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Recent Posts by Marc Gunther
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I’m writing this post on my Apple PowerBook G4, which ordinarily does very well what I need it to do—except that right now it is sitting on my lap and giving off enough heat to keep me warm on a cool day. That might be welcome if today were a February day in Denver. But it’s August. I’m in the mile-high city where the sun always seems to shine to moderate a discussion on sustainability for Coca Cola Enterprises, the big bottling company; to attend a bunch of events on the environment and energy; and to soak up the atmosphere as the Democrats and thousands of hangers-on here to nominate Barack Obama. The Coke discussion went well, I thought—participants included the major of Atlanta, Shirley Franklin, who talked about the drought and water conservation, Majority Leader Steny
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The other day, John McCain visited an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico to call for more offshore drilling. The massive Chevron rig produces 10,000 barrels of oil a day. Meanwhile, I just filled up my new Honda Fit with gas for the first time. After driving 282 miles, I bought 9.47 gallons at $3.62 a gallon. So I’m getting 29.6 mpg, mostly in the city. What’s the connection? The actions of millions of Americans like me—as we trade big cars for smaller ones, drive less, or do both—are going to have a whole lot more impact on oil prices, more quickly, than drilling for more oil. In fact, they already are. Gas prices have been falling by more than a penny per day and the price of oil has dropped from about $147 a barrel to about $115 a barrel in the last couple of months for one
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Not only is the world flat, it is amazingly interconnected. Who would have thought that Oreos or Cheez-Its could contribute to deforestation and global warming? Today’s Sustainability column at fortune.com and cnnmoney.com looks at palm oil, the commodity that connects hundreds of products on supermarket shelves to the disappearing tropical forests of Malaysia and Indonesia. Enviros who take a confrontational approach (Rainforest Action Network) as well as those who prefer to consult or collaborate (Conservation International, WWF) are attacking the palm oil problem. So are big agribusiness companies like ADM, Bunge and Cargill, although they’re not moving fast enough or far enough to satisfy the activists at RAN. Interestingly, the palm oil story appears to be following a script
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The Environmental Working Group looked at nearly 1,000 sunscreen products and found that “4 out of 5 contain chemicals that may pose health hazards or don’t adequately protect skin from the sun’s damaging rays. The Natural Resources Defense Council analyzed household air fresheners and found that “most contain chemicals that may affect hormones and reproductive development, particularly in babies. The EPA was so concerned about keeping rodenticides—rat and mouse poisons—out of the hands of children that the agency ruled this spring that four of the most most hazardous types of pesticides will no longer be sold for personal use These days, it seems like you can’t open the newspaper or, worse, search the Internet without hearing about the dangers of ordinary household
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While carbon offsets are controversial and always will be, they have enormous potential to promote an elusive goal: sustainable development. At their best, carbon offsets are a low-cost way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, transfer clean technology to poor countries and help people out of poverty. Which brings us to JPMorgan Chase and cook stoves. The global Wall Street investment bank has begun subsidizing the production and distribution of efficient cooking stoves in Africa, an effort that could expand to India and southeast Asia as well. The project is the topic of today’s Sustainability column on fortune.com and cnnmoney.com. Here’s how it begins: By any measure, it is a long way from the Park Avenue headquarters of JPMorgan Chase, the global investment bank that
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Lieberman-Warner, Going Nowhere
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The formation of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership was a landmark moment in the long history of efforts to get the federal government to regulate greenhouse gases. But the alliance of big companies and NGOs has split over the Lieberman-Warner bill that is headed for the Senate floor—without enough votes to pass. That’s the topic of today’s Sustainability column at fortune.com and cnnmoney.com.
The issue dividing corporate America is how to auction or allocate the permits to emit greenhouse gases, and what to do with the funds raised at auction. As much as $150 billion could be raised in the program’s first year. I wrote a column about this called The $3 trillion climate change battle a few weeks ago.
Yesterday, I talked to Jim Rogers, the CEO of Duke Energy, who opposes Lieberman-Warner because it would require his company and others that burn coal to spend billions buying permits. That seems fair, on the face of it; these companies are the polluters, after all. But as he notes, regulators urged utilities to build coal plants in the 1970s and 1980s. Their higher costs will be passed on to customers. And the revenues generated by auctioning permits are designated for a long list of Senators’ pet projects, some only tenuously related to climate change. It’s the ultimate in earmarks, he argues. Agree with him or not, it’s a potent political argument.
I’m coming around to the belief that writer and activist Peter Barnes’ cap-and-dividend plan deserves serious consideration. He would auction all of the permits, and then rebate the monies to Americans on a per capita basis. This would help people offset higher energy costs—which are inevitable, once a price is put on carbon—and also reassure people that a climate-change bill is not a tax increase in disguise. It would also help build long-term political support for GHG regulations. And it has the benefit of simplicity. Republican Sen. Corker of Tennessee has an amendment to Lieberman-Warner that would accomplish most of these goals.
Here’s how the column begins:
An influential coalition of Fortune 500 companies and environmental groups that was formed to support climate-change legislation has splintered over the Lieberman-Warner bill that is headed next week to the Senate floor.
The U.S. Climate Action Partnership formed last year won’t take a position on the bill, although nine of its members - including General Electric (GE, Fortune 500), Alcoa (AA, Fortune 500) and four utility companies - signed a letter to senators backing the legislation.
The letter, also signed by big environmental groups and obtained by Fortune, says: “Prompt action on climate change is essential to protect America’s economy, security, quality of life and natural environment.”
But other members of the coalition known as U.S. Cap, most visibly Duke Energy (DUK, Fortune 500), a coal-burning utility, are strongly opposed. “It’s going to translate into significant electricity price increases,” says Jim Rogers, Duke’s CEO.
Without widespread corporate support, passage of the bill - already a long shot at best - becomes even more unlikely this year.
It’s disappointing, if not surprising, that the climate change bill won’t pass this year. But it’s encouraging that the argument is now mostly about the details–not about the question of whether we need to regulate greenhouse gases. And remember that presidential candidates Obama, Clinton and McCain all support the idea.
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