World Economic Forum Aims to Weaponize ESG Metrics
After a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic, the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting has returned to Davos, Switzerland. This year, the usual list of billionaires, world leaders, and global “elites” are gathering in the swanky ski town for a four-day bonanza of lavish festivities, five-course meals, exclusive cocktail parties, and discussion panels, all while they plan the future of the global economy and society in general.
So far, the annual meeting has included the typical talking points about the greatness of globalism, the existential threat of climate change, and the need for the WEF’s pet project known as the Great Reset.
However, for those of us assiduously watching the livestreamed discussion panels (of which there are dozens), one cannot help but notice the prevalence of conversations regarding the inherent virtues of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) scores. Or so they say.
In a nutshell, ESG investing is the latest scheme concocted by globalists, big banks, big business, and many other nefarious actors so they can wield near-total control over the worldwide economy and socially engineer society to their liking.
Although this may sound like a far-fetched plotline straight from the next James Bond film, it is here and it is even scarier than anything Hollywood could ever conjure up.
According to the WEF, ESG scores are the foundation for “stakeholder capitalism,” which the WEF assumes will replace “shareholder capitalism” in the near future.
As the WEF describes it, “Business has now to fully embrace stakeholder capitalism, which means not only maximizing profits, but use their capabilities and resources in cooperation with governments and civil society to address the key issues of this decade. They have to actively contribute to a more cohesive and sustainable world.”
To achieve this new world order, WEF proposes the universal enactment of ESG metrics, which it says, “will drive environmental and social change.”
To date, many of the world’s largest companies, especially investment firms and big banks, have jumped on the ESG bandwagon.
For instance, here is Bank of America Chairman and CEO Brian Moynihan’s startling endorsement of ESG: “Take our 200,000 people, $3 trillion balance sheet, $60 billion of expenses – you start aiming that gun and you take that across all these companies – it’s huge.”
Moynihan added that ESG scores are “statements of what capitalism can do to solve what the world needs – the Sustainable Development Goals.” To achieve these so-called goals, Moynihan said, “It takes $6 trillion to finance those a year and the only way you’re going to do it – charity can’t do it, they don’t have the money, governments don’t have the fiscal capacity, capitalism has to do it.”
Of course, one person’s definition of Sustainable Development Goals is another person’s definition of worldwide crony capitalism. No wonder big business and big finance are going gaga over ESG. If implemented on a worldwide level with a “harmonized standard,” ESG metrics would allow global corporations and investment behemoths like BlackRock to channel trillions of dollars to companies and industries that play nice with ESG.
In other words, ESG scoring empowers multinational corporations and big banks to reward those who are onboard the ESG bandwagon with access to capital while penalizing “bad” companies with poor ESG ratings by restricting access to capital.
As Moynihan describes the new scheme, “It’s actually the operating companies that will make the change happen … and the activities they force downstream are just unbelievable.”
The problem is that ESG scores are completely subjective, subject to change at a moment’s notice, and do not align with the fiduciary responsibility of every business, which is to maximize shareholder value by producing quality goods and services at competitive prices.
Shareholder capitalism, though far from perfect, is the best way to increase prosperity, improve living standards, and drive innovation. Stakeholder capitalism, predicated on universal ESG scores, on the other hand, is just the latest scheme by globalists in their never-ending quest to increase their wealth and power.
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Carbon fear is the new normal
James Macpherson
The thing I find most frightening about the World Economic Forum is that they keep saying the quiet bits out loud.
How confident must they be in their ability to run the world that they don’t try to hide their ambition?
WEF boss Klaus Schwab told suits gathered in Davos last week:
‘The future is not just happening, The future is built by us. By a powerful community of you in this room. We have the means to improve the state of the world.’ Humility is clearly not a trait of the elites.
Oh, and that’s not me calling them elites, that’s how they refer to themselves. As Oxford professor of Global Economic Governance, Ngaire Woods, told a WEF gathering in November:
‘The good news is the elite across the world trust each other more and more. So we can come together and design and do beautiful things together. The bad news is that, in every single country, the majority of people trusted their elites less.’
In other words:
‘We are the elite. Ordinary people don’t like us and so ordinary people are a problem…’
It was delivered casually, calmly, and without a crumb of circumspection.
And why should the self-appointed elite be circumspect about their abilities, or about their grand designs?
They are smart. They wear thousand-dollar suits. They run major corporations. They run governments. They own jets. Oh, and did I mention how smart they were?
They are so smart they are developing technology to track every person’s individual carbon footprint.
And they are so chock full of confidence after the success of Covid that they don’t mind telling us about it.
From the same unelected, unrepresentative technocrats who – without you ever asking for it – brought you ‘The Great Reset’, ‘Build Back Better’, ‘The New Normal’, ‘The Fourth Industrial Revolution’, and ‘Just Eat Bugs’ comes this gem…
‘We’re developing, through technology, an ability for consumers to measure their own carbon footprint.’
‘Hurray!’ said nobody outside of Davos.
J. Michael Evans, president of Alibaba Group, a Chinese e-commerce company, went on to explain:
‘What does that mean? Where are they travelling? How are they travelling? What are they eating? What are they consuming? So, individual carbon footprint tracker. Stay tuned. We don’t have it operational yet, but this is something that we’re working on.’
How thoughtful of a Chinese company, where social credit scores are already a thing, to create an app by which we can all track our emissions.
The problem, of course, is that when globalists say ‘ability for consumers to measure their own carbon footprint’ what they really mean is ‘ability for us to measure your carbon footprint’.
Imagine an app that people with multiple waterfront mansions, yachts, cars and private jets can use to track what the average person living in a three-bedroom brick and tile in the suburbs is having on his pizza Friday night.
