Especially stupid guff (ESG)
by Not Sure
29 May 2022
In December 2021, ExxonMobil announced it was committing to net-zero Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions from its Permian Basin emissions by 2030. In January 2022, ExxonMobil additionally announced it was going to meet net zero emissions for Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions across its entire business by 2050. They were criticized by environmentalists for not committing to net zero Scope 3 emissions.
Scope 1 is an emission from a source that an organization owns or directly controls. Scope 2 are the emissions that a company causes indirectly when the energy it purchases and uses is produced. Scope 3 are emissions that a company doesn’t produce, own or control but is indirectly responsible for “up or down its value chain.”
Companies can find the data they need to convert direct purchases of gas and electricity into a value for the associated greenhouse gases, but Scope 3 are by far the highest proportion of total emissions and the hardest to calculate and reduce.
Earlier this year, ExxonMobil announced the creation of a new low-carbon sector, which will handle the company's biofuel and carbon capture ventures.
In March, ExxonMobil followed BP and Shell's decisions to exit the Russian market, and announced it was severing all ties with Russia and halting all new investments there. A company press release stated that they stand with the Ukrainian people "as they seek to defend their freedom and determine their own future as a nation".
A year ago, ExxonMobil lost a battle with a tiny activist hedge fund called Engine No. 1. The fund owned a 0.02% stake in Exxon. That is small in percentage terms, but still about $50m worth of shares. Engine No. 1 secured the backing of BlackRock and other big shareholders and got two of their candidates on the board of twelve to push through strategic changes which will force the oil company to “diversify beyond oil and fight climate change”, according to Bloomberg. So now ExxonMobil has at least two board members who are opposed to the current fundamental purpose of the company.
Engine No. 1 is an example of the involvement of environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG). This measures how a corporation works on behalf of social goals. The primary driver is no longer to maximize profits on behalf of the corporation's shareholders. Social and environmental goals are measured, as well as goals of the diversity, equity, and inclusion movement.
A prominent example of the ESG at work are the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the United Nations in 2015. The term ESG was popularly used first in a 2004 report titled “Who Cares Wins", which was a joint initiative of financial institutions at the invitation of the UN.
In the eighteen years since this idea was popularized, the ESG movement has grown from a United Nations corporate social responsibility initiative into a global phenomenon representing more than US $30 trillion in assets under management. These ESG groups and initiatives have been criticized for not achieving their aims but making money from “greenwashing” or public relations green spin.
I researched the founder of Engine No. 1. I didn’t buy his story about being shamed by his children over a dinner into getting involved in socially responsible investing, but it’s a nice bit of PR. Their latest fund is Transform Climate ETF (NETZ). “Don’t divest. Engage.”
“NETZ is an actively managed fund that aims to invest in companies that will drive and benefit from the energy transition. NETZ holds companies that have a strategy to create value on their path to net zero across multiple industries, including transportation, energy, and agriculture.” Biggies in their portfolio include General Motors, John Deere and Company and Shell.
Royal Dutch Shell has been ordered by a Dutch court to reduce their emissions by 45% by 2030. In a May 2021 article in MoneyWeek, John Stepek wrote, “If you make it harder for oil companies to produce oil, then there will be less of it around. If there’s less of it around, it will cost more than it otherwise would have. And as Louis Gave of Gavekal pointed out before this ruling, ‘growing ESG constraints and restricted access to capital mean that Western oil firms are not exactly falling over themselves to drill new wells or deploy new rigs.’”
***
Alan Watt often reminded us that with any explanation we’re given, there’s a good reason and the real reason. And then there is plausible deniability.
In this Redux talk from 27 April 2014 entitled “A Band-Aid Prevention Against Distorted Perception”, Alan reminds us that we get nothing but lies from the media. We are given our perceptions, how we see things. Words and how they are used are critical. “In the beginning was the Word.”
Money, debt, compound interest, bankers. An ancient system of control where religions too can be used to keep people in their place. The All-Seeing Eye. The Eye in the Sky. The ideas are reinforced, and it all seems natural, inevitable, like death and taxes.
Alan talks about how difficult it can be to share one’s understanding of this control system with most folk. “You’ll never meet so many opinionated people as the Average Joe.” They have an ego. They talk. They don’t listen. Neurolinguistics and psycholinguistics are used. The indoctrination is perfect, and people are perfectly indoctrinated. If they haven’t heard something from the mainstream media (and now the alternative media also, which is dialectical control of information) then it cannot be true. “Yeah, sure…how do you know this?” Alan said that people are quite happy in their ignorance. They think that they’re informed. “The art of controlling masses goes back thousands and thousands of years and it’s a science. A science that’s never been lost at any time down through history. It’s always been taught to the select few, you see, and they in turn work for their masters who run the money system which is a great con job.”
***
Forbes published an article on 27 May 2022 entitled “Get Ready For $8-A-Gallon Gas”, in which Christopher Helman posits, “The pandemic killed demand for oil and gas, leaving the world vulnerable to Vladimir Putin’s supply-side punch.” Pretty funny. In this Redux, Alan makes his humorous little comment about demand and supply.
