Links tagged “funding”

Incoming U.S. President Joe Biden has promised an “all-of-government” approach to fight climate change that would require federal agencies from the Defense Department to the Treasury to help the administration achieve its goal of sharply slashing nationwide greenhouse gas emissions. ... 

"Every agency is a climate agency now," said Sam Ricketts, co-founder of Evergreen Action, an advocacy group that advised Biden’s transition team on climate change. ...

The Education Department could direct federal dollars toward funding of specialized teachers and programs to raise awareness of climate change and use its procurement powers to assist in the electrification of bus fleets and greening of school buildings.

It’s hardly news that the true cost of generating electricity using wind power is staggering; the cost of doing so offshore is astronomical.

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The government said Thursday it will remove the two remaining wind power turbines it installed off Fukushima Prefecture citing lack of profit in the project, which cost ¥60 billion ($580 million).

At Tesla’s current price-to-earnings ratio, it would take the company almost 1,600 years to make what the stock market says it’s worth. The New Statesman put up a startling comparison. In 2020, Tesla delivered 499,550 vehicles. Yet, its market capitalization shot up to $750 billion dollars. Comparatively, General Motors delivered 2.5 million vehicles in the same year, yet its market value is only $62 billion. Tesla’s price-to-earnings ratio — a comparison of current share price to earnings per share — is roughly 128X (the industry average is 15X), according to Zacks Investment Research. Based on that ratio, it would take Tesla 1,600 years to make the kind of money the stock market says it’s worth.

CNBC: "If you’re like most Americans, you worry about global warming. But it can be hard to know how to channel that anxiety into action that will help the planet." ... 

"In 2021, you may want to allocate some of your money toward funds with a focus on addressing climate change." ... "For a number of reasons, 401(k) plans — which hold nearly a third of all U.S. retirement assets — lag in their environmentally focused funds." ... "Blue Marble, which owns robo-advisor EarthFolio, has been around for 20 years, but Art Tabuenca, its founder, said he’s “seen a dramatic increase in interest over the past two years as climate change and social equality issues have become a major concern, financially and politically, for a majority of Americans.” ... 

"Half the stocks in Betterment’s climate portfolio screen out companies holding fossil fuel reserves and the other half invests in companies with the lowest carbon footprint, Khentov said. The bonds, meanwhile, are linked to environmentally beneficial projects, such as pollution prevention and energy efficiency."

Glenn Greenwald: "The COVID-driven centralization of economic power and information control in the hands of a few corporate monopolies poses enduring threats to political freedom." ... A much-discussed 2014 study concluded that economic power has become so concentrated in the hands of such a small number of U.S. corporate giants and mega-billionaires, and that this concentration in economic power has ushered in virtually unchallengeable political power in their hands and virtually none in anyone else’s, that the U.S. more resembles oligarchy than anything else. ... 

The lockdowns from the pandemic have ushered in a collapse of small businesses across the U.S. that has only further fortified the power of corporate giants. “Billionaires increased their wealth by more than a quarter (27.5%) at the height of the crisis from April to July, just as millions of people around the world lost their jobs or were struggling to get by on government schemes,” reported The Guardian in September. 

Meanwhile, though exact numbers are unknown, “roughly one in five small businesses have closed,” AP notes, adding: “restaurants, bars, beauty shops and other retailers that involve face-to-face contact have been hardest hit at a time when Americans are trying to keep distance from one another.”

Employees are now almost completely at the mercy of a handful of corporate giants which are thriving, far more trans-national than with any allegiance to the U.S. A Brookings Institution study this week — entitled “Amazon and Walmart have raked in billions in additional profits during the pandemic, and shared almost none of it with their workers” — found that “the COVID-19 pandemic has generated record profits for America’s biggest companies, as well as immense wealth for their founders and largest shareholders—but next to nothing for workers.” ...

What makes this most menacing of all is that the primary beneficiaries of these rapid changes are Silicon Valley giants, at least three of which — Facebook, Google, and Amazon — are now classic monopolies. That the wealth of their primary owners and executives — Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai — has skyrocketed during the pandemic is well-covered, but far more significant is the unprecedented power these companies exert over the dissemination of information and conduct of political debates, to say nothing of the immense data they possess about our lives by virtue of online surveillance."

Rogan O’Handley: "Greenpeace, Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund, and Sierra Club all have financial assets in the $100 to $300 million-dollar range. Name a Fortune 500 company and chances are they're writing big checks to Big Green. Banking giant, Citigroup, for example, has committed $100 billion to "combat climate change."

But the real money is at the government level. In 2009 the Obama Administration directed more than $110 billion to be spent on renewable energy "investments" under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act alone. What the taxpayer got for this investment other than long-forgotten $500 million-dollar boondoggles -- like Solyndra -- is hard to say. According to the best economic models, the Paris Climate Accord will cost the world $1 to 2 trillion every year. ... 

Big Green is not poor, not honest, and certainly not powerless."