Large corporations, especially the large energy enterprises, are the last, though biggest, hurdle to maintaining the planet even in a half-robust state. With their current attitudes and activities, they contribute most to the now ongoing destructive climate events that are set to worsen. People and all of nature need a healthy environment, free of pollution, to live.

Corporations have profited hugely from, especially, fossil fuel extraction and continue on that trajectory despite knowing the dangers. They also stand to lose the most when climate tipping points are reached, when their assets are diminished and investors withdraw their funds. But they could, if they wished, influence those who are yet to acknowledge that climate change has anthropogenic roots, to reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

People Who Live In A Greenhouse Must Reduce Gas Emissions

We all know that the world must reduce greenhouse gas emissions, especially carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. There is a plethora of grassroots organisations encouraging ordinary people to live sustainably, simplify their lifestyles, measure carbon footprints, and make other positive contributions towards reducing their personal GHG totals.

This bottom-up effort must be met by a top-down effort from corporations, in particular, leading the way if the planet is to be fit for habitation by humanity and other species. However, many large corporations are pushing the world in the opposite direction towards ever more consumption of their products, which is leading to the collapse of the environment, worsening climate and will eventually negatively affect society, the financial system and even the assets so cherished by the super-wealthy.

Many people, if not most, in New Zealand succumb to marketing from major corporations touting their products, and who persuade them that the individualistic and materialistic modern lifestyle with all its complexities and trinkets enhances status. People generally don't understand that this contributes to the destruction of ancient forests, pollution of land, water and air, destroys biodiversity, exploits people and disturbs the finely-tuned and interconnected ecology of the Earth. It is the opposite of being life-affirming, which requires a healthy planet providing sustenance for humanity from healthy air, water and soils, to the numerous plant, animal, fungal and microbial species that keep our planet in balanced harmony.

Nature has existed in balance for millennia. Previous changes have usually occurred slowly, giving the interrelated systems time to adjust. If nature is disrupted quickly, as is happening now since the Industrial Revolution when coal and other fossil fuels started to be extracted for private wealth and modern development, then the health of the planet is adversely affected through the destruction of systems that are so tightly integrated that they collapse quickly after the removal of some key elements.

This has happened occasionally in past millennia prior to human existence as shown in Earth's records. Unfortunately, modern society is so dependent now on fossil fuels that the concept of living simply is beyond many people's imagination or ability to cope. The capture of people's lifestyles by corporations' products and the economic paradigm that fuels it, e.g., constant economic growth and consumption, is the major root of the multiple current stresses.

Those beguiled by money appear to be unaware and unconcerned that humanity, also part of nature, depends on nature's myriad complex systems. If natural systems are disturbed, they will negatively recoil on humanity through the destruction of plant and animal species that are relied on for food and other services. We are seeing this in newscasts now, but it will worsen when the planet's tipping points finally wreak their punishing havoc.

Although ecology teaches us that everything is interconnected, human knowledge has explored only a tiny part of the fascinating ecological puzzle. There are so many unknowns that it is dangerous to presume the world is large enough to support endless extraction of resources and engage in destructive practises that devastate nature and the Earth on such a large scale as is happening now. Destructive practises include deforestation, over-fishing and the production and discharge of industrial chemicals. The precautionary principle, which advises extreme caution where scientific evidence about the hazard is uncertain, the long-term outcome is unknown and the stakes yet high, is being totally ignored.

Fossil fuels have formed and been safely stored in the Earth's crust for millennia, providing, by being stored, an environment fit for human existence. The effects of its extraction in the last 250+ years should be sufficient for any thinking person to see that this is unsustainable - the maths speaks for itself even without the science. Taking millennia to form and only hundreds of years to use means that future generations will not have such resources even for other uses.

