GOP officials and dark money MoTUs are trying to make sure the planet burns:
In West Virginia, the state treasurer has pulled money from BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, because the Wall Street firm has flagged climate change as an economic risk.
In Texas, a new law bars the state’s retirement and investment funds from doing business with companies that the state comptroller says are boycotting fossil fuels. Conservative lawmakers in 15 other states are promoting similar legislation.
And officials in Utah and Idaho have assailed a major ratings agency for considering environmental risks and other factors, in addition to the balance sheet, when assessing states’ creditworthiness.
Across the country, Republican lawmakers and their allies have launched a campaign to try to rein in what they see as activist companies trying to reduce the greenhouse gases that are dangerously heating the planet.
They’re having some success too. Black Rock and its CEO, Larry Fink, have been a target for the GOP campaigners, because Fink has been one of the major public voices to argue that climate change hits both social responsibility and long-term financial notes. That evoked this response from West Virginia’s state treasurer:
And in January, Mr. Moore pulled about $20 million out of a fund managed by BlackRock because the firm has encouraged other companies to reduce emissions. BlackRock still manages several billion for West Virginia’s state retirement system. “We’re divesting from BlackRock because they’re divesting from us,” Mr. Moore said in an interview.
In response:
The company has scrambled to limit the fallout in states like Texas, stressing that it is following the wishes of its clients and investing broadly.
“We are perhaps the world’s largest investor in fossil fuel companies, and, as a long-term investor in these companies, we want to see these companies succeed and prosper,” BlackRock’s head of external affairs, Dalia Blass, wrote in a letter to Texas regulators in January…
…BlackRock also this month said it would support fewer shareholder proposals calling for climate action because “we do not consider them to be consistent with our clients’ long-term financial interests.”
A couple of notes. One: llue states can play this game too, and some are; more should, and likely will. And…
Two: fuck these fucking fuckers. Climate change is real, it’s upon us, and it’s causing harm to non-MoTUs all over the country, very much including those who vote team fascist. Florida has a reasonable chance of enjoying a tropical storm this weekend, seeded by Hurricane Agatha, itself one of the earliest cat. 2 storms on record to strike Mexico. Fire season is about to ramp up, and drought in the southwest has produced stories like this.
Extracting the last few years of profit from bulldozed mountain tops and fracked water tables is more important to those who fund the GOP than anything else. They are literally the enemies of civilization, and this story is one more reminder that we are in fact in the midst of a national and global existential struggle…
well…
…I’ll go all Church Lady on y’all…
with…
EVIL.
Open thread, my fellow jackals.
Image: Raphael, St Michael vanquishing Satan, before 1520.*
*Here’s my problem: I downloaded an image that was 670 x 1107. It showed up on our media page at that size. Imported into the post, it turned itself into its current diminutive size. But it’s still a great painting, and the link takes you to a better reproduction, so I thought it worth posting while I try to get around to asking for professional help…ETA: Watergirl helped out on the above, and I may have learned how to take care of such image matters myself in the future. We’ll see….
jeffreyw
St Mike beat Satan before 1520, but he has bounced back.
OzarkHillbilly
It gets harder and harder to not give in to my baser instincts regarding Republicans.
Tom Levenson
@OzarkHillbilly: Embrace the dark side, young padawan!
SpaceUnit
Somebody remind me again what a MoTU is.
Nicole
@SpaceUnit: Master of the Universe
(I think Tom Wolfe coined it in Bonfire of the Vanities. It’s certainly not referring to He-Man’s cohorts in this context.)
OzarkHillbilly
@Tom Levenson: Sigh, I have a wife that I love.
ETA and after some of the things she went thru before me, she deserves my best.
scav
Seems TX’s devotion to economic freedom is about as deep and meaningful as their protection of human life.
SpaceUnit
@Nicole:
Thanks. Forgot to bring my BJ glossary today.
Baud
@SpaceUnit:
Missouri Thermal Unit.
WereBear
@OzarkHillbilly: It’s the dark instinct in them. Self-defense.
