Jeff Childers

Suddenly, as the economy’s nose-cone turns back Earthward and heads down, big corporations are ditching — not just ESG — but now their climate pledges too. In bunches. Yesterday’s New York Times carried the story, dramatically headlined:

Calling the sudden corporate change in appetite for wasting profits on the lunatic schemes of climate peddlers a “flip-flop,” the Times seemed peeved and disappointed. The paper blamed the sudden and unexpected loss of climate interest on … wait for it … Republicans! Of course. Oh, and lawyers.

A pesky awkwardly-named group, the ‘Climate Action 100+,’ has been collecting Fortune 100 companies that “pledge” to adopt expensive, useless, and money-wasting green policies. But conservative lawyers have been claiming all this concerted corporate action violates antitrust laws, and on top of that, is usually not in the shareholders’ best interests. Directors, after all, are responsible to shareholders rather than to The Earth, which does not pay their oversized salaries or vote or attend shareholder meetings.

Even if it wanted to pay the Directors, I’m not sure The Earth could even get a bank account, since The Earth includes Russia. Ick.

On Friday, JPMorgan, Blackrock, State Street, and Pimco all pulled out of the Climate Action 100+ group. On the same day. Which doesn’t show concerted action, at all, so stop whining. Oh, and Goldman Sachs ‘declined to comment’ on Saturday, which is not a good sign for that one, either.

While the Times framed the story as bad news, it’s actually terrific news, and it is significant progress. Virtue-signaling climate boondoggles are getting unaffordable.

As I’ve often said, we don’t have many problems that a good recession won’t fix.