THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XIII, Issue # 231, September 15, 2011
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
TRYING TO SNOOKER SMUCKER:
Climate Alarmist Campaigners Make Pitiful Case
That Man-Made Climate Change Threatens Coffee
By Paul K. Driessen
A COMMON TACTIC OF RADICAL ENVIRONMENTALISTS PROMOTING GLOBAL WARMING ALARMISM &
ANTI-HYDROCARBON POLICIES: AS EVIDENCE MOUNTS THAT MAN-MADE CATASTROPHIC CLIMATE CHANGE
IS NOT IMMINENT, EXTREME WEATHER EVENTS CANNOT BE LINKED TO HUMAN ACTIVITIES & DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
WILL NOT REDUCE THEIR USE OF FOSSIL FUELS, RADICAL ENVIRONMENTALIST GROUPS HAVE INCREASINGLY TARGETED
COMPANIES WITH CAMPAIGNS BASED ON SUPPOSED "ETHICAL PRINCIPLES."
FULL STORY:
It’s a common tactic among radical environmentalist groups promoting climate alarmism and anti-hydrocarbon policies.
As evidence mounts that man-made catastrophic climate change is not imminent, extreme weather events cannot be
linked to human activities and developing nations will not reduce their use of fossil fuels, radical environmentalist
groups have increasingly targeted companies with campaigns based on supposed ethical principles.
A recent target is the J. M. Smucker Company, maker of jams, syrups, and Dunkin’ Donuts, Folgers, Kava, and Millstone
coffees. Calvert Investment Management and Trillium Asset Management bought enough shares to entitle them to
introduce agenda-driving resolutions at shareholder meetings.
The activists’ August, 2011, resolution demanded that Smucker explain how climate change will affect temperature and
rainfall patterns, the supply and price of coffee, and thus investors. Seventy percent of Smucker voters rejected the
resolution, but the activists parlayed the vote into several press releases designed to harass and eventually intimidate
the Company into complying with their climate change mantra, as well as “sustainability,” “fair trade” and “certification”
demands.
Each demand advances similar goals: coerce companies to pressure politicians to adopt the environmental activists’
agenda; silence corporate support for opposing viewpoints; and increase the activists’ revenue stream, by “persuading”
the company to pay them hefty fees for “official certifications” that corporate practices and purchases adhere to the
activists’ politicized standards on various “ethical” matters.
CLIMATE CHANGE
Calvert and Trillium correctly observe that temperature, rainfall, and other climate variability affects changes in coffee
yields around the world. Ditto for all crops, one might add.
However, for them to assert that climate changes result primarily from human carbon dioxide emissions is a matter of
ideological belief, not scientific fact. Climate changes; it always has and always will – on regional and sometimes global
scales. Greenhouse gases exert a warming effect; but how much, especially in the context of countless planetary, solar
and other forces, is a matter of intense debate.
Calvert and Trillium can certainly find support for their views among IPCC and Climate Research Unit stalwarts. However,
other scientists, books, and reports present a far less alarmist, far more nature-driven theory of climate change.
The absence of warming since 1998, despite steadily rising CO2 levels, calls into question the entire hypothesis regarding
man-made global warming, climate change, and climate disruption – especially the assertion that any changes will be
catastrophic and can be prevented by slashing the use of carbon fuels that power the vast majority of what people make,
ship, eat, and do. Climate models begin by assuming that carbon dioxide drives climate change, input rising atmospheric
CO2 projections, and (voila) output a warming planet.
Smucker and its coffee growers should certainly prepare for any adverse impacts on coffee production, including heat
waves, cold snaps, downpours, droughts, insects, and diseases. Traditional breeding and biotechnology can create new
strains that better survive these threats, while sound business management practices can help minimize numerous
problems. Smucker is already taking steps like these.
Adopting the Calvert-Trillium agenda would undermine efforts to sustain and improve coffee production and the growers’
and company’s flexibility and profitability. The activists’ prescription would reduce energy supplies and increase energy,
fertilizer, processing, and shipping prices – while also killing jobs, decreasing customers’ living standards, and making
them less able to afford quality coffee.
The Calvert-Trillium thesis also contradicts the recent Securities and Exchange Commission “interpretive guidance,”
which says companies should disclose not only potential risks and physical impacts from climate change, but also risks
and impacts on business from legislation, regulation, and international accords enacted to restrict fossil fuel use, in a
quest to control Earth’s ever-changing climate.
