Billionaires Influencing the Politics of Climate Change/Part 2

Obviously, the fight to balance the economy and environment, with goals of sustaining jobs and commerce while protecting natural resources, is fought on many levels and has incredible mix of influences.  Some are political, of course, or purely focused on short-term financial considerations.

This article, sent to us by Better World Club, is unsettling in some ways but instructive in many ways. We feel strongly that companies can, and most, be part of the solution.  We can't leave them out or lack their ardent support (see this link to the Environmental Defense Fund and their incredible work with companies:  http://edfclimatecorps.org/blog/2014/01/14/along-new-edf-climate-corps-hosts-new-project-offerings-2014).  Of course, some companies and individuals oppose our collective move to cleaner energy, renewables, energy efficiency, certainly government regulation to push new limits. That is OK...they make us think long and hard about the long-term implications of the changes we make today.  We love the discourse.

This is a fairly long article.  We finish it today.

Third Grader, Alice Bellwether, asks her Social Studies teacher if “checks and balances” is now talking about money.

Hush your valid concerns little girl.  Captain Planet has some work to do.

By Noah Grunzweig

"...As the New York Times reported, “Mr. Steyer [has already] poured tens of millions of dollars into a successful 2012 ballot initiative in California that eliminated a loophole in the state’s corporate income tax and dedicated some of the resulting revenue to clean-energy projects. He also has helped finance opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline, appearing in a series of self-funded 90-second ads seeking to stop the project.”

Perhaps you too are thanking the green gods of capitalism; mass accumulation of wealth has nothing to do with political/ideological affiliation.  In our current climate of big money making big policy happen, having some of the wealthiest Americans start to take on Climate Change is a really positive movement (especially considering the enviro-antecedents of said wealth).

Perhaps also, you’ve had the same thought democracy advocates have been losing sleep over since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision; our Representative Democracy is fast becoming a Representative Corporatocracy.  Well, we at the Better World Club want to ease those fears.  You should know, In a Corporatocracy, we will still have representatives making policies, only our representatives will be the men who own Kellogg, Nike, Google, Walmart, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Bank of America, and Farallon Capital Management.  The good news is we won’t need to corporate campaign financing reform as we will all already be dumping billions of dollars into their campaign funds every year to live out various marketed lifestyles … I mean visions of a bright American future!

Does this make you nervous?  Do you want to give up on the massive potential of a Corporatocracy?  Of course not!  If everyone in America is willing to consistently support only companies that fit their social and economic values (occasionally “sacrificing” the feeling of convenience, low cost, status, or personal gain), a Representative Corporatocracy might work out really well!  If not, then we will continue to see a growing imbalance of political power – for better or worse - swaying with tides of corporate and wealthy individual interests. 

Besides, you don't have a stake in this fight anyways, right?"

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