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The U.S. Ranks Near The Bottom On This Sustainability Scorecard
FYI: The U.S. is making strides in adopting environmentally friendly technologies and supporting other sustainable trends, but it still has a way to go relative to other countries. Regards, Ted
Once again, watch out for bias, or writers who don't understand what they're writing about. This Marketwatch column may be exhibiting both, it's hard to tell:
M*'s take was entitled "Emerging Markets Rank Highly in ESG Ratings". The Marketwatch subheadline reads: "Nordic countries have the highest scores, while emerging markets tend to struggle"
The lead sentence in the Marketwatch column emphasizes the 'E' of "ESG", even though that doesn't seem to be given more weight by M*. Worse, it continually talks about M*'s sustainability ratings as though those were ESG ratings. It even presents M*'s Sustainability Atlas (US score 45.2).
But M* has a different map of ESG ratings (US score 52.5). See the M* article that clearly talks about ESG and includes the ESG map.
"Sustainability Scores consider both ESG Scores and Controversy Scores. ... ESG Scores are rollups of Environmental, Social, and Governance pillar scores and ignore deductions made for controversial incidents."
The article says that the US was dinged for legislation supporting the use of coal that would affect climate change. Aside from the fact that M*'s methodology rates companies and actual actions, not laws, I'm having a hard time finding legislation that facilitated coal-based air pollution. Congress did kill the stream protection rule, but that just made it a little easier for companies to mine coal (and pollute water); it didn't increase demand for actually burning coal. http://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/376522-coal-industry-mired-in-decline-despite-trump-pledges
In short, read the M* page, download the paper if you're interested, but skip this Markewatch article.
"In terms of climate change, ... [a]re these sustainability scorecards rigged?"
You may have missed one of the key points I was making. When referencing a number, make sure you understand what it represents. Climate change is but one part of environmental considerations (M* "incorporates assessments of carbon emissions, waste management, energy usage, and so on"), which in turn is but one part of ESG, which in turn is one of two parts of the sustainability score. "The U.S. looks weak on governance criteria, below India and Turkey and in the same range as the Philippines, Indonesia, and Peru."
Quotes above are from M*'s complete report.
"Back in the 70's the popular global cause was overpopulation."
That was certainly was one popular cause. But another, at least in the US, was how to get off of fossil fuels. Different reason (oil embargos), but same popular cause, then and now. "Concern over dependence on fossil fuels drove rapid growth in nuclear-plant construction in the 1970s and 1980s, especially after the oil crises of the 1970s." https://www.technologyreview.com/s/537816/why-dont-we-have-more-nuclear-power/
Just as fission power had its proponents despite the environmental risks (not to mention nuclear terrorism, nuclear proliferation, etc.), fracking has its proponents, despite its environmental risks. Unlike nuclear, fracking is just a means to producing more fossil fuel, albeit one cleaner than coal. Substituting one form of nonrenewable energy for another is at best (ignoring all the harms and risks) kicking the can down the road.
"Natural gas burns much cleaner than coal. In part because American power plants have been switching from coal to cheap gas, U.S. emissions of CO₂ from fossil fuels fell last year [2011], even as the world set another record. The catch is, methane emissions are rising." https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2012/12/methane/
@Maurice, this is the second or third recent time I am tempted to point out that you did not study the fracking links I provided, except everyone knows you'll say 'I did so, yes I did!' You know, you act substantive, but you are not substantive. You're not lazy, clearly, with all of your energy, but you are not serious and not genuinely thoughtful. Tiresome.
UCS has a concise, footnoted report on impacts of nat gas here, with the same basic message as msf's Nat Geo link. While ng burns cleaner than coal or oil, its life cycle GHGs depend mainly on the magnitude of methane leaks from drilling and pipeline transport. Details in the UCS paper, first section.
Doesn't seem all that complex. Evidently the US is improving (by one set of measures) with respect to CO2 but getting worse with respect to methane emission, which is (by another set of measures) apparently even worse for the atmosphere than CO2. Yes?
Correct, I always research and cite experts when they know more than I do. But then I study them in detail, without glaze.
I would have expected to see a cite to NASA's study - it's current (December 2017) and directly addresses the quoted section, specifically: "The global methane budget is poorly constrained, with multiple sources and sinks all having large uncertainties."