Scientists have told us what they know about the intricacies of climate change, which is dire, and how it is anthropogenically generated. However, those not wanting to face such inconvenient reality deny scientists' expertise, fuel mistrust, spread conspiracy theories(1) and attempt to disrupt democratic processes. Unfortunately, it's the corporations again who are the largest antagonists in these disinformation efforts.

Passing The Cost Down Onto The Poor

Oil corporations have known since the late 1950s that CO2 emissions would alter the climate if energy extraction continued.(2) However, they refuse to admit the effects their industries have on the planet. They not only work hard to sway governments to weaken policies that would reduce carbon emissions, they also pay very little tax,(3) dodge what taxes they should pay,(4) draw huge subsidies from governments(5) and they can also sue governments for inhibiting their businesses!(6) Their driving force is immediate profit, no matter the injustices being perpetrated.

Corporations and the wealthy reckon on those further down the economic food chain bearing the brunt of any adverse effects of climate and environmental destruction, without considering that those on the lower echelons of society are the very people they need to support their lifestyles. For instance, with climate change likely to impact the poor most of all, the rich who employ these people for low wages to operate the support systems they enjoy, e.g., cleaners, cooks, rubbish collectors and the like, will likely feel the uncomfortable effects when these people are in short supply. Additionally, as we have observed, viruses don't respect wealth or locked mansions. Short-term thinking by governments working around short electoral cycles don't help either.

Prior to our current, multi-faceted predicament of environmental destruction, polluted and over-fished fresh and ocean water, polluted air and warming global average temperatures, the World Commission on Environment and Development published the Brundtland Report in 1987 titled "Our Common Future", which outlined guiding principles for sustainable development as it is generally understood today. It spawned the environmental movement.

The Stern Report of 2006 warned that, while mitigation would be costly, adaptation and repairing damage wrought by floods, droughts, storms and other climate disasters would be many times more costly to fix or live with compared to acting now to reduce carbon emissions.

Corporations Driven By Greed

None of this has swayed most corporations, driven by the greed of huge salary takers and shareholders, to become responsible planetary citizens.(7) The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, described as an atlas of human suffering showed the evidence clearly and articulated in stark terms how nature is severely compromised.

Energy corporations in particular are working to sabotage government attempts at legislating to reduce GHG emissions.(8) They appear to have more effect on government policies than the peoples of the world who need sound governance institutions. Fossil fuel producing countries(9) and financial institutions(10) are also complicit, showing a bankruptcy of ideas and lack of agreement or resolution to change the world's systems for the sake of the planet and future generations.

After approximately 70 years from the first report alerting authorities to the news that continuing GHG emissions will heat the planet to unsustainable levels for life to exist, the knowledge is now generally recognised yet very little is being done to drastically cut GHG emissions and other forms of pollution. Now more than ever oil, gas, coal and mineral resources are being extracted (with government approval especially since the war in Ukraine), forests being stripped and seas being plundered. Forests and the ocean provide our oxygen. We cannot continue to plunder and destroy; it is analogous to unravelling our nest! The developed world has become addicted to fossil fuels, and is taking the developing world down with it.

If resources that are currently extracted were to suddenly disappear, the multiple systems that humanity relies on (food, transport, manufacturing, energy, finance and other systems) would collapse. The resultant food and other resource shortages would result in chaos. However, a heating planet will also result in similar chaos, especially food shortages and subsequent price increases, as land becomes less available and/or fertile, though this is likely to happen more slowly. Either scenario will cause billions to suffer and $ billions in losses.

We know we can expect this because even after the latest IPCC report that spelt out in stark terms the consequences of high GHG amounts in the atmosphere, CO2 continues to rise after a brief lull during covid lockdowns. It seems as if humanity is hell-bent on its own destruction. Major corporations are leaders in this negative spiral.

They themselves would benefit by leading, especially the wealthy, whose consumption practises produce approximately half the GHG emissions in the world, while the poorest 50% are responsible for only around 10% of lifestyle consumptions emissions. Reducing their carbon footprints for their own long term good, even if not for the common good, would benefit the whole planet.

