"The right to search for truth implies also a duty; one must not conceal any part of what one has recognized to be true."
--Albert Einstein
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Note to Sacks of Gold Man....
Posted on 12/14/2009 10:30:03 AM PST by FromLori
NLPC has filed a shareholder proposal asking Goldman Sachs to report on the science behind its embrace of global warming in the wake of the ‘Climategate’ scandal.
Goldman’s ‘climate policy’ is more than corporate public relations. In 2007, Goldman participated in the buyout of energy firm TXU. The transaction resulted in the cancelation of 8 of 11 planned coal-fired power plants after pressure from environmental activists.
It might make wealthy financiers in New York City feel good about themselves to scotch electric generation in the name of environmentalism, but it has negative consequences for ordinary people. Electricity is a basic need, like food and medical care. Cancelling plants while parts of the country face regular power shortages, and raising the cost of electricity for consumers, is positively immoral.
The supporting statement for the resolution reads:
In 2005, Goldman Sachs established its “Environmental Policy Framework,” which stated:
"Goldman Sachs acknowledges the scientific consensus, led by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC), that climate change is a reality and that human activities are largely responsible for increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere."
IPPC, an organization of the United Nations, does not conduct its own scientific research but relies on the research of others, such as the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia.
In late 2008, CRU became embroiled in the “Climategate” controversy, after hacked emails and documents were placed on the internet suggesting that CRU and/or collaborating scientists elsewhere:
1) Sought to exaggerate data supportive of global warming.
2) Sought to suppress data at odds with global warming, including the use of a “trick” to “hide the decline” in temperatures.
3) Sought to exclude scientists skeptical of global warming from peer-reviewed journals, so that their research could be dismissed because it is not peer-reviewed.
4) Exhibited a harsh and political prejudice toward skeptics, contrary to the spirit and ethics of scientific inquiry. CRU director Phil Jones characterized the death of a skeptic as “cheering news.”
5) Destroyed original climate data on which some CRU findings were based.
Global warming is cited as a rationale for “cap and trade” legislation. A 2009 Heritage Foundation study estimated that the Waxman-Markey bill would destroy over 1.1 million jobs, hike electricity rates 90 percent, and reduce the U.S. gross domestic product by nearly $10 trillion over the next 25 years. How is this in the interests of Goldman Sachs shareholders?
In 2007, Goldman Sachs and others bought out the energy firm TXU. According to a TXU press release, the transaction resulted in the cancellation of 8 of 11 planned coal-fired power plants “preventing 56 million tons of annual carbon emissions.” The buyout was “endorsed by Environmental Defense and Natural Resources Defense Council.”
Thus, because of a policy based on unsettled science and pushed by outside pressure groups, millions of consumers will be denied the opportunity to buy more affordable electricity produced from an abundant domestic resource. How is this in our national interest, or in the interests of ordinary Americans?
The resolution itself reads:
The shareholders request that the Board of Directors prepare by October 2010, at reasonable expense and omitting proprietary information, a global warming report. The report may discuss:
1) Specific scientific data and studies relied on to formulate Goldman Sachs’ original climate policy in 2005, as well as data and studies relied on since that time.
2) Extent to which Goldman Sachs now believes human activity will significantly alter global climate.
3) Estimate of costs and benefits to Goldman Sachs of its climate policy.
NLPC became a critic of Goldman’s climate policy soon after it was developed. At the 2006 Goldman Sachs annual meeting, we raised issues regarding the company’s relationship with environmental activists, and a glaring conflict of interest by then-CEO Henry Paulson who also chaired the Nature Conservancy.
We noted that Goldman’s environmental policy closely paralleled the Nature Conservancy agenda on key issues like global warming. Moreover, Paulson’s son Merritt was a trustee of a Nature Conservancy-related group that was the recipient of a Goldman Sachs donation a huge tract of 680,000 acres in Chile. The resolution asked whether these moves reflected shareholder interests or Paulson’s personal interests.