NASA studied the multiple sources and sinks: " the methane budget balanced correctly, [accounting for] both fossil fuel and wetland increases. ... the team showed that about 17 teragrams per year of the increase [in methane emissions] is due to fossil fuels, another 12 is from wetlands or rice farming, while fires are decreasing by about 4 teragrams per year. The three numbers combine to 25 teragrams a year — the same as the observed increase. https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2668/nasa-led-study-solves-a-methane-puzzle/
In other words, about 60% of the gross increase in methane emissions over the past decade is due to changes in fossil fuel production.
The first author of the letter quoted, Robert Howarth, seems to be the go-to researcher for judging methane emissions as especially dangerous. He's also the one cited in the Yale Climate Connections pro/con article, on the con side of greenhouse gas problems using fracking. Though I'm not directly challenging his work here, is he the only expert?
To OJ - In terms of climate change, the problem is at least two dimensional: how much impact and over what time frame. Methane dissipates, CO2 doesn't. To borrow from Keynes, in the long run, the impact from methane emissions may not be severe, but in the long run we're dead.
We are likely to reach a point of no return before the methane dissipates. So there are questions about how to model the impact of methane emissions - over 100 years (small impact), 20 years (major impact), or even 10 years, as suggested in the Scientific American article I cited above.
The average price of electricity to the average residential end user in Massachusetts in January 2006 was 17.41 cents/kWh. See Table 5.6.A on pdf p. 116 of this US Energy Administration report. (All sectors average was 15.69 cents.) https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/archive/pdf/02260604.pdf
The average price of electricity to the average residential end user in Massachusetts in January 2016 was 19.35 cents/kWh. See Table 5.6.A on pdf p. 131 of this US Energy Administration report. (All sectors average was 16.62 cents.) https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/archive/march2017.pdf
17.41 to 19.35 is a total increase of 11.14%. Annualized over ten years, that's 1.06%/year compounded.
I think I got the numbers correct, but I also believe its not the end of the story, because power generation accounts for only about half the cost. (Where I live, it's about 30%.)
Q. Do companies have a social duty to minimize environmental impact?
A. I don’t believe in social duty. Companies have many duties: ... to provide employment to a lot of people
Even if they could produce more at lower cost with robots? Doesn't that make employing a lot of people a social duty? I'm confused. Or perhaps he feels that if something is more immediate and visible, that makes it "more" than a "social duty"?
yeah, I am in the middle of trying (yearly exercise parsing the various providers, like viridian and the many many others) to decide how and in what direction to make 'different decisions'.
one green friend suggested simply sticking w the main provider structure (eversource, formerly nstar) and letting the market (their market) sort it out; dunno
US is at the bottom and now sinking lower. Haven't reread this thread, but I recall pointing out a lot about how methane (and hence fracking, which is bad at containing methane) is a major problem.
Methane makes up only about nine percent of greenhouse gases, but it is around 25 times more effective than carbon dioxide in trapping heat in the atmosphere. About one-third of methane pollution is estimated to come from oil and gas operations.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. A few pictures in this article say more than the text. Though the text is worth a read as well:
Methane levels have soared since 2007 for reasons that still aren’t fully understood. But fracking natural-gas production, which accelerated just as atmospheric methane levels jumped, is a prime suspect. ...
North American shale gas production may be responsible for about a third of the global increase in methane emissions over the past decade.
If the EPA won't address the problems on the supply side (choosing instead to further relax regulations), an alternative is to address the problems on the demand side:
Since June, a dozen cities have banned natural gas equipment in new buildings. Berkeley, California, was the first, followed in the state by San Jose, Mountain View, Santa Rosa and Brisbane. A half-dozen other cities have passed laws to strongly encourage all-electric construction without banning fossil fuels outright.
The joke the US gov't has made of environmentalism and sustainability and reaction to global warming is mind boggling. And I don't want to hear about other countries - that's just a 'watch the Donald' distraction.
There is no Planet B people. We have to shift to rewarding the use of renewable resources and discouraging the use of non-renewable or scarce resources.
Two things need to occur for this to come about. First, we have to start counting ALL costs and benefits of any enterprise. No more ignoring the externalities (e.g. polluting the air that someone else has to breathe, killing pollinators so your crops are pretty and you don't have to cultivate, etc.) Second we need to neutralize fiscal policy when it comes to resources. If you removed all the tax benefits and right-offs, etc. from ALL forms of energy - wind and solar would be the cheapest TODAY (i.e. you don't have to pay for the raw material and the other costs cancel out).
