WASHINGTON — More than two dozen of the nation’s biggest corporations, including the five major oil companies, are planning their future growth on the expectation that the government will force them to pay a price for carbon pollution as a way to control global warming.
The development is a striking departure from conservative orthodoxy and a reflection of growing divisions between the Republican Party and its business supporters.
A new report by the environmental data company CDP has found that at least 29 companies, some with close ties to Republicans, includingExxon Mobil, Walmart and American Electric Power, are incorporating a price on carbon into their long-term financial plans.
Both supporters and opponents of action to fight global warming say the development is significant because businesses that chart a financial course to make money in a carbon-constrained future could be more inclined to support policies that address climate change.
Virgin Group chairman and founder, Sir Richard Branson, has said businesses should “stand up” to climate change deniers and they should “get out of our way”.
Branson said he was “enormously impressed” with Apple’s chief executive for telling climate change sceptics to ditch shares in the technology company.
At Apple’s annual meeting last month, Tim Cook responded angrily to questions from a rightwing thinktank, the National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR), about the profitability of investing in renewable energy, saying: “If you want me to do things only for ROI [return on investment] reasons, you should get out of this stock.”
Writing on his blog, Branson said he “wholeheartedly” supported Cook’s comments and that every business in the world should emulate Cook’s goal of wanting “to leave the world better than we found it”, an aim Branson said Virgin shared too.
“The NCPPR stated there is an ‘absence of compelling data’ on climate change. If 97% of climate scientists agreeing that climate-warming trends over the past century are due to human activities isn’t compelling data, I don’t know what is,” Branson said, referring to a survey last year of thousands of peer-reviewed papers in scientific journals that found 97.1% agreed climate change is man-made.
Branson said that businesses should take a stand against climate scepticism. “More businesses should be following Apple’s stance in encouraging more investment in sustainability. While Tim [Cook] told sustainability sceptics to ‘get out of our stock’, I would urge climate change deniers to get out of our way,” he said.
The entrepreneur hosted a summit of Caribbean leaders last month at his home in the British Virgin Islands, brokering a deal to help finance renewable energy projects in the region to reduce the islands’ dependence on expensive oil imports.
Poor Branson. Actually, not so poor, but pity inspiring nevertheless. There appears to be a monopoly on climate-change hypocrisy among billionaires.
I’m not following your pity point.
How is this even coherent?
It’s not coherent, it’s Omnologic, and the only appropriate response is WHAT?
Branson makes his money by burning massive amounts of petroleum (he contemplated buying his own refinery to make jet fuel), and you wonder why he might be a bit of a hypocrite?
What other airline is so deep into biofuels?
http://www.virgin.com/unite/business-innovation/virgin-atlantic-biofuel-breakthrough
quote: “In a partnership with LanzaTech they have created a breakthrough low carbon aviation fuel with just half the carbon footprint of the fossil fuel alternative, Kerosene. The process involves waste gases from industrial steel production”
Actually,
I will only see millionaires and billionaires to be part of the (climate change) solution when they give up all their wealth, and a little bit more (to pay for the damage they have already done).
Otherwise it is just (hypocritic) talk.
Best,
Alex
We can’t expect them to embrace pauperism but at the very least, embrace a full zero-emissionlifestyle. So at least we know it can be done.
Hey, O-Log! When are YOU going to “embrace a full zero-emissions lifestyle”? Show us how it’s done!
C A lol Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Verizon Wireless 4G LTE network. From: Climate Denial Crock of the WeekSent: Tuesday, March 11, 2014 10:15 AMTo: alan@alanroth.netReply To: Climate Denial Crock of the WeekSubject: [New post] As Major Companies Initiate Carbon Pricing – Another CEO tells Climate Deniers: Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way
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greenman3610 posted: ” NYTimes: WASHINGTON — More than two dozen of the nation’s biggest corporations, including the five major oil companies, are planning their future growth on the expectation that the government will force them to pay a price for carbon pollution as a way”
This is actually a notch above O-log’s typical post – after all, content free is better than content negative.
I’ve thought for quite a while that the climate change action movement needed a leader people would follow. And Richard Branson has for a long time been the guy I thought could fit the bill. He’s very, very successful as a business man, and he has the attractive appearance and easygoing manner needed to obtain a large “rock star” style following.
Bill McGibben has done a LOT for the movement, but to be really honest about it, I don’t think he could take it to the next level in the way Branson can. Happy to see him speaking up.
