human actions, global climate change, global human solutions
POSTED BY: 1kiki
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 19:38
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A growing list of major companies — not just limited to finance — are facing ire from Republican officials at the state and federal levels for their stances on climate and issues such as race, voting rights and guns.
‘Bad-faith political attacks’
In Washington, House Republicans who will be in the majority next year are eyeing hearings and a suite of bills to pressure the investment firms.
The asset managers “do have a very defensible case as to why they should be considering climate and sustainability risk in investing practices,” said Sierra Club campaign director Ben Cushing, who advocates for financial firms to stop backing fossil fuel projects. “They didn’t do a very good job of just explaining that, and they’re allowing themselves to be bullied by these bad-faith political attacks.”
The GOP’s criticism of big money managers centers on the sway they hold over corporate America. The firms manage their clients’ investments in legions of publicly traded companies and, because of that, have a big say in how the companies are run through the shareholder voting process.
That economic influence is in focus for Republicans because the large asset managers have incorporated environmental, social and governance — or ESG — goals into their investing practices.
The most prominent leader of the shift is BlackRock’s Fink, a Democrat who has used his perch at the $7.9 trillion asset management firm to push companies to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and to disclose their practices on social issues.
He has argued that it’s not just good for society but also good for investors — among them the company’s clients including pension funds, endowments and governments.
BlackRock said that under Fink’s leadership it has delivered a cumulative total return to shareholders of 7,700 percent since 1999 “by consistently putting clients’ interests first.”
More at https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/27/gops-anti-woke-crusade-splits
-corporate-america-00075413
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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There was a time – a recent time – when concern about the environment was relatively bipartisan, not a cultural flashpoint.
A Republican, President Richard Nixon, established the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970. In the 1980s and 1990s, bipartisan majorities voted to strengthen the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, led by a Republican – Rhode Island’s Sen. John Chafee.
Those days are gone, and today a wide range of misleading statements and outright lies about the reality of human-caused climate change circulate widely.
The sheer volume of misinformation can distort perceptions of how many people don't believe the science that shows the Earth's climate is changing because of human activity, said Katharine Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist and professor at Texas Tech University.
"I call them 'zombie arguments' because you can explain that they're not true but they still go stumbling around because they're not about facts but excuses," she said.
More at https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/12/29/global-warming-m
yths-disinformation-and-lies-circulated-2022/10802959002/
Why would people need excuses (see the above article) for not fixing the climate change problem?
People say they take climate change seriously, but if you put an actual dollar figure on fixing the problem, even $10 per month is too much for 70% of the population.
Annual look at the growth of CO2 in the atmosphere.
It still doesn't look like emissions are slowing down, does it? 
https://jabberwocking.com/top-ten-charts-of-2022/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Why would people need excuses (see the above article) for not fixing the climate change problem?
My friend, the communist
Holds meetings in his RV
I can't afford his gas
So I'm stuck here watching TV
~Sheryl Crow
That's why.
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Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
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If you seriously ever want to get the EV thing off the ground, it's never going to be more than an expensive failure until nuclear power plants are put up everywhere. And they'd better not be rushed or given to non-union outfits that hire criminal illegal invader scabs either. This would be decades in the making if you broke ground tomorrow.
Maybe by that time the battery tech will be sustainable. Because in its current form it is not.
I couldn't even imagine the costs, but the $900 Billion Biden* just gave to the War Machine would have been a good start.
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Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
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The year the U.S. became the world’s largest exporter of liquified natural gas
Inside Climate News reports:
In the first half of the year, the United States became the world’s top exporter of liquified natural gas, or LNG. Then, in September, crude oil exports hit an all-time high when the country sent abroad about 4 million barrels per day.
The sharp rise in crude oil and natural gas exports has been supported by a bipartisan consensus that has spanned three consecutive presidential administrations, each of which has viewed energy exports as a lever of foreign policy. More than anything, though, it is the culmination of a sustained campaign by the oil industry that has seen production soar even as domestic demand for its fuels threatens to decline.
“This is all about industry staking a claim to a future role,” said Josh Axelrod, senior advocate in the nature program at the Natural Resources Defense Council. Domestic gasoline consumption has plateaued or even begun to decline, he pointed out, and natural gas use is expected to do the same soon. “There’s no growth opportunity for oil in the U.S. market,” Axelrod said, “so securing export destinations and capacity is one of their many tactics to stay active and growing even as climate change gets worse.”
More at https://insideclimatenews.org/news/01012023/liquified-natural-gas-lng-
exports-2022/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
bipartisan
Yup.
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Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
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Quote:Americans have expressed themselves and the Federal government listened. Fifty-seven percent of Americans are willing to pay $1 per month to save America from the effects of excessive greenhouse gases, but at a higher price, there isn't majority support. Americans also want the price of gasoline lowered by $1 per gallon. The majority of Americans got both desires fulfilled by bipartisan politics.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:Quote:
Originally posted by second:
bipartisan
Yup.
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Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
https://apnorc.org/projects/is-the-public-willing-to-pay-to-help-fix-c
limate-change/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Americans have expressed themselves and the Federal government listened. Fifty-seven percent of Americans are willing to pay $1 per month to save America from the effects of excessive greenhouse gases, but at a higher price, there isn't majority support. Americans also want the price of gasoline lowered by $1 per gallon. The majority of Americans got both desires fulfilled by bipartisan politics.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:Quote:
Originally posted by second:
bipartisan
Yup.
