SEC filings the potential negative, if not substantial impact on earnings if, lets say, Cap and Trade legislation is passed. However, should the same company wish to take out an add too close in time to a national election in order to advise voters of the potential negative impact of Cap and Trade, democracy as we know it is imperiled by big money interests.
The SEC should hire Harry Markopoulis, let him hire his own staff, and the rest of them should stop receiving paychecks and go home and shut up because they’re as useless as tits on a bull. They can write letters in their PJs all day long about global warming, but quit stealing our money with your useless make-work GREEN CRAP.
Each and every agency is bound to the Obama agenda– by fiat or law, they will continue. They have stated openly that they will prevail, and that this is will be the method.
http://bunkerville.wordpress.com/2010/02/01/sec-ruling-requires-companies-to-tell-shareholders-if-climate-laws-are-bad-for-business/
Dennis,
When will the SEC (or some other commission) investigate these companies who have sold or are selling carbon credits?
Are carbon credits viewed as donations, or can they be viewed as unregulated common stock?
I’m no expert, but it sure seems fraudulent to me.
The past year or so since the dems took control of DC explains how Frank Baum got the idea for writing “Wizard of Oz”. Actually this is exactly what happened. It was written in 1939 as a parody of what the crop of clowns in DC were doing at the time to overcome the GREEEAAAAAT DEEPPRREESSSIION. Shameful then and shameful now. The scary part is..we elected them!!
I’d go with “This corporation will not make decisions based on junk science. Shareholder value is endangered by government policy, not science fiction.”
How about “The products and/or activities of this company are not expected to make any statisticaly valid changes in the global temperature or climate.”
Correct it for my typos and pop it in the middle of your report. Done.
The SEC visits Madoff office 5 times over the years and finds everything is A-OK. Instead of concentrating on the horrible inability of doing the job the SEC was designed for this is what they are working on? Please save us from more Government.
This SEC maneuver is a set-up. The companies are being forced to provide the EPA with evidence that could be used to shut them down. How about the CIA’s #1 concern has been changed to Global Warming, and China downgraded to priority #2? Cap ‘n Tax will be the U.S.’s coup de grace.
Any ideas of where to move? This is an idiocracy.
As a Dumb Ass, I fully support actions by all levels to govt to address Global Warming…err..climate change. I believe that we should send 3% of our GDP overseas, and spend vast sums converting our economy over to more costly and less reliable forms of energy while also junking the large investment we have made in our current petroleum and utility distribution systems. As a dumb ass, I support the findings that CO2 is a deadly pollutant, and invite the EPA and other Govt Agencies to raise my bills, assert heavy taxes, cede govt authority to foreign unelected UN govt, and regulate my life and liberty to reduce my God given rights. All this in the name of potentially unconstitutional laws and regulations.
But as a Dumb Ass, it doesnt matter to me as I make so little money, that I actually get more back that what I pay to the Govt, so who cares about taxes. And since I only ride my bike to critical mass rallies and supposedly unorganized bike rallies that clog the streets, I am all for legislation such as Long Beach’s Ca. State Senator Alzn Lowenthal’s bill to end free parking everywhere (and I mean EVERYWHERE!) in California. Since Alan Lowenthal is a Dumb Ass like me, I fully support him!
Last weekend my boss was complaining about digging out of two feet of snow and chipping ice off his windshield in Tennessee. He was much heartened when I reminded him how much worse it would have been but for Global Warming.
It seems that Washington may be getting something similar this weekend. I wonder whether any of our leaders will connect the dots and realise that whenever they invite James Hansen to talk about Thermageddon, temperatures fall.
only a retard would have a publically traded company these days.