Branson’s downside as a spokesperson for climate sensibility is that his main business is CO2 profligacy in the stratosphere. Posh Virgin Airlines vacation flights are hardly a green alternative to gardening.
Branson would suffer the same image problem as does Al Gore who is rightly criticized for a wildly extravagant carbon footprint on his various mansions, private jets and five figure utility bills.
Am in agreement with Ray. Surely a sign of the End of Times.
It’s a dilemma. Whoever takes the helm will need to be rich, most likely, especially in this world where money is the only thing that gives you a megaphone.
Rich people live extravagant lifestyles as a rule. Branson has been on the forefront of bio-jet-fuels, though, so while it’s true that he leads an extravagant life and one of his main businesses is air travel, he also actually does things to advance renewable energy. And if he shows an evolution in how he lives and how his businesses are run, then the turn-around story might actually be a positive story to tell. Redemption and all that.
Joseph Campbell’s hero comes to mind. Mythology is a powerful thing, and I do think the mythological hero’s journey could be used here. Maybe I’m getting to esoteric about it, but I think creating a story is really important for connecting to people generally. I’m not saying Branson is one of Campbell’s heroes but if his life follows a trajectory from less good to more good, people admire and follow that, and apply the lesson to themselves.
Branson would be a much more effective green (note, not Green) advocate if he got together with someone like Bill Gates to make a zero-emissions aircraft. A nuclear-powered airplane would fill the bill, or perhaps a solar-electric dirigible. But it would have to be big, and it would have to be reasonably fast. Something which goes at the speed of a cruise ship isn’t special; we already have cruise ships.
all these grand schemes are just too grand…all Richard has to do is to lead by example.
If he can’t zero-carb his life, neither can we.
The idea of a nuclear powered airliner doesn’t sound wonderful to me. Maybe the amount of nuclear material would be too small to make a big difference if it exploded and smeared the sky, but I would have to see the proof.
And Omno, just because some rich guy who has a voiced an opinion doesn’t live up to the zero carbon standard doesn’t give everyone else a free pass. We ALL must change. Or we wouldn’t be in this position.
there are some promising break throughs in aircraft fuel.
http://www.virgin.com/travel/world-first-low-carbon-aviation-fuel-be-developed-virgin-atlantic
http://www.rtcc.org/2014/01/15/boeing-hails-green-diesel-breakthrough-for-aviation-industry/
that said, if we solve the coal burning problem – we’ll have some time to get on top of the jet fuel issue – as plane travel is a relatively small part of the problem, although growing fast.
I consider myself to be mostly pro-nuclear, though with some reservations (ie we need 4th generation nuclear and should ditch the messy gen-2 nukes like Fukushima as fast as we can).
That said, I see little hope in building nuclear powered aircraft. In fact, I don’t even see how that would work. Nuclear powered ships – yes, that’s been done, and it’s easy to understand how they work. But aircraft? I don’t see how that would be feasible – maybe you could explain it or send us a link, EP.
The only hope I see for powering an aircraft with nukes would be to do it indirectly. That is to say, use nuclear power to speed up the manufacturing of biofuel. It’s been demonstrated that it’s possible to process algae into an artificial oil, but it requires much heat and pressure and would have a negative EROEI if you used fossil fuel to do it. With nukes supplying the energy, it might be feasible, though no doubt expensive.
Most likely, in a future hopefully-sustainable world, we’ll have to get used to doing little or no flying. That’s a bummer, because flying is convenient and fun, but we can’t always have what we want.
Folks in the 1950’s were a bit more certain about things. Admittedly, it does present the problem of shielding humans and sensitive electronics and cargoes from neutrons and gammas from the reactor. This particular scheme leaves much to be desired, but it shows what is possible.
Another way to power aircraft using nuclear energy is to beam microwaves up to them to drive their propulsion fans. Leaving most of the the powerplant and fuel on the ground would cut weight and energy requirements. This would require transmitter arrays every 20 miles or so on designated routes, and doesn’t work over oceans.
Instead of relying on biofuel, which can only be made from painstakingly-fixed atmospheric carbon, aircraft should use energy as directly as possible. However, there are purposes for which nothing else will do, and materials which aren’t really usable for any other purpose. Supercritical water gasification of biomass becomes feasible when you start getting temperatures around 700°C. Molten-salt reactors can reach these temperatures. SCWG should be used to convert troublesome byproducts (e.g. sewage sludge) into light gases (H2, CO, CH4, etc.) for raw materials for fuels and other chemicals. This eliminates pathogens and the bulk of biological oxygen demand in one stroke, and the char byproduct may have uses (beside carbon sequestration).