Corporations, active around the world extracting physical resources, use enormous amounts of GHGs both in the extraction process and in transporting those resources to countries where gadget components are manufactured. The raw resources travel to the cheapest country for manufacture into various products, yet the environmental damage from that transport goes unacknowledged and largely unaccounted for in the price of goods. Only the immediate cost of the transport is incorporated into the cost of producing the goods.

Environmental Costs Not Included

The environmental costs remain missing from environmental impact reports, if there is one written at all. Furthermore, the countries purchasing such products don't count in their own emissions' calculations the GHG emissions emitted from the manufacture or transportation of components from (oftentimes) multiple sources for the products they demand. Added to that, they often use slave labour, which Kevin Bales outlined in his book "Blood And Earth" (Penguin, 2016). He noted that where slavery existed, so did massive, unchecked environmental destruction.

If the planet warms as quicky as is projected, corporations must take most of the responsibility for convincing people that they need the trinkets and gadgets that characterise the modern world. They need to make real progress in reducing GHGs, if not for the principle of reducing negative environmental and climatic impacts from their business and possibly being sued by those adversely affected,(11) then, at least, by the fear of losing plant, machinery and profits when Mother Earth unleashes its cascading furies in the world where their assets may be located.

Insurance companies are no longer guaranteeing full indemnity caused by damage from natural disasters. Insurance research predicts that climate-related risks will account for about one fifth of the overall rise in property premiums over the next 20 years.(12) While the largest corporations are in a position to recoup some of these losses, eventually their bottom lines will deter further investment. Their long-term outlook is bleak.

Although technology exists now to capture renewable energy that would fuel the world's desire for leisure and "stuff", there still exists the problem that some think they can continue business as usual, because it is inconceivable to live without instantly having nearly everything immediately available. This is dangerous and selfish; rather, those living easy lifestyles with every convenience must learn to simplify their lives and exist without so many gadgets if the planet is to heal. The alternative is to have this forced upon us by nature, which will be painfully inconvenient and far worse than voluntarily foregoing the idle luxuries now.

One benefit from living more simply will be that people's health will improve. This, in addition to benefiting the air, water and Earth through reduced pollution from e.g., less vehicular traffic and less waste from unnecessary consumption. All this is not to say that we should live in abject poverty like some of our ancestors did many generations ago. What we can do is live mindfully, aware of the consequences of our consumption and profligate waste of energy, both directly and embedded in unnecessary material possessions.

Waste is also a major problem, especially of energy, which corporations encourage through the manufacture of non-essential products in a world steeped in a financial model that insists on growth beyond the planet's capacity to provide. It is this model that has fuelled humanity's addiction to coal, oil and gas and other resources. Paying only lip service to the need to reduce GHGs is deceitful, because pretence is not real action. Positive changes are needed towards genuine simplification in lifestyles, wasting less and not producing short-lived trinkets that end up in landfills, which in turn leach their toxins into land and aquifers.

New Economic Models Needed

When corporations, who influence many, genuinely change, then the positive effects on the whole world will flow by influencing those yet to make the needed lifestyle adjustments. But to achieve this, a change in the whole financial system and perhaps the way of measuring economic activity would also be required. We can expect resistance by the rich and powerful in that case. New economic models that are more just have been proposed though and are gaining traction.

It is noteworthy that many people in this post-covid environment now plan to travel overseas. While some, especially younger people, may return to NZ with worthwhile skills to contribute to the country, many people will travel for leisure without considering the GHG emissions their actions have on the planet. Concern had already been raised, pre-covid, that too many tourists were ruining the very environments that travellers come to see and that numbers need to be controlled in order to preserve the sites being visited.