SpaceUnit
@Baud:
wise guy.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
I thought we were supposed to be winning this? That the economics would win out and beat fossil fuels? How could BlackRock be so cowardly and cave?
trnc
Homeland Security should send letters to the governors of each state that has gotten FEMA funding for natural disasters most of the last 10 years that they will need to apply for future funding and include a report of what they believe the cause is and what they are doing to prevent it at the state level.
SpaceUnit
West Virginia is a messed up place. The whole state legislature is basically owned by the extraction and chemical industries.
I’ve got people there. My brother and his family live just outside of Charleston and then my parents moved there some years ago to be close to the grandkids. I had visit back in 2014 after my father suddenly passed away, and there had just been a huge chemical spill into the Elk River which supplies water to the entire Charleston area. You couldn’t drink it or bathe in it. Water from the tap smelled like a mixture of licorice and cleaning supplies.
My mother had dementia and so I spent a week and a half trying to shoo her away from the goddamn sink while explaining over and over what had happened. It was not fun.
ETA: Oh, and I don’t think the company responsible ever paid a dime for the cleanup.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@trnc:
I pretty much know how they would respond.
Cause: God’s mysterious plan
Solution: Thoughts and Prayers
Redshift
It’s so infuriating that the wingnut cult has made climate change part of their dogma. Conservatives in other countries are dragging their feet because they’re “pro-business”/anti-regulation, but they’re mostly not full-on deniers.
So we have investment companies correctly taking into account climate risk, because the international economy is going to make those very valuable assets worthless no matter how much American wingnuts try to hold back the tide, but they can’t conceive of it being anything other than political activism, so they shriek “No! We demand that you lie to us!”
Steeplejack
Not seeing a link for the painting. Here: St. Michael Vanquishing Satan.
Geminid
@SpaceUnit: West Virginia is the only state that had a smaller population in last year’s census than in 1950. The state had six Congressmen in 1960, but after the latest reapportionment they will have only two next year.
RaflW
Honestly, these are the days when I think “detach the saucer section, mister Worf. We’re incompatible with that other bit of the USS America.”
Of course secession is just as fanciful an idea as an 80s TV show (and more dangerous even than a Next Gen saucer split). But the ‘blue’ coastal states and immediate neighbors (and I cheekily include MN in that – we have a seaport that can take ‘salties’ after all) are most of the economic drivers of this country.
Sure, conservatives retort “where will you get food?” but money has a funny way of crossing borders for goods.
Anyway. We have to fight off these mf’ing nihilists. It’s so god damn reckless and stupid. They’re gonna ‘own the libs’ and in the process, have nothing decent to give to their own grandchildren.
Tom Levenson
@RaflW:
Under climate change, Canada should be able to provide us with many/most of our agricultural needs…
Tom Levenson
@Steeplejack: Fix’t.
Thanks.
SpaceUnit
@Geminid:
Yeah. Kids there grow up, graduate from high school and then pack their bags.
Downtown Charleston has a lot of boarded-up buildings and storefronts. Or at least it did the last time I was there, and I can’t imagine there’s been anything to turn that around.
West Virginia boasts of some beautiful scenery but it’s been in a political and economic spiral for quite some time. Sad.
Steeplejack
@RaflW:
And after secession what? Your nice new blue country will be sitting right next to one or more unstable, heavily armed warlord states that will be ogling all of your goodies. Good times.
RaflW
@Redshift: I know the American game (as we see with crypto) is to just play musical chairs with the money, figuring that some other idiot will be the one holding the bag when the values tank.
But jebus. There’s billions in Florida real estate that may be damn near shit worthless in a timeframe that I am quite sure these Republican cowboys can’t fathom (a few do, they’re at work on the pump-n-dumps as we speak).
The era of commerce-disrupting, high-energy weather events that overwhelm different places on the globe – including us, even as DeSantis, Abbott and all the rest will it not to be so – are already here. And will get worse.