Batteries are already good enough to power low-performance light aircraft. Solid-oxide fuel cells burning ammonia would approach the per-pound energy yield of gas turbines burning petroleum. For really high performance, liquid hydrogen is expensive but certainly works. I think we’ll be able to get along without carbon if we turn our minds to it.
“Admittedly, it does present the problem of shielding humans and sensitive electronics and cargoes from neutrons and gammas from the reactor. This particular scheme leaves much to be desired, but it shows what is possible”.
“Possible”? E-Pot is making jokes today. This is just the first. Those of us who were alive back then and following the “development” of nuclear powered airplanes realized that it was a boondoggle from the start, and was merely a means for the MIC to bleed money away from more worthwhile endeavors. In addition to the problems of size, shielding, and weight, a crash would have created a mini-chernobyl, and it could not have been used in a hostile fire environment.
JFK wrote “15 years and about $1 billion have been devoted to the attempted development of a nuclear-powered aircraft; but the possibility of achieving a militarily useful aircraft in the foreseeable future is still very remote” in his statement officially ending the ANP on March 26, 1961. The only ones upset by that were the pro-atomic energy companies who were making $$$ from the boondoggle. (And those were 1946-1961 dollars)
“Another way to power aircraft using nuclear energy is to beam microwaves up to them to drive their propulsion fans. Leaving most of the the powerplant and fuel on the ground would cut weight and energy requirements. This would require transmitter arrays every 20 miles or so on designated routes, and doesn’t work over oceans”.
Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha! Funnier yet! Tesla was a genius in many ways, but his crackpot ideas for “beaming up” energy have been dead for a long time. (BTW, he envisioned a string of ships across the oceans—-Can you imagine how much energy that would have “saved”? Of course, if the ships were nuclear powered and assembled with nuclear powered rivet guns…..)
E-Pot then gets more serious, but slips in “liquid hydrogen certainly works” for a final chuckle. Funny stuff, E-Pot—thank you!
Oh, the gas-fermentation-to-alcohols scheme.
First, it’s inefficient. Distilling alcohols takes energy, and conversion of alcohols to hydrocarbons is another lossy step. You would probably displace more carbon by using the blast-furnace gas as fuel for a gas turbine to generate electricity. Remember, it’s not the carbon from any individual thing that’s a problem, it’s the total.
Second, that one is coal-fired: it starts with blast-furnace gas, fed by metallurgical coke made by coal roasted to drive off the volatiles. If you reduce iron ore using a carbon-free process like electrolysis, you don’t have any fermentable off-gas. (Note that Sadoway’s fingers were in that one too.) How much coal do you have to burn to get that 50% reduction? And 50% isn’t even close to the 80% minimum cut required to stabilize atmospheric CO2.
I don’t care for hydrogen as a fuel, but if you are looking for a carbon-free system to drive airliners it is probably the next best thing after beamed power.
Say it isn’t so Dept.:
Conspiracy theorists might want to take note that Uncle Scam has decided to de-fund one of the most iconic science tools for climate education, the Keeling Curve.
Dr. Jeff Masters lays out the advancing retardation of America.
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2644
More off topic from Ray. (sigh)
Is Mauna Loa the only place on the planet where we have been measuring CO2 concentrations and have some long term records? It has to be done on top of a mountain on an island in the middle of the Pacific?
Maybe we could do it somewhere else that’s more convenient and cheaper? Like Cleveland, Ohio? Or Bend, Oregon?
The Repugnants are slashing funding for many other things, and we could convert to the Cleveland Curve with only a small “kink” in the data.
Back on topic—Branson may not be perfect, but I agree with CL that he could be a good choice. Any PR and any celebrity on “our” side has got to be helpful. If we could get Lindsay Lohan, the K sisters, Lady Gaga, and Paris Hilton to start speaking out against AGW, it would likely be a plus. And a good counter to the Ted Nugents on the other side.
Actually, I know the answer to that one. The USA maintains four CO2 measuring stations. One is in Mauna Loa (Hawaii), there is another at Pt Barrow (Alaska,) American Samoa and the South Pole. The idea is to have two in the northern hemisphere and two in the southern, and also two in the polar regions and two in the tropics. Such wide dispersal negates the possibility that we’re just measuring a local effect. It’s also important that the measuring stations be far away from cities and manufacturing plants that emit CO2 which could make the readings inaccurate.
The USA isn’t the only country that measures CO2, but the Mauna Loa station is the most widely quoted.
