The Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) factors climbing up the agenda in the banking industry would have banks divest in fossil fuels. This would lead toward a world like that in the 1800’s, the last time the world was “decarbonized”.
Back in the 1800’s, we had no coal or natural gas power plants, and we had not discovered crude oil as something that could be manufactured into usable products. Life was hard and dirty, and most people never traveled 100-200 miles from where they were born, and life expectancy was short.
Today, there is a lost reality that the primary usage of crude oil is NOT for the generation of electricity, but to manufacture derivatives and fuels which are the ingredients of everything needed by economies and lifestyles to exist and prosper. Energy realism requires that the legislators, policymakers, and media that demonstrate pervasive ignorance about crude oil usage understand the staggering scale of the decarbonization movement.
The efforts to cease the use of crude oil could be the greatest threat to civilization, not climate change, resulting in billions of fatalities from diseases, malnutrition, and weather-related deaths.
In the worldwide frenzy to achieve the goal for “net zero” emissions, over the last 5-10 years, “ESG”–standing for Environmental Social Governance–has gone from an acronym that virtually no one knew or cared about, to a cultishly embraced top priority of financial regulators, markets, and institutions around the world. Today, the ESG divesting efforts are applying to all 3 fossil fuels of coal, natural gas, and crude oil.
The Net-Aero Banking Alliance developed with the support from the United Nations, now includes seven of the largest and most influential banks in the United States, including BOA, Citi, J.P. Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, and Amalgamated Bank.
Allowing banks to collude to reshape economies so that they are in line with the preferences of banks and other financial institution is a very dangerous precedent. The American people never voted to give banks this sort of control over our country.
The domino effects from tinkering with the supply chain of crude oil, is supply shortages and soaring prices for thousands of products that support the economies of the world. Products based on oil are the basis of the entire medical industry, all branches of the military, airports, electronics, communications, merchant ships, container ships, and cruise liners, as well as asphalt for roads, and fertilizers to help feed the world. Fossil fuel shortages encourage inflation as it imposes serious damage on the energy and raw materials infrastructures.
Climate alarmism seems to be inexhaustible and if history is any guide, ESGers admitting their mistakes and rushing to undo the damage is not at the top of the list of likely responses. Thus, by divesting in crude oil infrastructure we can look forward to supply shortages of thousands of products manufactured from oil and crippling power prices and unreliable supplies to meet the demands of society.
Read the rest of this piece at CFACT.org.
Ron Stein is an engineer who, drawing upon 25 years of project management and business development experience, launched PTS Advance in 1995. He is an author, engineer, and energy expert who writes frequently on issues of energy and economics.
Photo credit: courtesy CFACT.org
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