And a big part of the issue is, as you say, Environmental,
Social and Governance ESG, which was really a drive to get rid of coal,
oil and natural gas. See, the environmental was kind of a big
e on that. But we've had a bunch of states that have said,
hey, wait a minute, you're listening to Carrie Lutz's Financial Survival Network,
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the Financial Survival Network. I'm your host, Carrie Lutz. Well ESG is
turning out to not be good business for business. Who would have ever thought
that could be possible? Certainly not yours truly, But my next guest knew
it all along, Steve Gorm. It's great to have you back. If
you've got a question for Steve myself, bet ESG or anything else, shoot
me an email kl at Kerrie Lutz dot com. Steve, great to have
you back. So what's going on here with this ESG stuff. It looks
like the big investment banks finding out this is not a profit boom. The
only company making money off of this is Tesla because they're selling their regulatory AX
credits and we'll see how much that gravy train lasts for right, they have
to a big tex credits sessilat. Yeah. So we've had the Black Brock
and Vanguard, JP Morgan, Pimcole other Wall Street firms that are pulling back
from the climate change pledges. Several of them withdrew from a group called Climate
Action one hundred in just this last month. And a big part of the
issue is, as you say, Environmental, Social and Governance ESG, which
was really a drive to get rid of coal, oil and natural gas.
See the environmental was kind of a big e on that. But we've had
a bunch of states that have said, hey, wait a minute, Texas,
West, Virginia, Florida. I've all said things like, well,
we're not going to use any of our pension funds on your funds, our
pension money if you keep pushing the CESG thing. So they pull back from
that. And then the other thing that has happened is that the renewable energy
stocks are in kind of a tail spin. There's an index called the Renix
Index r e NIXX, which is a list of ropefully the top thirty renewable
energy companies in the world. It's a stock fund index, been around about
twenty five thirty years. Well, that has been dropping. It's doun about
fifty percent in the last three years, the Renics index. And so we
have many of these renewable companies that are just not doing well. And so
I think the big financial firms are going, you know, we're kind of
advising that they pursue these renewables and it's not working very well. Gee,
hey, you know, I learned a long time ago that the only purpose
of business is to make money, all right, do it legally, ethically
and all that good stuff. Now, and when they start with all this
do gooder stuff and woke stuff and equality and equity and all that, that's
when their problems invariably begin. And why have they not figured this out yet?
Steve Well, I think this tremendous public pressure. And we have people
like Google and Apple and Amazon all talking about how green they are and how
they're getting to green electricity for their data centers. A lot of other things.
Those things cost money, though they end up purchasing electricity at a higher
rate, which impacts their stockholders and shareholders. But it is it is in
big park to build their green image with the public. And as long as
the public green thinks that green companies are adding something or doing something, they're
going to continue to do this, all right. So you know, we've
got places like Exxon where these folks have gotten in place on the board.
They're trying to get them to do all this stuff that they don't want to
do. And is that going to change too, do you think? Well,
the oil companies are under tremendous pressure. It's not only on the board,
but many of them are being sued personally liat The suits are trying to
make the board members personally liable for their position on that human caused climate change
is not a problem where their past positions. So many of the oil companies
have caved into this. The American Petroleum Institute thanks you out of a carbon
tax. It's really really very sad. Our world runs on hydrocarbon energy,
coal, oil and natural gas, and everything from our clothes to our smartphones
to the vehicles we use. Not only how they're manufactured, but how they
drive, to the endless rows of plastic bottles in our supermarkets, to our
medicines, which come from hydrocarbons. Our medical supplies come from hydrocarbons at all.
About half the world use a synthetic fertilizer for our food, and much
of the world uses tractors using diesel as well. So our world runs on
this stuff and we're not going to be able to switch from it quickly.
Net zero is just not going to happen. Okay, So, but you
know, these plastic bottles and all this extra waste that we have, like
fast food place, I mean, shouldn't we really be looking to get rid
of that and minimize it. But we do have a problem with plastic waste
in the oceans. It is often overstated, but there's about one hundred million
tons of plastic it's estimated in the oceans, and we're adding about ten million
tons a year. Almost none of that comes from the United States or Europe.