Actually, I knew all that too and was just yanking Ray’s chain with Cleveland. American Samoa and Hawaii are perhaps too much alike—-maybe we need one in the south Atlantic? Ascension Island? The Falklands?
I’m sure that the world has enough measuring stations that we can good data without Mauna Loa.
Omnolot…. very much like Monty Pythons Camelot.
Regarding Virgin and LanzaTech’s Bio-Fuel Concept.
Peter brought this up as something to be hopeful about, regarding sustainability:
http://www.virgin.com/travel/world-first-low-carbon-aviation-fuel-be-developed-virgin-atlantic
As I read the article, I couldn’t help but recall the lofty PR rhetoric surrounding the “sustainable” Apollo Project that was being touted by Van Jones, among others, before Barack Obama took the “hope” and “change” memes and turned them into a Trojan Horse Administration. They created the meme “Clean Coal”, which still infects some weak-minded scientifically-illiterate enviro do-gooders to this day. Let’s be adults, though, shall we?
Let’s get real about the Virgin talking points. They all start out quite a bit late into the industrial process. They say that steel production yields a carbon-rich gaseous effluent. Well how the heck do they heat the iron ore to begin with? Most likely it is metallurgical (anthracite) coal or natural gas fired in a basic oxygen blast furnace. If the process is efficient, the coal and/or gas are converted to CO2 and steam. If not enough oxygen in the mix, the waste gas is carbon monoxide, a poisonous threat. But I don’t see how you convert coal or CH4 into, as the Virgin PR has it, a world-first low carbon aviation fuel”
Huh? Sure it is low carbon if you wave the magic wand and make the initial coal/gas disappear as marketing people often do. But in the real world, this set of chemical reactions Lanza is creating has to be based on something. I’m guessing in about 98+% of instances, it is based on a fossil fuel feedstock.
Somehow, the Virgin PR has reminded me of this up-beat aspirational bit of pop fluff. Enjoy!
Again, Peter mentioned this article above:
Boeing hails green diesel ‘breakthrough’ for aviation industry
Last updated on 15 January 2014, 8:34 am
Fuel made from vegetable oils and fats could offer low carbon answer to rising airline pollution levels
– See more at: http://www.rtcc.org/2014/01/15/boeing-hails-green-diesel-breakthrough-for-aviation-industry/#sthash.2o5zcV95.dpuf
Ray again. I got really nervous when I read “fuel from vegetable oil” about the future of Sumatra, Borneo, etc. For you see that we humans are making the orangutan and Sumatran elephant nearly extinct in their native range (Sumatran jungles) with the rapid, radical, irreversible destruction of native landscapes for the sake of palm oil plantations. Today, palm oil is the #1 choice globally for “sustainable fuels”. What the sustainable vege oil marketers and promoters fail to mention is that bio-diversity is being devastated at an utterly unsustainable rate by their practices.
This is where your vegetable oil is coming from:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7fFeJyXkBk
It seems clear enough to me. We are the most insane species to ever have evolved on our one and only home planet. We’re wrecking it almost as fast as humanly possible. And lying to ourselves continuously about the “sustainability” of our bold madness.
This I agree with. I think we need to think about seriously changing habits in order to have any good outcome with regards to emissions. So biofuels is really just an option in a world where energy use is seriously scaled down. I’d like the discussion to be more about scaling down than replacing 1:1 which isnt possible unless we plan on turning the planet into Easter Island.
The insanity bit is confirmed when solutions to a problem cause even worse problems, and solve nothing or very little. Palm oil is a great example of that.
Not bad, O-Log. This is fairly coherent, and we get your point.
No doubt, aviation is one of the habits we have that have large emissions – and Branson surely isn’t going to ask people to fly less. But by acknowledging that CO2 emissions is a problem he really gives people the option to choose not to fly. Ofc intelligent people have this option already, but its still nice to see that the owner of an airline company isnt a flat-earther and denies the problems of CO2 like many other.
In Norway we also have the same discussions that the aviation industry need to collaborate with biofuel from trees here in order to make it more carbon neutral. No doubt there is a mismatch at the sheer amount of fuel used in aviation and the number of trees around so its really not a 1:1 sustainable option.
But the other option is really just to park the whole aviation industry, and I cant see that being discussed either.
I for one are happy that Branson is using his wealth on improving technology, much like Al Gore and Apple is and many others who have the financial power to make a difference.
If he thinks flying is bad he should get out of the business, maybe rejoin in later when the emissionless fuel is invented.