Apologies to any of the jackals that may live in FL. But we 100% should not be federally subsidizing a dime of homeowners insurance anywhere in red on this map (I’d say the same about similar projections and insurance bailouts in ‘purple’ or ‘blue’ states, too).
Maybe at best we can offer a phase-down of subsidized flood insurance in coastal zones. But we – all of us taxpayers – are footing private developers costs. Ruining homeowner equity is a harsh call to make, but it’s not a matter of if that value-destruction happens, but when. And who pays. (In GOP land, private losses for the rich are bailed out. That’s GOTTA stop. Especially since the poors tend to get about nil in assistance in the same catastrophes.)
West of the Cascades
@RaflW: Here in New Mexico we have a Spaceport, can we join you??
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
The consensus seemed to be, especially last year, that fossil fuels was having it’s swan song; that it’s days were numbered and renewables would be take over simply because of economics eventually. Is that no longer the case? Can the GOP stop it in it’s tracks?
Matt McIrvin
@RaflW: The thing about the deep-red agricultural states is, they’re not self-sufficient either–they make meat, corn and grains (much of which is for animal feed), but to have anything like a complete diet they have to trade. A lot of gardening happens in California.
They have this fantasy that they could starve us out and we’d come back to them begging. But they wouldn’t survive on their own either. They’re specialists.
Roger Moore
@Steeplejack:
As opposed to now, when blue states are sitting right next to unstable red states that are ogling all our goodies. The difference is that if we were independent countries, we’d have the legal right to defend ourselves from our acquisitive neighbors.
Dan B
@Tom Levenson: Food from Canadia! But a reminder that much of it is Canadian Shield, Taiga, and tundra. If we can convert rock to soup, dwarf Pine forest to noodles, and methane to cheeseburgers we’ll be set.
Also, warmer summers may follow wildly variable winters and Springs. Ask upper Midwestern Jackals about Spring 2022.
RaflW
@West of the Cascades: Since it’s just a fanciful, dangerous daydream: Sure!!
eta: I love New Mexico. The fires have been gut-churning. A couple weeks ago when I thought Bandalier might be swept up in all that I was really anxious.
I’m already nervous about this summer in the CO high country (we spend time there every summer now).
Doug R
Conservative and conservation comes from the same root word.
There’s lots of $ to be made rebuilding our infrastructure to be carbon-neutral.
Dan B
It seems that West Virginia and any number of red states are divesting in children. They’re under the illusion that jobs today will be jobs tomorrow and that will keep their state whole for today and for every day that follows, unto infinity.
Upshot: They loathe the future and are doing their damndest to avoid it.
SpaceUnit
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
The point of Tom’s post is that the fossil fuel industry is being artificially protected and supported by Republican politicians in red states.
They’re trying to hold back the tide, basically.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@SpaceUnit:
Are they simply only holding back the inevitable, then?
Matt McIrvin
@Dan B: They turn the state into a terrible place to be young and then get angry and resentful that all the kids move away as soon as they can.
Dan B
@RaflW: The latest report* is that firest fires in Washington, and presumably Oregon, are causing an increase in air pollution and pulmonary/ respiratory diseases in Colorado.
*Crosscut has a recurring piece on this on our local PBS Station, KCTS 9.
Redshift
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): They are, economics will eventually have its way, but “eventually” can be long enough to do a lot of damage to the rest of us.
Dan B
@Matt McIrvin: Young people look at the trends and rapidly conclude that staying stuck in the old mindset is not a good omen for future prospects. The “elders” cannot tolerate this disrespect and embrace of what they believe is the path to anarchy.
Redshift
@RaflW: Fossil fuel companies are among the most valuable in the world, and most of that value is in leases and rights to produce. The sane path is to ramp down while there are still petite who believe they have value long term, because waiting until Wile E Coyote finally looks down will result in a helluva crash. You’re right that someone is going to be left holding the bag, and red states are clamoring “pick me!”
SpaceUnit
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Yes. They will ultimately fail.