It's mostly from developing nations far east. That sort of thing. So
banning straws in San Francisco isn't going to have a real big effects. But
we do need biodegradable plastics. But that is a real problem to solve,
unlike the problem of trying to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to stop global warming.
That is a not a problem and be probably not possible, all right,
So yeah, I mean I see it like these is the water bottles.
It's like, there's really not a br ar kit to recycle plastic, right,
I mean, no, there isn't a lot of it goes in the
landfills. I'm a tap water guy, I'm not don't give me this bottle
full of water. And the people who are complaining are the ones drinking the
bottled water, the periet and the the van and all that good stuff.
Yeah, but seriously, so should we be switching back to glass, Well,
I don't think so. Really. I think that the key is biodegradable
plastics. Things that break out in sunlight. You know, they might have
a problem where you can't leave a jug of milk out in the sun.
That wouldn't work too well. But but I think that's what we need.
Those are more expensive, though, but the industry is working at it.
There's some other big problems though, too. One is discharge of wastewater.
About eighty percent of the world's wastewater is discharged untreated into rivers, lakes,
and streams. Seven years or so ago, the Olympic swimmers in Brazil didn't
want to swim in the water down there. Brazil's just building their first water
treatment plants. That's that again, is a real problem to solve, not
a big problem with the US and Europe as well, in wealthy nations.
Let's solve that and U pouring all this money to try and reduce carbon oxide
emissions. Okay, so yeah, well I see it all over the world.
You know, I was doing some research because I was in Asia recently
in Yeah Island, and you know, most of the world does not have
a tapwater that is drinkable audible, right, you know, much of the
world. To learn out about about two billion of the eight billion people do
not have real good water. I think, I think the numbers about six
or seven hundred that don't have access to clean jab water. But in other
cases it's not real good. Yeah. Well, for instance, in North
America or in the Americas, I think there's four countries where you can drink
the tap water, not including the islands in the Caribbean that is Canada,
the US. I think Chile and got it. The other country eludes make
In Asia? Maybe what's that that? Maybe? Yeah? In Asia,
there's only five countries where you can drink the tap water Japan, South Korea,
Singapore, and I don't remember the other countries. But most of most
of the other places you've got to treat the water. They have filters.
Like my friends in Thailand, they have a reverse osmosis water filter in their
condo so they can drink the water. But you know, we shouldn't we
be thinking about drinking water tap water, making that pure. Wouldn't that make
a bigger difference than anything else. These those are people are trying to do.
Those are real problems to solve, and we certainly need to do that.
Definitely the case. So rather than again the carbon diox I think,
did you hear what missus former Secretary of State and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has
called for. You haven't been as followed up. She called for us to
track start tracking climate deaths. Oh, if you remember, during COVID nineteen,
we had a daily indicator. You could go online and find everyone who
had a COVID case or a death in a state and iron countries. Well,
she wants to start tracking climate deaths on a daily basis and support a
policeason insane. Hey, so go back to the tap water four cokay,
four countries in the Americas, Canada, US, Costa Rica, and Chile.
In Asia, Okay, much bigger population than the Americas. There's only
seven countries Israel, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Singapore,
South Korea, and Japan. And the only other countries well Western Europe most
of that the water is drinkable there, and then Australia and New Zealand.
