Sep 22 2009
Irreconcilable Differences
In the past several weeks, two high-profile companies - Duke Energy and Alstom - publicly gave up their membership in the American Coalition for Clean Coal Energy in protest over its opposition to federal climate change legislation.
Other companies that similarly favor climate change legislation faced uncomfortable questions this summer over their memberships in similar groups that have mounted aggressive campaigns to defeat pending climate bills.
Most responded to critics by pointing out that climate change is only one of many issues these organizations address.
Fair enough. But not every issue is created equal, and sometimes companies decide they have to take a more decisive stand on the really big ones.
Duke and Alstom made that decision. Now PG&E has as well.
In a letter to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, PG&E Chairman and CEO Peter Darbee cited "fundamental differences" over climate change to explain why the company is pulling out of the organization, despite the Chamber's "long history as a positive force for America's businesses and its economy."
The letter criticized the Chamber for taking an extreme position on climate change, which Darbee said does not represent the range of views among Chamber members. In particular, he took the Chamber to task for its recent demand that there be a "Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century" to challenge the science on climate change:
We find it dismaying that the Chamber neglects the indisputable fact that a decisive majority of experts have said the data on global warming are compelling and point to a threat that cannot be ignored. In our opinion, an intellectually honest argument over the best policy response to the challenges of climate change is one thing; disingenuous attempts to diminish or distort the reality of these challenges are quite another.
Darbee also drew a sharp contrast between the Chamber's approach and the constructive, consensus-driven positions forged by Edison Electric Institute and the U.S. Climate Action Partnership.
Instead, he said, "I fear it has forfeited an incredible chance to play a constructive leadership role on one of the most important issues our country may ever face."
Brian Hertzog assisted with this posting.
3 Comments
Leave a comment
Search NEXT100
About
- About the Blog
- About the Bloggers
- > Jonathan Marshall
- > Leonard Anderson
- > Katie Romans
- > Kory Raftery
- > Jana Morris
Recent Posts
Subscribe to Blog
Contact Us
Categories
Blog Roll
- Green Business
- > Corporate America: Making the World a Better Place...Or Not
- > Environmental Capital
- > Environmental Leader
- > Green Biz
- > The Business of Green
- > Two Steps Forward
- Green Tech
- > Cleantech Blog
- > Earth2Tech
- > EcoGeek
- > Green Tech Media
- > Green Wombat
- > Green Pastures
- Energy
- > Future Energy Investor
- > Peak Energy
- > Renewable Energy Access
- > EnergyBlogs
- > The Oil Drum
- > Johnson Controls: Your Energy Forum
- > True Blue Natural Gas
- Green
- > Switchboard
- > Gristmill
- > Treehugger
- > Worldchanging
- Technology
- > All Things D
- > O'Reilly Radar
- > TechCrunch
PG&E certainly doesn't need to spend $123 to own the NIPCC 'report' - the cut-and-paste efforts of Singer & Idso. Fred Singer has long toiled for lucrative causes, such as denying both climate change and the connection between tobacco smoke and lung cancer. Craig Idso was once a little known agricultural scientist.
The myth of denialists is that the IPCC ignored the objections of critics. The record actually shows that IPCC authors painstakingly responded to even the dumbest of the suggestions. They solicited and received hundreds of public comments. The record of all comments and all responses is available at
http://hcl.harvard.edu/collections/ipcc/.
Comment by Jay Alt on October 7, 2009
What is PG&E's official position regarding "Climate Change Reconsidered: The 2009 Report of the NONgovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC)"? This is the 880 page report found at this web site, http://www.nipccreport.org/ which is an authoritative, detailed rebuttal of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) findings, which the Obama Administration and many European governments rely on for their regulatory proposals. . . .
Has PG&E done its own due diligence assessments of IPCC reports to assure its customers and viewers of its web site that information conveyed by PG&E on the issue of global warming is above reproach?
Is PG&E able to demonstrate how energy sustainability and stewardship of the environment are synonymous with CO2 regulation?
Comment by Roald A on September 23, 2009
Pacific Gas and Electric has won my affection for standing up to the Chamber rhetoric.
Comment by Steve McCollough on September 23, 2009