This may affect the livelihoods of workers in the hospitality industry, but many alternative earning opportunities will arise from, e.g., restoring the environment that those too many tourists adversely affected. So, what is the point of corporations and the rich and powerful having such power, privilege and control? It cannot last forever because, as history has shown, no system has. It will eventually lead to revolution by the suffering who are adversely affected by huge injustices and wealth inequality.

The rich can expect their assets to be ruined by storms, distortions of the planet that will destabilise the ground on which their assets are built (already the permafrost in Siberia and Canada is collapsing), environmental pollution affecting the quality and quantity of food and the habitat for other species that contribute towards keeping the planet healthy, and through viruses normally contained within a biodiverse forest or other environment escaping to infect humanity and other species. Angry people have the potential to revolt - social media has already shown its power.

Financially Unsustainable

It is financially unsustainable to live with the top few percent owning the largest share of the world's wealth. The pool of money that keeps economies circulating needs to be distributed more widely for an ongoing healthy economic system, regardless of the economic model. The wealthy think they will die before the many dire predictions will happen but the consequences of environmental destruction and climate change are evident now. And if anyone is familiar with Gospel parables, it may pay to reflect on the Lazarus/rich man story.

Leadership to reverse environmental degradation and climate change cannot come just from the grass-roots level. Numerous environmental organisations, whose membership consists mainly of the converted, work tirelessly to increase awareness about our planet's environmental and climate predicaments. Most people now acknowledge that the climate is changing.

However, many don't know they can do something about it. The planet also needs leadership from those in the upper echelons, from government to corporations and businesses. The upper echelons must demonstrate how to live sustainably in order to influence more people to reduce GHG emissions. This will provide the hope so desperately needed, of a future that all can enjoy.

Two Issues Remain

Everybody and every organisation must reduce energy usage, reduce waste and live in in a way where they are conscious of the effects their behaviour has on the planet and society. We need top-down influence, as well as the efforts from the bottom up. So there remain two issues:

1. How to get the corporations to see the damage that they are doing to people, the environment and ultimately to their own assets, then act positively to reduce emissions and influence sceptics to do the same; and
2. How to get everyone to adjust to lifestyles of less energy, less waste, acknowledging that our "nest" needs to be cared for carefully and that resources must be shared equitably.

Endnotes

1. Levantesi, S. and Corsi, G. 16/11/21, DeSmog. Over 300,000 tweets analysed over five years found that climate deniers promote narratives that weaken climate policies through fear of government control, denying the urgency, creating confusion, conspiracy theories, and fabricating lies.
2. Pattee, E. 2/7/21, Guardian. As early as 1958 oil industry scientists and engineers found that burning fossil fuels plays a role in global warming. That information is the basis of two dozen lawsuits attempting to hold the fossil fuel industry responsible for its' role in climate change, as many cases hinge on the industry's own internal documents that predicted rising global temperatures.
3. Conley, J. 22/11/20, Scoop. The Tax Justice Network's inaugural State of Tax Justice Report shows how wealthy countries are the primary drivers of tax revenue loss each year, which affect the ability of countries to provide public services.
4. Johnson, J. 8/10/21, Common Dreams, "Oxfam Denounces Global Tax Deal as 'Dangerous Capitulation' to Corporate Dodgers". It is a mockery of fairness that robs pandemic-ravaged developing countries of badly needed revenue. The rate is far too low.
5. Carrington, D. 6/10/21, Guardian, The International Monetary Fund (IMF) found the production and burning of coal, oil and gas was subsidised by $US5.9 trillion in 2020, with not a single country pricing all its fuels sufficiently to reflect their full supply and environmental costs.
6. Conley, J. 21/2/22, Common Dreams, "Fossil Fuel Giants Seek Billions From European Countries Under Secretive Treaty". A 1994 Energy Charter Treaty is a major impediment to transitioning away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy. Under the Treaty, companies can sue governments over their phasing out of coal power plants, requirements for environmental impact assessments, and blocking of extraction projects.
7. Johnson, J. 23/3/22, Common Dreams, "Jaw-Dropping': Wall Street Bonuses Have Soared 1,743% Since 1985". But a new analysis finds that if the federal minimum wage had increased at the same rate, it would currently be $US61.75 an hour.
8. Franta, B. 25/8/21, Taylor and Francis Online, "Weaponising Economics: Big Oil, Economic Consultants, And Climate Policy Delay". Economic consultants hired by the petroleum industry from the 1990s to the 2010s to estimate the costs of various proposed climate policies used models that inflated predicted costs while ignoring policy benefits. Their work played a key role in undermining numerous major climate policy initiatives in the US, carbon pricing and participation in international climate agreements.
9. Germanos, A. 21/10/21, Common Dreams "Leaked Docs Reveal Fossil Fuel-Soaked Nations Lobbying to Sabotage Climate Action". It's not just corporations that stymie climate action, it's also oil-producing countries!
10. Burke, L. 12/7/21, The Revelator, "Study: Financial Markets Ignore Environmental Damage". Credit-rating agencies say they can, but don't, discipline companies that behave badly.
11. Bullard, N. 21/4/10, Transnational Institute, "Climate Debt: A Subversive Political Strategy". Progressive movements have redefined "climate debt" as a systemic issue rather than a financial problem and turns traditional rich-poor relations upside down. Usually, it is the rich who are the creditors, demanding payment from the poor, but climate debt reverses that: it is now the Global South who are calling in their debts, but for the future of humanity and Mother Earth.
12. Smith, I. 7/9/21, Financial Times, "Climate Risks To Add $183bn To Property Insurance Costs By 2040, Swiss Re Predicts".