The economy is moving away from these fuels, and there’s little anyone can do to stop it in the long term. They can slow the process down here and there, score some political points in the culture wars, but that’s about it.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@RaflW:
Pretty sure California, Oregon, and Washington can help with this part.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: But who gets the nukes? That’s the rub, isn’t it?
trollhattan
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:
We might need to fetch somebody’s water, though. (Hey, it’s totally going to rain in 2023.)
gene108
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
BlackRock folks care more about money than anything else. That’s why they got into that business.
gene108
@RaflW:
Every state has an agriculture industry. Some states are more dependent on agriculture than others.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@SpaceUnit:
@Redshift:
Gotcha
jonas
Investing against climate change risk is a basic fiduciary duty nowadays. But where we really need to hit Wall Street is on the insurance/reinsurance industry. Climate-related liabilities are going to destroy the insurance industry; unfortunately, they’ve been hedging against that by piling into energy and extraction industries that fuel climate change, but have good short-term returns that allow them to cover their losses.
Ben Cisco
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): BREATHE.
J R in WV
Interestingly, the current state treasurer of West Virginia is Riley Moore (R) — a grandson of former Gov Arch A Moore Jr, and nephew of Senator Shelly Moore Capito, Arch’s daughter. Arch A Moore Jr was elected and re-elected Gov of the state until finally he was indicted and pleaded guilty to soliciting bribes. He did this in the back of his limo, and pleaded guilty because his loyal companion was wearing a wire for the FBI, who had great sound of Arch asking for money.
He served time at a prison farm in Alabama, and did yard work at an Air Force base next to the prison. I heard a funny tale of a young WV wife of a serviceman serving at the AF Base who was walking their child in a pram one morning, and saw a guy in an orange jumpsuit trimming shrubs and raking around the plantings — “Hmm” she thought, “that guy looks familiar.” So she turned around and crossed the street to take a better look then — “Holy cow, that’s (former) Governor Moore!!”
Urza
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: The nukes are the part that matters most when most of them are in red areas and they would most certainly be willing to use them. And would fight for their share in any negotiations if we have any still functional at the breakup.
Bill Arnold
Gigacidal psychopaths.
The inhabitants of the relatively near future will not be forgiving.
As in Operation Nemesis, but a few orders of magnitude larger, with descendants of culprits punished as well.
Our future is very much still in play, and we still have the option of/there remain paths to maintaining a technological civilization and the majority (>80 percent) of the global human population.
But a lot of horror is already baked in.
Bill Arnold
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Yes, and making it worse, to the extent that the rest of humanity lets these selfish psychopaths get away with it.
SpaceUnit
@J R in WV:
Wow. The people of WV must be very proud.
I was actually born in Kanawa County although we moved to Pennsylvania when I was very little. Please don’t take my remarks about the state personally. I just wish the place could be a little less corrupt and dysfunctional and Trumpy. I’m sure you do as well.
Ruckus
Rethuglicans want money and respect. They are OK if all they get is your money because they think they can buy respect for very few cents on the dollar. At some point we have to give the same speech to everyone else, “Republicans do not give a fuck about life, liberty, your prosperity, your pursuit of happiness, the use of guns to get rid of their opposition, air to breathe, water to drink…. OK that’s pretty much it.” They hate anything and anyone who gets in their way. They will lie, steal, cheat, do anything moral or otherwise to achieve their goals. Their god is money, and everything else is bullshit to hide their actual goal, which is to own it all, by any means. Their savior is one shit for brains because he is the epitome of them. And if he gets in their way in the slightest they will mow him down like a six months growth of weeds and throw him so far away no one with functioning eyes will ever see him again.
Origuy
@Urza: Nukes are doorstops without the launch codes. They don’t give those to governors.
J R in WV
@SpaceUnit:
I know exactly how corrupt the Republican-Fascists are, both here in WV and in the rest of the nation. You can’t possibly hate them more than I do. I could have told more stories about Arch Moore and his family, but decided one was enough.
He was famous for his corruption long before the FBI managed to record him soliciting bribes.
So no offense taken for anyone criticizing the politics of WV.