Physical Impacts of Climate Change: Even if carbon dioxide has a greater effect on climate than many scientists
think, coffee growers and regions would actually benefit from higher atmospheric CO2 levels. More CO2 stimulates plant
growth and increases survival rates under drought and other adverse conditions. Moreover, many asserted man-made
climate risks are wildly speculative, generated by computers or based on questionable to fraudulent research (as IPCC
and Climategate documents have revealed).
Impacts of Legislation, Regulation and International Accords: Rules that restrict hydrocarbon use reduce energy
reliability and affordability, which hurts growers, processors, sellers, and consumers alike.
Indirect Impacts on Business Trends: Many activist claims about damage to businesses are based on the same
speculative risks noted above. Well managed companies will carefully separate fact from fiction.
VOLUME CERTIFIED SUSTAINABLE
“Sustainability” is a politicized, malleable, and ultimately meaningless concept, developed to promote environmental
activist agendas. It assumes man-made climate chaos is real. It claims hydrocarbon resource depletion is imminent, which
recent shale gas and conventional discoveries show is hardly the case. It never explains how long resources must last to
be “sustainable” (ten years? 50? 100? 1000?) or factors in economic and technological changes that revise depletion
calculations upward.
In the case of agriculture, “sustainability” advocates often oppose biotechnology, chemical fertilizers, insecticides, and
mechanized farming – and favor land and labor-intensive organic and subsistence practices, animal manure and naturally
occurring (but often toxic) chemicals. These standards may meet ideological tests, but they don’t necessarily meet
scientific, practical, or best business practice criteria.
FAIR TRADE
Ethical, socially responsible companies should always be fair to suppliers, customers, employees, and everyone else they
deal with. “Willing buyer, willing seller” relationships should be based on honesty, transparency and a mutual desire to
sustain longterm, mutually beneficial relationships.
However, “fair trade” is really another politicized, malleable, agenda-driven concept. It often demands higher prices for
growers, but neglects other important considerations. It can result in coffee that is overpriced in times of high
unemployment and economic hardship, when many consumers are looking for affordable beverages on limited budgets –
which can ultimately mean less income for growers.
CERTIFICATIONS
Both sustainability and fair trade certifications mean companies pay activists to put a political stamp of approval on
targeted merchandize. The process may generate activist and news media accolades for participating companies, while
failing to address the issues raised here. However, it certainly enriches activist groups, enabling them to launch pressure
campaigns against other companies.
Calvert, Trillium and other “corporate ethics” and “climate disaster” campaigners are closely allied with and/or support
organizations that oppose: hydroelectric, coal, gas, and nuclear power generation in coffee-growing and other poor
countries, where the vast majority of citizens have little or no access to electricity; insecticide use to control malaria and
other deadly diseases; biotechnology and other modern agricultural methods to improve human nutrition and replace
crops devastated by insects or plant viruses; and progress in general. They are modern-day Luddites, justifying their
actions on false ecological grounds.
But, still, the campaigners say J. M. Smucker should buy coffee “certified” by activists as being green, sustainable and
climate-sensitive. Company shareholders should ask: Just because other companies have been conned or pressured into
doing so, should Smucker be snookered into following their lead?
Perhaps Smucker Company could test market a little “fair trade” or “sustainable” coffee. It certainly should promote wise
use of chemicals, sound business practices, fairness and honesty with all business partners, careful attention to
changing climate and rainfall patterns, responsible stewardship of lands, resources and energy, and access by poor
families to electricity and other modern technologies.
That would brand the J. M. Smucker Company as a truly ethical and responsible corporation.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Agriculture, the Economy, & Human Health & Welfare:
Policy Issues Relating to Food Production & Consumption
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
The Earth's Natural History, Global Climate Changes,
& the Future of Human Life & Civilization on the Planet:
Science, Ideology, & Public Policy
Political Economy -- Philosophies, Systems, & Public Policies:
Government, the Economy, & Economic Prosperity
Paul K. Driessen is Senior Policy Advisor for the Congress of Racial Equality, the Committee for A Constructive Tomorrow, and the
Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise. Driessen is author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death (2004).
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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