SOME FURTHER REFERENCES PEOPLE MAY FIND USEFUL FOR FURTHER EXPLORATION

Abbot J, Achbar M, Bakan J, 2003, documentary: "The Corporation". The film makers show that corporations have similar characteristics to psychopaths. This documentary begins with an unusual detail that came from the US Constitution's 14th Amendment: Under constitutional law, corporations are seen as individuals. So, filmmaker Mark Achbar asks, what type of person would a corporation be? The evidence, according to such political activists as Noam Chomsky, filmmaker Michael Moore and company heads like carpet magnate Ray Anderson, points to a bad one, as the film aims to expose IBM's Nazi ties and these large businesses' exploitation of human rights.

Banerjee N. et al. Inside Climate News, "Exxon: The Road Not Taken". Nine-part history of Exxon's engagement with the science of climate change.

Burke L. 12/7/21, The Revelator, "Study: Financial Markets Ignore Environmental Damage". Credit-rating agencies say they can discipline companies that behave badly, but research reveals negligible progress.

Carbon Brief, 27/5/21. Article also has a list of relevant and interesting articles from the Daily Briefing at the end. Worth reading.

International Investor Group on Climate Change, 22/3/21. The first benchmark evaluating the corporate ambition and action of the world's largest greenhouse gas emitters and other companies with significant opportunity to drive the net zero transition. First report shows inadequate performances.

Jolly J. 20/5/21, Guardian. Climate activist shareholder group is making real inroads into the oil giants' policies.

Joly E. 22/9/21, Social Europe To stop global heating, tax multinationals better. It is now established that life on Earth as we know it will be inescapably transformed by climate disruption by 2050. The window of opportunity to avoid the worst requires urgent and radical decarbonisation of our economies, ending deforestation, replanting, reducing our energy consumption and massively developing renewable energy sources. Implementing what should no longer be called a "transition" but, rather, an energy "switchover" has costs, to finance the plans to halve carbon emissions by 2030 and help developing countries.

Kennedy T. 20/10/21, Vice. Outlines the menacing tactics of Institute of Economic Affairs in trying to obfuscate the reality of climate change.

Kirka D. 9/10/21, Stuff, Ireland has agreed to join an international agreement establishing a minimum corporate tax of 15% around the world, ditching the low-tax policy that has led companies like Google and Facebook to base their European operations in the country.