In my remarks at the meeting, I noted that the Nature Conservancy had been mired in scandal in recent years, as detailed in a Washington Post series and in Senate hearings. The group sold ecologically sensitive land at a discount to its own trustees on which they built multi-million dollar vacation homes, and structured land donations so wealthy donors could improperly receive tax breaks.
Goldman's response, delivered by former Sarah Lee CEO John H. Bryan, chairman of the Goldman Governance Committee, was that the Goldman board approved the environmental policy and the Chilean land deal. Bryan specifically denied that the Nature Conservancy was involved at all in the land deal, even though according to its tax return, the Nature Conservancy was paid a consulting fee of $144,000 by Goldman for its involvement.
The resolution failed because it was opposed by Goldman management, but it generated media coverage, including the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times (UK), Reuters, Bloomberg, National Public Radio and The Independent (UK). On April 4, 2006, the Wall Street Journal published an opinion article titled “Green-Nosing” by business writer Judith Dobrzynski. She wrote:
It’s ludicrous to suggest that Goldman’s board acted alone, as if directors didn’t know of Mr. Paulson’s involvement with the conservancy or his advocacy of environmental causes.
Wow. Goldman-Sachs is a VERY connected, VERY important Democrat fat cat.
This should get interesting, but in the end Ubama and the scumbags will go to the wall to protect these animals.
The climategate snowball is rolling. Hold those managers and CEO’s who bought into the fraud accountable. Thanks for posting. This is good news.
Yes that is what I have been trying to show people just how connected and paid off obama is by the banks. His rants about fat cats are laughable nothing more then entertainment for the Acorn types and the 2010 mid terms.
Those banks are working hand in hand with him and in turn they get us to continue to bail them out.
ping
Financial firm + global warming scam = Money. :duh:
Ping.
I will have to tell you I wish we had some warming our high is going to be 16 today then the cold front is moving in tonight -5 not counting wind chill with a high tomorrow of 7.
>>Greens could cause them problems.
These Greens?
Thanks to FReeper Carry_okie.... who wrote in....
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/999451/posts?page=67#67
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Well, who are these guys at the NRDC? It’s an interesting list.
Natural Resources Defense Council Board of Trustees
Chairman
Frederick A. O. Schwartz, Jr.
Partner, Cravath Swaine & Moore; (a British Law Firm) Former New York City Corporation Counsel (under Mayor Ed Koch)
Executive Director
Frances Beinecke
Co-founder, The New York League of Conservation Voters (with RFK Jr.)
Trustee
Laurance Rockefeller
Private philanthropist; Former Chairman, Rockefeller Brothers Fund; Former chairman, Citizens Advisory Committee on Environmental Quality; Trustee, the Laurance Rockefeller Charitable Trust
Trustee
Thomas A. Troyer
Partner, Caplin & Drysdale; Former Chairman, the Foundation Lawyers’ Group; Former member of the IRS Commissioner’s Advisory Group on Tax-exempt Organizations; (no conflict of interest there?) Board member, the Carnegie Corporation of New York
Pres & Co-founder
John H. Adams
Former Assistant US Attorney (New York)
Vice Chair
Adam Albright
Board member, Redefining Progress; Board Chair, Population Communications International; Program Chair, Conservation International
Vice Chair
Alan Horn
Chairman & Chief Operating Officer, Warner Brothers
Vice Chair
Burks Lapham
Chairman, Concern Inc.; Director, Chesapeake Bay Foundation (a relatively benign group)
Vice Chair
George Woodwell
Founding Director, Woods Hole Research Center; Co-founder, Environmental Defense Fund (they banned DDT, Alar, etc.)
