Fink Blinks, Pizza Suffers, Whales Die

Clarice Feldman02 Jul, 2023 5 Min Read
When the going gets tough, change the acronym.

Larry Fink, CEO of Black Rock has had better days ,and worse ones are just around the corner. His pet trick to manipulate markets, ESG (environmental social and corporate governance), has become “weaponized” he whines:

 BlackRock CEO Larry Fink is reportedly “ashamed” by the environment, social and governance (ESG) investment criteria debate and argued the term was being “misused by the far left and far right.” “I’m ashamed of being part of this conversation,” Fink said, according to Axios.

Fink admitted during a conversation with the outlet at the Aspen Ideas Festival on Sunday that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ decision to pull $2 billion in assets from Blackrock in 2022 hurt his firm. “When I write these [investment] letters, it was never meant to be a political statement. … They were written to identify longterm issues to our long-term investors."

In a conversation at the Aspen Ideas Festival on Sunday, Fink acknowledged that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' decision to pull $2 billion in assets hurt his firm in 2022, but made clear last year was his company's best with net flows of $200 billion from U.S. clients.

Stop the insanity.

Governor DeSantis is not the only thorn in Fink’s side.

The controversy has led to some Wall Street firms backing down on ESG commitments, with insurers abandoning a United Nations-backed climate alliance becoming the latest example last month. BlackRock has itself been the target of investigations by some Republican-controlled states, and even an investment boycott in Texas.

"I don't use the word ESG any more, because it's been entirely weaponised... by the far left and weaponised by the far right," Fink said. But he said dropping references to ESG would not change BlackRock's stance. The firm would continue to talk to companies it has stakes in about decarbonization, corporate governance and social issues to be addressed, he added.

On the issue of climate change, BlackRock has sought to strike a balance, continuing to invest in fossil fuel companies while nudging them to adopt energy transition plans. It has projected that by 2030 at least three quarters of its investments will be with issuers of securities that have scientific targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions on a net basis.

He may think just avoiding the term will allow his manipulative actions to continue but the earth is moving under his heels. For one thing his corporate governance prescriptives, like those of states like California and some large corporations which mandate racial , ethnic and sex preferences, may run afoul of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent rulings on affirmative action. Corporations and investment funds that compel affirmative action to “diversify” corporate management run the risk of being sued for violating the Constitution. The court has made it clear that it expects equal treatment, and demanding companies hire and promote any preferred class, is an invitation to a court suit.

Just as the Court refused to defer any longer to institutions of higher learning because they abused their status with "progressive" policies, so has the green movement diminished any respect courts, the public and governments may have once given them by engaging in nincompoopery of a high order.

Not a happy Swede.

Sweden, home of Greta Thunberg child climate crusader and once the bright star of the green’s constellation, has backed away from pipe dreams and embraced pragmatism. It is scrapping its green energy targets. Finance minister Elisabeth Svantesson warned that the Scandinavian nation needs “a stable energy system” and wind and solar power are “too unstable to meet Sweden’s energy needs." The country is shifting back to nuclear power, and for good measure is also scrapping its goal of “100 percent renewable energy.

Like Black Rock, the World Economic Forum, and the United Nations, the World Health Organization, the World Bank and the Biden administration continue their unrealistic policies of rapidly switching over from conventional energy to renewables, but as Sweden has, others are realizing how dangerous, damaging to economies, and downright preposterous green policies are.

While once the threatened existence of organisms like pink spotted snail darters was enough to halt construction of a much needed nuclear power plant, now cod, dolphins and whales are acceptable sacrifices for the construction of unstable ocean wind farms. Cod fishing is part of the Northeastern culture, providing a living to many residents, U.S. marine scientists warned that the construction of wind farms off the coast of Rhode Island would threaten the cod and the right whales. Nevertheless the government is plowing ahead with a plan to build a 132 megawatt project that NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric administration)  warned  “  has a high risk of population-level impacts on Southern New England Atlantic cod.”

Collateral damage to appease the green gods.

Fifty blue state mayors in New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland have called for an offshore wind moratorium:

 The mayors expressed concern that the increasing number of whale and dolphin deaths is negatively impacting the ocean ecosystem their communities rely upon. "Our coastal economies rely on a healthy ocean ecosystem to function, and we are increasingly concerned about the environmental impacts offshore wind may already be affecting our communities," the mayors wrote to Congress. "The current level of marine mammal mortality is unacceptable, and we need answers."

According to the mayors, since December, at least 39 whales and 37 dolphins have been found stranded on East Coast beaches near where energy developers have been conducting offshore wind surveys. Over the past five days alone, a humpback whale and six dolphins have been beached near such acoustic surveys which some environmentalists argue disturb wildlife. For months, local leaders, Republican lawmakers and environmental groups have called for a moratorium on offshore wind development and an investigation into wildlife deaths. Their concerns have butt heads with clean energy proponents and Biden administration officials pushing offshore wind.

I think it’s safe to say as opposition to the big idea plans of a net-zero world grows, the green agenda only grows more ridiculous and its credibility further diminishes. New York city just announced a ban on coal and wood-fired pizza ovens. If nothing about the green lunacy has yet alerted Big Apple Denizens to the absurdity of net-zero (not even a ban on gas stoves did the trick) this one hits them in the gut. And it is pure idiocy to deprive them of popular and delicious food on the grounds that these ovens create too many "carbon emissions."

Physicist Dr. Will Happer, emeritus of Princeton University and the chair of the CO2 Coalition, told the New York Post that restrictions on wood- or coal-fired pizza ovens may increase the carbon footprint of pizza in New York City. “To the extent that the wood-fired ovens are replaced by electrically heated ovens, which I suppose is what is intended, CO2 emissions will probably increase,” Happer said.

Maybe the plan will work if everyone freezes or boils to death without energy and is too weakened to eat, otherwise it’s just more green baloney.

Clarice Feldman is a retired attorney living in Washington, D.C. During her legal career she represented the late labor leader Joseph ("Jock") Yablonski and the reform mine workers against Tony Boyle. She served as an attorney with the Department of Justice Office of Special Investigations, in which role she prosecuted those who aided the Nazis in World War II. She has written for The Weekly Standard and is a regular contributor to American Thinker.

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