Milne J. 27/8/21, Newsroom. Meridian chief stopped short of saying Rio Tinto was a bad corporate citizen, but he did express frustration at the smelting company's unwillingness to significantly reduce its load to help the country keep its lights on when the hydro lakes are low. Meridian had told Rio Tinto that if the smelting company wanted to find a way to continue operating in New Zealand, it would have to find a way to make Tiwai Point more flexible.

Mooney G. 2012, "The Health Of Nations: Towards A New Political Economy". "Social scientists and activists have long felt frustrated by a paradigm linking health care to the market - but free of corporate power. While exposing the misdeeds of big corporations and their clientelist governments, Mooney's book indicates how much can be achieved by promoting communitarianism in a principled and rational way and listening to the concerns of the people being served by health care, not just hospital managers or those in the medical profession", Amiya Bagchi, Kolkata (book is in the LIFT Library, Lyttelton. LIFT: L=LE, [Living Economies], I=Inspiration, F=Facts, T=Transition

Noor D. 3/7/21, Gizmodo. A top official admits Exxon's producing PFAS (per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances) products and lobbying against anti-plastic laws.

Norris B. 17/9/21, Commercial Risk Online. More than 70% of over 100 of the world's biggest carbon intensive firms failed to fully disclose climate risk in 2021's financial statements (Carbon Tracker and the Climate Accounting Project).

Oreskes N and Conway EM. 2010, "Merchants Of Doubt", Bloomsbury Press. "How A Handful Of Scientists Obscured The Truth On Issues From Tobacco Smoke To Global Warming".

Pahwa N. 25/1/22, Mother Jones, "The Oil Industry Is Terrified Of College Kids". A Koch-linked non-profit is writing model bills to protect fossil fuel investments, making divestments illegal on grounds that it is "discrimination" against fossil fuel companies.

Paul K. 3/11/21, Mother Jones, "These 10 Publishers Produce Most Of The Climate Lies On Facebook, Study Says". An essential tool, naming the outlets perpetrating about 70% of misinformation.

Pontecorvo E. 28/3/22, Mother Jones, "Big Banks Promised Climate Action. So Where Is It?". A new report finds that none of the top financial institutions have followed through meaningfully on their promises.

Rodrik D. 19/2/20, Social Europe. Societies should not allow firms' owners and their agents to drive the discussion about reforming corporate governance.

Schultz C. 23/12/13, Smithsonian Institute Magazine. Nearly a billion US dollars per year flows into the organised climate change counter-movement, funded by powerful people with very deep pockets.

Solnit R 27/8/21, Gizmodo, "Big Oil Coined 'Carbon Footprints' To Blame Us For Their Greed". British Petroleum, the second largest non-State owned oil company in the world, with 18,700 gas and service stations worldwide, hired the public relations professionals Ogilvy & Mather to promote the slant that climate change is not the fault of an oil giant, but that of individuals. It's here that BP first promoted and successfully popularised the term "carbon footprint". It unveiled its "carbon footprint calculator" in 2004 so one could assess how their normal daily life is largely responsible for heating the globe.

Taft M. 19 /8/21, Gizmodo, "Texas Is Letting Shell, Exxon, And Other Oil Producers Break the Rules". The overwhelming majority of flaring from oil and gas producers come without a permit!

Vosburg J. 15/9/21, Common Dreams, "Beware: Big Oil Lies About the Climate". Increasing incidence of major natural disasters are just the start of something much worse, and we're only 10 above pre-industrial levels! Feeling heat from the divestment movement and seeing the industry's obsolescence in the very near future, the fossil fuel industry is scared. Instead of being duped by Big Oil, we must end fossil fuel subsidies and insist that financial institutions stop investing our money in the industry that must die if we are to survive. We also need to vote for politicians who support the urgent transition to a green economy.