--------------------------------------------------
Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
https://apnorc.org/projects/is-the-public-willing-to-pay-to-help-fix-c
limate-change/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
Hey. You want to fix it, you'd better come up with a REAL fucking way to do it that is going to be affordable for the 50% of Americans who make less than $35k per year.
Unaffordable Coal burning cars that will make the price of household electricity skyrocket that can't possibly be supported by the current power grid infrastructure that is barely making due without tens of millions of these things on the road every day is not a legitimate answer.
Maybe you could figure it out if you weren't sending hundreds of Billions to Ukraine and Trillions to Rayethon and Boeing to make better killing machines, or enriching Pfizer to make more boner pills and happy pills that turn regular people into monsters.
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Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
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Quote:In the Firefly Universe, poor people travel in vehicles that either belch smoke or are pulled by methane and CO2 venting horses. It is the rich who have zero emission vehicles on the Firefly TV show. Back to Earth in a country ( https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/median-income-by-co
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Hey. You want to fix it, you'd better come up with a REAL fucking way to do it that is going to be affordable for the 50% of Americans who make less than $35k per year.
Unaffordable Coal burning cars that will make the price of household electricity skyrocket that can't possibly be supported by the current power grid infrastructure that is barely making due without tens of millions of these things on the road every day is not a legitimate answer.
Maybe you could figure it out if you weren't sending hundreds of Billions to Ukraine and Trillions to Rayethon and Boeing to make better killing machines, or enriching Pfizer to make more boner pills and happy pills that turn regular people into monsters.
untry ) where most people are rich:
80% of new cars sold in Norway are now electric vehicles
January 3, 2023 / 7:18 AM / AFP
Oslo, Norway — Electric vehicles accounted for almost four out of every five new car registrations in Norway last year, setting a new record, according to figures released Monday. Led by U.S. carmaker Tesla, which topped the list with a 12.2% market share, 138,265 new electric cars were sold in the Scandinavian country last year, representing 79.3% of total passenger car sales, the Norwegian Road Federation (OFV) said in a statement.
In doing so, Norway, which is both a major producer of oil and gas, as well as a pioneer for zero-emission cars, comfortably beat the previous record of 64.5% set in 2021.
Comparatively, electric cars made up just 8.6% of new car registrations in the European Union over the first nine months of 2022.
Shift to EVs too slow to avoid "climate catastrophe," report says
In December alone, electric cars hogged 82.8% of sales as Norwegian households rushed to buy them before a tax change came into force in 2023.
Norway aims for all new cars to be "zero emission" — in other words, electric or hydrogen - by 2025.
"Eight out of 10 people choosing fully electric instead of combustion engines is a considerable step towards Norway reaching its climate goal of 100% BEV [battery electric vehicle] sales in 2025," said Christina Bu, Secretary General of the Norwegian Electric Vehicle Association.
Enough chargers? EV push fuels infrastructure concerns
"Our message to the rest of the world is crystal clear: Now there is no excuse for the internal combustion engines' unnecessary pollution when the climate crisis is so urgent to solve," she said in a statement.
To promote sales in Norway, EVs have benefitted from being tax-free, as well as being charged lower fares for road tolls and public parking.
But with their popularity growing, and subsequent loss of income for the state, Norwegian authorities have started to roll back some of the benefits.
As of January 1, the 25% sales tax exemption on the purchase of new electric vehicles applies only to the first 500,000 Norwegian kroner (about $50,500) of the price.
About one in five cars on Norwegian roads are currently electric.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/electric-vehicle-europe-norway-tesla-sale
s/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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ExxonMobile predicted global warming with 'shocking skill and accuracy' starting in 1977
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/01/harvard-led-analysis-fi
nds-exxonmobil-internal-research-accurately-predicted-climate-change/
Carl Sagan testifying before Congress in 1985 on climate change
That massive changes have occurred is clear from the historical record. For example, Egypt was once the breadbasket of the Roman Empire. It may be the same role as the American Midwest plays today. That is certainly no longer the case. It’s not a greenhouse effect issue. It may be an overgrazing issue, but it is an example of how humans are perfectly capable of making these unexpected and inadvertent changes.
Because the effects occupy more than a human generation, there is a tendency to say that they are not our problem. Of course, then they are nobody’s problem, not on my tour of duty, not on my term of office. It’s something for the next century. Let the next century worry about it. But the problem is that there are effects, and the greenhouse effect is one of them which have long time constants. If you don’t worry about it now, it’s too late later on. And so in this issue, as in so many other issues, we are passing on extremely grave problems for our children when the time to solve the problems, if they can be solved at all, is now. . . .
As you’ve heard, the best estimates, they certainly have some uncertainty attached to them, are that at the present rate the burning of fossil fuels, the present rate of increase of minor infrared absorbing gases in the Earth’s atmosphere, that there will be a several centigrade degree temperature increase on the Earth’s global average by the middle to the end of the next century. And that has a variety of consequences, including redistribution of local climates and, through the melting of glaciers, an increase in global sea level. There is concern on a somewhat longer time scale about the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet and a general rise of many meters in sea level. . . .
I’d like to close by just saying a few words on the kind of perspective that this problem, as related problems, pose to us. Here is a problem that transcends our particular generation. It is an intergenerational problem if we don’t do the right thing now, there are very serious problems that our children and grandchildren will have to face.
More at https://theanalysis.news/carl-sagan-testifying-before-congress-in-1985
-on-climate-change/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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