All of this is necessary, of course, because ‘climate’. And ‘health’.
The carbon tracker will be voluntary at first. But what the naïve climate botherers will regard as a helpful novelty for self-monitoring will really be the globalist camel putting its nose inside the tent.
Before long, use of the carbon tracker will be a condition of receiving certain government services.
This will create the illusion of choice. And we’ve all been here before. The Covid vaccination wasn’t mandatory, remember. You were free to reject the jab if you were happy to lose your job and be banned from Kmart.
Finally, the carbon tracker will be mandated and fully integrated into our digital identity. What will be sold to us as self-monitoring will become mass monitoring?
The elites know they can do this because they’ve already had a trial run. Covid wasn’t all doom and gloom, only for the proles, you see.
The wet dream of the elites is that one day soon he will be able to tell you your vacation has been cancelled because you already used your carbon allotment.
‘Please walk home and keep your energy use to under two hours a day for the next six weeks. Failure to comply will lead to funds in your digital wallet being frozen. Have a nice day.’
You think I’m exaggerating?
Pfizer president Albert Bourla told the WEF meeting in Davos they are working on tablets that contain biological chips.
‘And once you take the tablet and it dissolves into your stomach it sends a signal that you took the tablet. So imagine the implications of that, the compliance,’ he said.
If they say these things out in the open, imagine what they say behind closed doors! Don’t worry, it was immediately tagged as fake news by social media fact checkers for ‘lacking context’ and being filmed at Davos in 2018 instead of 2022… It is unclear how saying something earlier makes it any less true.
Of course, the people proposing a carbon emissions tracker have no intention of applying it to themselves.
For all their hand-wringing about the environment, the World Economic Forum delegates didn’t fly to Davos on magic carpets.
The carbon tracker will stop working the moment you can afford your own private jet. It will be a case of carbon tracking for thee, but not for me.
https://spectator.com.au/2022/05/carbon-fear-is-the-new-normal/
**************************************************California To Begin Removing Hydro Dams On Klamath River
The State of California is about to begin removing the first of four dams on the Klamath River — despite an extreme drought and a looming electricity generation crisis — to improve habitat for migratory salmon and satisfy Native American groups.
As the Associated Press (via Breitbart News) noted earlier this year, President Biden’s administration reversed course after President Donald Trump’s administration blocked the dam removal on California’s second-largest river, which was planned in 2016 after California and Oregon signed an agreement to demolish the dams but still required federal approval.
Now, the demolition has been scheduled for 2023, awaiting only confirmation that dam removal itself would not harm fish.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported Saturday:
The first of four aging dams on the Klamath River, the 250-mile waterway that originates in southern Oregon’s towering Cascades and empties along the rugged Northern California coast, is on track to come down in fall 2023. Two others nearby and one across the state line will follow.
The nearly half-billion dollars needed for the joint state, tribal and corporate undertaking has been secured. The demolition plans are drafted. The contractor is in place. Final approval could come by December.
Now, among the last acts of preparation, scientists are trying to make sure the fish and wildlife that are intended to benefit from the emergence of a newly wild river will thrive. While the decision to remove the hydroelectric dams was financial, it was urged —and enabled — by those hoping to see a revival of plants and animals in the Klamath Basin.
The state has not built new reservoir capacity in four decades, while California’s population has continued to grow, making the ongoing three-year drought even more onerous.
Moreover, the state has suffered blackouts in heat waves due to the lack of sufficient energy, as fossil fuel power plants are phased out, along with nuclear power plants. Solar and wind power are not yet able to make up the missing power supply because they are unreliable in calm conditions and in overcast weather.
Earlier this month, the California Coastal Commission rejected a plan to build a desalination plant in Orange County that would alleviate water shortages, as desalination has successful done in San Diego County and in Santa Barbara.
https://principia-scientific.com/california-to-begin-removing-hydro-dams-on-klamath-river/
************************************************Now steak and sausages are off the menu! Australians told to give up MEAT as part of woke academics' plan to save the world from climate change
This is an old song. It is never likely to get large-scale support
Australians will need to give up their weekly steaks and turn 'flexitarian' to meet climate change targets and hit net zero by 2050, according to academics.
Aussie meat-eaters are blamed for accelerating the crisis in a new book by Sydney University's Dr Diana Bogueva and Professor Dora Marinova of Curtin University.
They say one calorie of beef takes a staggering 38 calories to create, causing one-third of all greenhouse gases and wiping out wildlife through land clearing.
The claims have been dismissed by the cattle farmers as out-dated nonsense.
But the academics insist the meat industry needs to be overhauled if the world is to survive - and current farming methods are unsustainable.
'Rather than growing the grain or the food we need for human consumption we are growing the grain for the animals - and then eating them.' Prof Marinvoa told the ABC.
''That's a very inefficient and irrational way of feeding the population.'
She said Aussies were 'addicted to meat', but needed to slash their intake by 80-90 per cent and turn flexitarian by becoming mainly vegetarian with occasional meat.
The academics' book 'Food in a Planetary Emergency' says Aussies need to switch to a diet based on vegetables, legumes, grains, nuts and fruits.
Prof Marinova admits older Aussies may find it hard to make the transition but she said the younger Gen Z population - born after 1995 - are more open to the idea.
But even they draw the line at switching to even more environmentally-conscious insect protein burgers and meat substitutes.
'They are quite keen to increase their consumption of traditional plant-based food such as fruit and vegetables, legumes, tubers,' she said.
'But they are more hesitant to go to alternative proteins despite this industry essentially booming.'
However the wider population has yet to get the message.
The book's authors carried out an earlier study which found meat consumption has gone up dramatically this century
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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Jim Hansen and his twin
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