Folks, we're killing the planet for the profit of a few.
Flatulent arrest-ors for all !! If methane is coming from fracking I would think most would be burnt off along with the NG. Take a trip along your landfill site & you'll have a smell of where the methane is coming from. Yes some of this methane is being captured & burnt off with other fuel added to produce electricity.
Natural gas is an efficient, safe, colorless and odorless gas. For easy detection, we add a harmless chemical called mercaptan to give gas a distinctive odor. Most people describe the smell as rotten eggs or hydrogen sulfide like odor.
It smells bad for a good reason - in case of a gas leak! If you smell natural gas, leave the house.
Comments
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-us-ranks-near-the-bottom-on-this-sustainability-scorecard-2018-04-17
Here's one summary of M*'s report (M* has various summaries targeted at different international regions; this one's for the UK):
http://www.morningstar.co.uk/uk/news/166715/emerging-markets-rank-highly-in-esg-ratings.aspx
Once again, watch out for bias, or writers who don't understand what they're writing about. This Marketwatch column may be exhibiting both, it's hard to tell:
M*'s take was entitled "Emerging Markets Rank Highly in ESG Ratings". The Marketwatch subheadline reads: "Nordic countries have the highest scores, while emerging markets tend to struggle"
The lead sentence in the Marketwatch column emphasizes the 'E' of "ESG", even though that doesn't seem to be given more weight by M*. Worse, it continually talks about M*'s sustainability ratings as though those were ESG ratings. It even presents M*'s Sustainability Atlas (US score 45.2).
But M* has a different map of ESG ratings (US score 52.5). See the M* article that clearly talks about ESG and includes the ESG map.
"Sustainability Scores consider both ESG Scores and Controversy Scores. ... ESG Scores are rollups of Environmental, Social, and Governance pillar scores and ignore deductions made for controversial incidents."
From M*'s actual paper, which you can download here: http://www.morningstar.com/lp/sustainability-atlas
The article says that the US was dinged for legislation supporting the use of coal that would affect climate change. Aside from the fact that M*'s methodology rates companies and actual actions, not laws, I'm having a hard time finding legislation that facilitated coal-based air pollution. Congress did kill the stream protection rule, but that just made it a little easier for companies to mine coal (and pollute water); it didn't increase demand for actually burning coal.
http://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/376522-coal-industry-mired-in-decline-despite-trump-pledges
In short, read the M* page, download the paper if you're interested, but skip this Markewatch article.
Over the past few years I've found Marketwatch to be almost worthless as to accuracy and detail.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.atkinson.cornell.edu/Assets/ACSF/docs/attachments/Howarth-EtAl-2011.pdf
https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2015/05/pros-and-cons-of-fracking-5-key-issues/
You may have missed one of the key points I was making. When referencing a number, make sure you understand what it represents. Climate change is but one part of environmental considerations (M* "incorporates assessments of carbon emissions, waste management, energy usage, and so on"), which in turn is but one part of ESG, which in turn is one of two parts of the sustainability score. "The U.S. looks weak on governance criteria, below India and Turkey and in the same range as the Philippines, Indonesia, and Peru."
Quotes above are from M*'s complete report.
"Back in the 70's the popular global cause was overpopulation."
That was certainly was one popular cause. But another, at least in the US, was how to get off of fossil fuels. Different reason (oil embargos), but same popular cause, then and now. "Concern over dependence on fossil fuels drove rapid growth in nuclear-plant construction in the 1970s and 1980s, especially after the oil crises of the 1970s."
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/537816/why-dont-we-have-more-nuclear-power/
Just as fission power had its proponents despite the environmental risks (not to mention nuclear terrorism, nuclear proliferation, etc.), fracking has its proponents, despite its environmental risks. Unlike nuclear, fracking is just a means to producing more fossil fuel, albeit one cleaner than coal. Substituting one form of nonrenewable energy for another is at best (ignoring all the harms and risks) kicking the can down the road.
"Natural gas burns much cleaner than coal. In part because American power plants have been switching from coal to cheap gas, U.S. emissions of CO₂ from fossil fuels fell last year [2011], even as the world set another record. The catch is, methane emissions are rising."