The above article is well worth reading because it so clearly illustrates how our perceptions are managed by the mainstream media. No matter where you come down on the pandemic, average people did not want to see their economies crash down around them. But when “news” is presented like this, everything happening seems inevitable. Most people are clueless of the history of Standard Oil, of the grabbing of the world’s resources by a small handful of pirate-billionaires. It may seem as if the Big Oil-supermajors are victims of geopolitics, caught up in the bureaucratic red tape of saving the planet (Scope 1, 2 and 3) but that is a failure of our perception. Does BlackRock wish to destroy ExxonMobil by pushing them away from oil into renewables? I think not. We are looking at a little cabal of shareholders who are playing the same old game of working for the greater good with themselves at the top, so “they get the greatest goods, you see?”
The first thing you must do for wars (theft of resources) is to get public opinion behind you. Alan talks about Edward Bernays, the PR genius, who boasted that he and his public relations cronies had managed the PR campaign to get America into World War I. Then came the Great Depression caused by the bankers and the Oil Boys who were manipulating all the oil companies under Standard Oil.
While these games play out down through time, we’re kept in constant fear which “grows like a cancer.” Fearful people obey and comply. Civil unrest in Iraq, Covid-19, Russia-Ukraine, inflation, school shootings, Monkeypox. Whatever. Whatever keeps you fearful, worried about money. Basic things like, can you afford eggs or petrol? The media’s job is to terrify you. Terrified people can’t think.
Don’t be afraid but do take some time to read about the 75th World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland which met from 22-28 May, where the World Health Organization (WHO) discussed a possible Global Pandemic Treaty.
***
While we were arguing about gun control and what pronouns the bearded lady prefers, the World Economic Forum also held its annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland from 22-26 May. Nearly 2,500 politicians, business leaders, and members of the media gathered in the Swiss resort town to address soaring inflation, climate change and the war in Ukraine. International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva warned the group of elites that the growing food shortage is "dire," and that the global economy is facing its biggest threat since World War II. Georgieva emphasized surging food prices will continue to make this a "tough year" moving forward.
One of the main areas of focus for this year’s gathering was “ESG”. From the World Economic Forum’s website, “Is Your Board an ESG Leader or Follower? “
“Board members may be comfortable overseeing traditional financial reporting but often struggle to comprehend the growing list of ESG metrics and fail to fully appreciate how a purpose-led, ESG-focused business can build a competitive advantage.”
Could they be “struggling” to comprehend the ESG metrics because it is a bunch of psycholinguistic babble that is meant to obfuscate a bigger, darker agenda and has absolutely nothing to do with running a financially successful enterprise? I mean, not every single corporate executive is in on the purpose behind the Great Reset. A few of them must be scratching their heads.
The WEF advises corporations to Build a strong ESG
story: “A clear, unified ESG story, supported by solid, auditable
evidence, can assure investors, customers, employees and other stakeholders
that the company has mapped out a sustainable future and avoid concerns over
‘greenwashing’. The board and c-suite [most senior level executives] should
again align on the message and agree upon key spokespeople possessing a passion
for and expertise in ESG.”
My translation of the above: Make sure that your corporation’s publicists are thoroughly indoctrinated, greenie/woke/social justice warriors who can sincerely parrot all your virtue-signalling rubbish or that at least they are excellent actors who can feign outrage over the disappearance of the Red-Eyed, Golden-Spotted Tree Frog or the misgendering of a disgruntled non-binary employee who on that day wished to be known as She-Baah.
This is serious, folks. I am just heartsick at the recent drop in stock prices of Netflix. Those poor shareholders!
Whether you look at this as the global takeover by International Socialists/Marxists on behalf of Bankers or the final conflict between Good and Evil, stay cool, think for yourselves, and don’t live in fear.
© Not Sure
Additional reading:
Big oil is
under pressure to cut production – what does that mean for investors?
https://moneyweek.com/investments/commodities/energy/oil/603325/big-oil-is-under-pressure-to-cut-production-what-does
US Shale Is
Holding Back While World Clamors for More Oil
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/world-oil-growth-engine-slow-120031020.html
Get Ready
For $8-A-Gallon Gas
https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2022/05/27/get-ready-for-8-a-gallon-gas/?sh=2260e2976a93
The Real
Reason Big Oil Won’t Save the U.S. from High Gas Prices
https://time.com/collection-post/6156525/gas-prices-oil-prices-oil-and-gas-industry/
Is Your
Board an ESG Leader or Follower?
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/05/is-your-board-an-esg-leader-or-follower/
ESG - how
can we measure how ‘good’ companies are?
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/04/esg-metrics-radio-davos
Stakeholder
Capitalism: over 70 companies implement the ESG reporting metrics
https://www.weforum.org/impact/stakeholder-capitalism-50-companies-adopt-esg-reporting-metrics/
Netflix CEO
says 75% stock drop was 'horrifying, disappointing and embarrassing,'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10863883/Netflix-CEO-says-75-stock-drop-horrifying-disappointing-embarrassing.html
Zelensky warns of ‘hunger catastrophe,’ accusing Russia of blocking
Ukraine’s grain exports
https://news.yahoo.com/zelensky-hunger-catastrophe-russia-ukraine-war-grain-exports-152203177.html
Wuhan Lab
Recently Made Monkeypox Strains
https://americanfaith.com/wuhan-lab-recently-made-monkeypox-strains/
The WHO To
Discuss Global Pandemic Treaty At World Health
Assembly May 22-28
https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2022/05/18/the-who-to-discuss-global-pandemic-treaty-at-world-health-assembly-may-22-28/