Peter Kalis: The ESG Religion

I’ve been thinking about the Environmental, Social and Governance movement lately, not so much as an economic matter as part of my broader meditation on faith. Many people focus on religion as they grow older. Consider it a time-honored way to cram for final exams.

ESG analyzes how companies incorporate concerns about environment, society, and governance in their operations. As one corporate supporter explained it, it “takes the holistic view that sustainability extends beyond just environmental issues.” Some people focus on ESG as religiously as other people focus on traditional religions.

As a Christian, however, I’m fascinated by the young Jewish carpenter from Galilee. In a mere 33 years of life, Jesus Christ gave birth to the world’s largest religion with 2.4 billion followers.

Of course, much was to be expected of someone who walked on water, turned water into wine, restored Lazarus to life four days after his death, and performed many other miracles. Yet I wonder about those miracles, as I did several years ago when I walked next to the Sea of Galilee and sat on a bench where Jesus delivered the Sermon on the Mount. There are no living witnesses to those miraculous propositions and no indisputable evidence. They can’t be proved. And, importantly, they can’t be disproved. It’s a matter of faith.

This brings me to ESG, an emergent faith as zealously embraced by some as Christianity is by others. Yet there’s a crucial distinction: Its claims on our hearts and minds aren’t 2,000 years old and are in fact subject to verification in real time. And, frankly, the “E” of ESG doesn’t fare well. (Nor do “S” and “G” but they will be sport for another day.)

It is central to this curious religion that the climate is changing in a way that will destroy humanity. It’s this fear above all that gives the movement its religious urgency. In theological terms, it’s an eschatology, a view of the end of the world — but crucially, one humanity can determine.

What about the claim that people are dying from rising temperatures? In fact, one half million people die annually from excessive heat while 4.5 million die from excessive cold. We only read about the former. Indeed, modestly rising temperatures save a net 166,000 lives each year, according to The Lancet. As reported by the Danish climate scientist Bjorn Lomborg, deaths resulting from floods, droughts, storms, wildfire or extreme temperatures are 97.6% less than a century ago.

My family and I took the brunt of Hurricane Ian when our street was transformed into a raging river in a matter of minutes. It was enough to

cause anyone to pray to the ESG gods. Yet, as it turns out, 2022 globally had the second weakest hurricane season in the satellite era (1980-2022). The Journal of the American Meteorological Society reports that the frequency in the U.S. of both landfalling and Cat3+ hurricanes has not increased since 1900.

Who doesn’t love polar bears? I would hate to see them fall victim to global warming, as many suggest they are. Yet, as reported by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the polar bear population is now at its highest level in six decades. It’s more than doubled since 1960.

Recently, the ESG bishops congregated in Davos where John Kerry informed the world that 50% of all species have been killed. The right number is 0.7%, according to the International Union for Conservation. I guess rounding up 49.3 points counts as a miracle of sorts. He also said the oceans are “boiling.” They’re not. That would take another kind of miracle.

In 2019, Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez claimed that “the world is going to end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change.” Really? In 2009, former vice president Gore said that within five to seven years there was “a 75% chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during some of the summer months, could be completely ice-free.” Didn’t happen. He also said 17 years ago that the global sea level could rise by as much as 20 feet “in the near future.” Nope.

Here’s a suggestion for the church of ESG by way of the late Christopher Hitchens (an atheist): “If I come up against a pile of evidence that makes it seem as if my first assumption was untrue, I would rather change the assumption than try and change the evidence.”

Almost all global energy in 1800 was renewable. The enormous economic and social progress since then has been fueled by coal, oil and gas. 80% of the world’s energy is still provided by those fossil fuels. Only fools or demagogues believe that renewables will dominate the 21st century.

Lomborg, the Danish climate scientist, sums up the situation this way: “Climate change is a problem, but not a meteor hurtling toward Earth to destroy humanity.” And as Lomborg and many others have pointed out, it’s a manageable problem.

Peter Kalis served for 20 years as chairman and global managing partner of K&L Gates LLP.

First Published March 13, 2023, 12:00am Original Link Archived Link