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2012/12/methane/
Yes, US CO2 emissions have been dropping. But there's that big catch. Methane packs at least an order of magnitude more wallop than CO2.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-bad-of-a-greenhouse-gas-is-methane/
NASA studied the multiple sources and sinks: " the methane budget balanced correctly, [accounting for] both fossil fuel and wetland increases. ... the team showed that about 17 teragrams per year of the increase [in methane emissions] is due to fossil fuels, another 12 is from wetlands or rice farming, while fires are decreasing by about 4 teragrams per year. The three numbers combine to 25 teragrams a year — the same as the observed increase.
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2668/nasa-led-study-solves-a-methane-puzzle/
In other words, about 60% of the gross increase in methane emissions over the past decade is due to changes in fossil fuel production.
Here's the full paper: Reduced biomass burning emissions reconcile conflicting estimates of the post-2006 atmospheric methane budget https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-02246-0
The first author of the letter quoted, Robert Howarth, seems to be the go-to researcher for judging methane emissions as especially dangerous. He's also the one cited in the Yale Climate Connections pro/con article, on the con side of greenhouse gas problems using fracking. Though I'm not directly challenging his work here, is he the only expert?
We can look at Politifact, that offers its take on Howarth's statement that "Methane emissions from fracked shale gas are horrendously high; so yes, it’s unequivocally worse for the climate than is coal." (Spoiler: half true) It quotes other experts giving different perspectives.
http://www.politifact.com/rhode-island/statements/2016/jan/24/environmental-justice-league-ri-environmental-just/could-fracking-be-worse-climate-coal/
To OJ - In terms of climate change, the problem is at least two dimensional: how much impact and over what time frame. Methane dissipates, CO2 doesn't. To borrow from Keynes, in the long run, the impact from methane emissions may not be severe, but in the long run we're dead.
We are likely to reach a point of no return before the methane dissipates. So there are questions about how to model the impact of methane emissions - over 100 years (small impact), 20 years (major impact), or even 10 years, as suggested in the Scientific American article I cited above.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/04/23/business/energy-environment/big-windmills.html
https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2018/05/04/ain-easy-being-green/GxmhX5wJDTbcwPSds2JNxL/story.html
https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/archive/pdf/02260604.pdf
The average price of electricity to the average residential end user in Massachusetts in January 2016 was 19.35 cents/kWh. See Table 5.6.A on pdf p. 131 of this US Energy Administration report. (All sectors average was 16.62 cents.)
https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/archive/march2017.pdf
17.41 to 19.35 is a total increase of 11.14%. Annualized over ten years, that's 1.06%/year compounded.
I think I got the numbers correct, but I also believe its not the end of the story, because power generation accounts for only about half the cost. (Where I live, it's about 30%.)
one green friend suggested simply sticking w the main provider structure (eversource, formerly nstar) and letting the market (their market) sort it out; dunno
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/10/climate/methane-emissions-epa.html
If the EPA won't address the problems on the supply side (choosing instead to further relax regulations), an alternative is to address the problems on the demand side:https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cities-are-banning-natural-gas-in-new-homes-because-of-climate-change/
The joke the US gov't has made of environmentalism and sustainability and reaction to global warming is mind boggling. And I don't want to hear about other countries - that's just a 'watch the Donald' distraction.
There is no Planet B people. We have to shift to rewarding the use of renewable resources and discouraging the use of non-renewable or scarce resources.
Two things need to occur for this to come about. First, we have to start counting ALL costs and benefits of any enterprise. No more ignoring the externalities (e.g. polluting the air that someone else has to breathe, killing pollinators so your crops are pretty and you don't have to cultivate, etc.) Second we need to neutralize fiscal policy when it comes to resources. If you removed all the tax benefits and right-offs, etc. from ALL forms of energy - wind and solar would be the cheapest TODAY (i.e. you don't have to pay for the raw material and the other costs cancel out).
Folks, we're killing the planet for the profit of a few.
https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=D1//ep/c&id=34AE7224C9ED886400300DAFE85CBA8BDA49F50A&thid=OIP.D1__ep_c0gRhiwTN26lPPwHaHe&mediaurl=https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BfXln4NCQAAN5z2.jpg&exph=505&expw=500&q=cartoon+-+destroyed+planet+but+made+money&simid=607996222599925663&selectedIndex=0&ajaxhist=0
and so it goes,
peace,
rono
Just my 2 cents, Derf