Get Energy Smart! NOW!

When it comes to ACCCE, Duke Energy and Alstom Just Did It.

When it comes to the US Chamber of Commerce, PG&E and PNM Resources Just Did It.

When it comes to the US Chamber of Commerce, Nike Just Can’t Seem to Do It.

What is it?  Reconciling a Corporation’s affiliation with scientific understanding of climate change issues and its Corporate affiliations and memberships.
Duke, Alstom, PNM Resources, and Nike all agree that climate change is real, that it is driven by human activity (primarily burning of fossil fuels), and that action (framed by government policy) is necessary to create the conditions for avoiding catastrophic climate change.

The American Coalition for  Clean-Coal Electricity (ACCCE) is a coal-industry front organization that has been fighting, hard, against meaningful US action on climate change.  Duke Energy and Alstom were ACCCE members who chose to leave the organization due to fundamental differences between their understanding of science and ACCCE’s “negative” approach. As Alstom’s CEO put it,

We simply didn’t agree with their position, which was a negative position.

We’ve adopted the US CAP position, which we see as a positive position.

We couldn’t, could we, remain members of two organizations with such different messages?

Like ACCCE, the US Chamber of Commerce has been using its prominence and its resources to fight progress to the prosperity of a clean-energy economy.  Thus, PNM Resources just announced its departure from USCOC:

At PNM Resources, we see climate change as the most pressing environmental and economic issue of our time.  Given that view, and a natural limit on both company time and resources, we have decided that we can be most productive by working with organizations that share our view on the need for thoughtful, reasonable climate change legislation and want to push that agenda forward in Congress.  These organizations include the Edison Electric Institute, the association of shareholder-owned electric companies, and the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a group of businesses and environmental organizations of which we are a founding member.

Nike has quite publicly stated  its strong frustration with the USCOC over climate issues.

“Nike fundamentally disagrees with the US Chamber of Commerce’s position on climate change and is concerned and deeply disappointed with the US Chamber’s recently filed petition challenging the EPA’s administrative authority and action on this critically important issue.

Nike believes that climate change is an urgent issue affecting the world today and that businesses and their representative associations need to take an active role to invest in sustainable business practices and innovative solutions to address the issue. It is not a time for debate but instead a time for action and we believe the Chamber’s recent petition sets back important work currently being undertaken by EPA on this issue.

Nike helped to found BICEP, a coalition of businesses supporting congressional action to address strong U.S. climate and energy legislation. Nike has worked to address its own environmental footprint through the development of more sustainable products, energy efficiency programs and emission reductions.”

Despite Nike “fundamentally disagree[ing] with the US Chamber of Commerce’s position on climate change,” unlike Duke Energy, Alstom, PG&E, PNR Resources and others, Nike Just Can’t Do It.

Sigh …

Nike …

JUST DO IT!