Co-founder & Treas
Richard E. Ayres
Partner, Howrey & Simon; Former Chairman, National Clean Air Coalition
Trustee
Patricia Bauman
Member, Pew Environmental Health Commission; Former Manager, National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences; Co-Director, The Bauman Foundation
Trustee
William Richardson
Former US Secretary of Energy; Former US Ambassador to the United Nations;
Former US Congressman (D-NM)Trustee
Michael Finnegan
Managing Partner, J.P Morgan Securities
Is this "Natural Resources" defense, or natural resource SUPPLIERS defense?
Now, let’s look at who gives the NRDC money, shall we?
Top Funders of NRDC
Funder
Total Donated
Comments
Descriptions in bold are major energy investors
Pew Charitable Trusts
$11,568,000.00
Sunoco
moneyBlue Moon Fund
$7,818,735.00
This is W. Alton Jones Money (Citgo)
Energy Foundation
$6,965,000.00
Launched by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The Pew Charitable Trusts, and The Rockefeller Foundation. The Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation joined as a funding partner in 1996, and The McKnight Foundation joined in 1998. In 1999, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation joined to support two programs: the U.S. Clean Energy Program (now the Climate Program) and the China Sustainable Energy Program. In 2002, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation joined to support advanced technology transportation and clean energy for the West.
John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
$5,636,500.00
Bankers Life and Casualty money (investment portfolio unknown)
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
$4,681,097.00
Your tax dollars at work subsidizing the interests of whom?
Turner Foundation
$3,795,167.00
CNN, and a lot more
Public Welfare Foundation
$3,500,000.00
Too confounded to determine
Joyce Foundation
$3,309,445.00
Timber Wealth
Charles Stewart Mott Foundation
$3,022,340.00
General Motors
Ford Foundation
$2,733,300.00
Ford
Beinecke Foundation
$2,150,000.00
Major player at Yale.
J. M. Kaplan Fund
$2,057,500.00
William Bingham Foundation
$1,995,000.00
Homeland Foundation
$1,733,000.00
San Francisco Foundation
$1,654,739.00
Rockefeller Brothers Fund
$1,377,510.00
Them again
McKnight Foundation
$1,365,500.00
Robert Sterling Clark Foundation
$1,310,000.00
Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation
$1,310,000.00
Bauman Family Foundation
$1,226,000.00
Nathan Cummings Foundation
$1,220,000.00
Educational Foundation of America
$1,210,000.00
Richard & Rhoda Goldman Fund
$1,205,000.00
Mertz Gilmore Foundation
$1,201,000.00
Carnegie Corporation of New York
$1,200,000.00
Park Foundation
$1,198,010.00
New York Community Trust
$1,186,821.00
Overbrook Foundation
$1,182,585.00
Surdna Foundation
$1,147,000.00
Bullitt Foundation
$1,122,675.00
William & Flora Hewlett Foundation
$1,075,000.00
Note also the participation with the Energy Foundation
These people are energy investors who use federal money and their own tax-exempt "charitable" donations to fund lawsuits that manipulate access to resources, control processing of energy feedstocks, and set attainment targets in a manner preferential to their own investments.
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Let em eat cake.
*ping*
“”It might make wealthy financiers in New York City feel good about themselves to scotch electric generation in the name of environmentalism, but it has negative consequences for ordinary people.””
Ignorance=strength.
If this guy doesn’t know that Goldman has for years been involved with carbon trading and carbon derivatives, he is worthless. What a waste of paper. Goldman’s “embrace” of global warming, like the rest of the big banks, is old. Global warming scams are good, not bad, for the shareholders and bonus brats.
The more peels that come off this globull warming onion the more putrid and rotten the stench!
This is great! Every company supporting the farce of global warming should be challenged ethically and by whatever other means is available. Use their vaunted ethics codes against them: “Why is XYZ company spending resources on CO2 reduction activities that drain dollars that may result in job cuts when the science has been proven to be unethical at best and criminally corrupt at worst?”
Send this to your company ethics department. Light a fire where you sit.
Thanks hennie pennie.
The whole thing is coming down on their heads.
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