I mean, this seems to be a lot bigger problem because so much disease
comes from bad top water. But in any of that, Yeah, so
it's a big deal. Why don't we track deaths by people who get cholera
and dysentery and all these other diseases that come from a dirty water. Oh
yeah, that's the thing. Well, you know, there's there was a
paper just written by Colin Carlson at Georgetown University and he said, we've had
four million climate deaths in the last twenty years. But if you look,
if you look down into the paper, he says, di a real disease
is a reason is one of the reasons for climate is a climate death,
or malaria is a climate death. And even even cardiovascular disease he calls the
climate deaths. So you know, if you call any of those things a
climate disease, you can call anything a climate disease. Yeah, yeah,
which, Hey, the diarrhea specifically comes from from water. We know that,
so all right, so if it's climate death. Hey, so I'll
accept that bad water is climate death. Fix it. That's something we can
fix a lot easier than anything else. Right, We've proven it. You
know, when the United States military sets up a base somewhere, the first
thing they do is put in a water purification unit, right, I mean
this is solvable. Important to problem with that. You know, your listeners
might not know why they invented tea in China about two thousand BC. They
boil They used to boil their water, and when you boil water, it
takes in all little things out of it that make it taste good. So
then they started adding tea. They added tea ingredients, and that's supposedly how
tea was invented early on is because of boiling the water. Hey. So
it's perfect example of what you're saying here, it's like, you know,
if we're going to really look at this stuff and really focus in on it,
then you know, let's let's get real about it. Where can we
make the most difference. I think you spend a billion dollars on water purification
in India or in Pakistan or wherever, you're going to get a lot more
bang for your buck than anything else. Right, Well, the whole climate
movement is a tremendous misallocation of resources. The world is spending about a trillion
dollars right now on renewables, primarily wind and solar, some biofuels, when
all these problems are out there to be solved, not only water, but
there's a number of diseases that kill a million people a year. We're short
of electricity. We have seven hundred million people that don't have access to electricity
and about two billion that have blackouts and brownouts every other day. So there
are a number of major problems to be solved that we need to be putting
money toward, and not toward trying to stop the planet from warming out.
Yeah, well, hey, maybe sanity is coming. Maybe the bottom line
being negatively affected by these misguided goals. Maybe that's going to bring some sanity
here. Huh. We are saying some size of a green breakdown coming.
Yeah, all right, all right, Hey, where do we find your
work? How do we connect with you on the web? Where do we
get your books? Yeah, my latest book, Green Breakdown and Coming Renewable
Energy Failure. They can go to my website Steve Gorham g O R E
H A M dot com. I'll send them a signed copy. Great book
talks all about the energy transition. That's got a lot of great sidebars in
it, like that scientists in Sweden wants people to eat human flesh to stop
global warming. Or the cosmetic surgeon in California was taking human tissue and running
his vehicles on it. That's nice. Hey, you know, why are
they trying to get us to eat bugs? Steve? One last question?
What is it? Why do they like? Why do they think bud protein
is so wonderful? That's what the UN says, it's lower carbon dioxide emissions,
plentiful bugs and no thanks. I'm not going to go into the bug
eating business, but you know, well I won't go into that, but
it is it is another crazy just another crazy idea to stop global warming.
Oh, one more thing, there was a teacher in Utah that was actually
feeding insects to her kids in class as a lesson that they should be eating
insects and the problems with beef and global warming. Okay, I like that,
you know, like you know, that's where I draw the line.
Okay, I want to save the planet, but I'm not eating bugs to
save the planet, right right, And and then you know, you get
well, I don't even want to get into the whole carnivore versus you know,
plant based thing. But plant based uh philosophy seems to be an extension
of this climate thing, right, yes it is. Yeah, the UN
says it something like eighteen percent of global emissions are from agriculture. And if
we eat less be if we can stop that, we have less cattle emitting
methane from the nose end and the tail end, we can stop that.
Okay, Well good, I'm feeling good about things now. If it were
only that simple to solve the world's problems. And wow, anyways, hey
got a question for Steve myself. Kl at Carrie Lutz dot com and make
sure you go to Financial Survival Network dot com sign up for you for newsletter.
A link to Steve's site will be present and we appreciate you coming back
on Steve. We'll talk to you again real soon. Okay, thanks,
carry all the best, Thanks for listening to Carrie Lenz's Financial Survival Network,
your solution to today's trying times. For the latest, go to Financial Survivalnetwork
dot com. Financial Survival Network now more than ever,