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Opinion

Dear Pipeline Protesters – an open letter

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4 minute read

By: Cory G. Litzenberger, CPA, CMA, CFP, C.Mgr – President & Founder of CGL Strategic Business & Tax Advisors

Dear pipeline protesters,

If I asked you to plug in 73 items in your home, could you? Even if you could, now what if I asked you to plug-in 1,100?

How about starting with 175 items… then ask you to do 10,700 items?

I’m guessing you would need to do some restructuring to be able to have that many items needing power.

Welcome to China.

In the mid-1980s, Chinese communities like Yiwu and Shenzhen were only 73,000 and 175,000 people respectively; and now they are now over 1.1 Million and 10.7 Million people.

Much of the power generation for this needed upgrade is coming from coal.

The main port? Vancouver.

Yes, according to a National Post article:
Yes, anti-pipeline Vancouver really is North America’s largest exporter of coal
anti-pipeline BC is home to the largest coal exporting port in North America and going through a $275 Million upgrade.

If the BC NDP/Green politicians aligning with anti-pipeline protestors are ever going to help China get off massive pollution from coal, they need to help switch them to oil and natural gas.

I’m all for cleaner air, so can we at least get China to the next stage of energy consumption in society instead of leaving them in the coal mine with a dead canary?

Or is it, as I suspect, that you only wave the environmental flag in order to get votes from those that don’t know any better just so you can get a high paid powerful position with a pension?

Clearly, since you are leading Canada in polluting our waterways with raw sewage this must be the case.
http://www.thestar.com/vancouver/2018/04/11/we-really-should-be-a-model-for-the-entire-world-but-were-just-not-there-yet-advocate-on-vancouvers-sewage-overflow-problem.html

I don’t think you understand that pipelines aren’t just about oil and gas.

Pipelines are about transporting items in an efficient, cost-effective, non-air polluting way (then say by train or tractor-trailer) all while the same time freeing up cargo spaces on trains and highways for other things that can’t be shipped by a pipeline to help all Canadians.

Things that can’t be shipped in a pipeline, like wind turbines, solar panels, medical equipment, groceries, produce, grain, potash, home building tools & materials, etc.

Are pipeline protestors against transporting medical supplies and equipment to help those that need it?

Are pipeline protestors against feeding the world with our grain?

Are pipeline protestors against building homes and shelters for those that need one?

Maybe pipeline protestors are against us building solar farms and wind turbines for energy production?

I haven’t even talked about the economic impact all of these can do to provide a better quality of life, food, shelter, and healthcare for everyone in Canada.

But clearly, pipeline protestors must be against that too.

So please, if you could stop creating a dystopian society, we’d like to get back to building a better place.

CEO | Director CGL Tax Professional Corporation With the Income Tax Act always by his side on his smart-phone, Cory has taken tax-nerd to a whole other level. His background in strategic planning, tax-efficient corporate reorganizations, business management, and financial planning bring a well-rounded approach to assist private corporations and their owners increase their wealth through the strategies that work best for them. An entrepreneur himself, Cory started CGL with the idea that he wanted to help clients adapt to the ever-changing tax and economic environment and increase their wealth through optimizing the use of tax legislation coupled with strategic business planning and financial analysis. His relaxed blue-collar approach in a traditionally white-collar industry can raise a few eyebrows, but in his own words: “People don’t pay me for my looks. My modeling career ended at birth.” More info: https://CGLtax.ca/Litzenberger-Cory.html

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Business

Within a month, 6 largest U.S. banks leave UN Net-Zero Banking Alliance

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From The Center Square

Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar has expressed skepticism about companies claiming to withdraw from ESG commitments, noting there is often doublespeak in their announcements

Within one month of each other, six of the largest U.S. banks left the United Nations Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA) not soon after Donald Trump was elected president.

Last month, Goldman Sachs was the first to withdraw from the alliance, followed by Wells Fargo, The Center Square reported.

By Dec. 31, Citigroup and Bank of America left, followed by Morgan Stanley on Jan. 6 and JPMorgan on Jan. 7.

They did so after joining the alliance several years ago pledging to require environmental social governance standards (ESG) across their platforms, products and systems.

According to the “bank-led and UN-convened” alliance, global banks joined, pledging to align their lending, investment and capital markets activities with a net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, NZBA explains.

Since April 2021, 141 banks in 44 countries with more than $61 trillion in assets had joined NZBA, the alliance says. That’s down from 145 banks with more than $73 trillion in assets it reported last month after Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs withdrew.

“In April 2021 when NZBA launched, no bank had set a science-based sectoral 2030 target for its financed emissions using 1.5°C scenarios,” it says. “Today, over half of NZBA banks have set such targets.”

They started to drop off after President-elect Donald Trump vowed to increase domestic oil and natural gas production and pledged to go after “woke” companies.

They also announced their departure two years after 19 state attorneys general launched an investigation into them for alleged deceptive trade practices connected to ESG.

Four states led the investigation: Arizona, Kentucky, Missouri and Texas. Others involved include Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Virginia. Five state investigations aren’t public for confidentiality reasons.

In Texas, the state legislature passed a bill, which Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law, that prohibits governmental entities from entering into contracts with companies that boycott the oil and natural gas industry. The law also requires state entities to divest from financial companies that boycott the industry through ESG policies.

To date, 17 companies and 353 publicly traded investment funds are on Texas’ ESG divestment list.

After financial institutions withdraw from the NZBA, they are permitted to do business with Texas, the office of Texas Attorney General says.

However, Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar has expressed skepticism about companies claiming to withdraw from ESG commitments, noting there is often doublespeak in their announcements, The Center Square reported.

Notably, when leaving the alliance, a Goldman Sachs spokesperson said the company was still committed to the NZBA goals and has “the capabilities to achieve our goals and to support the sustainability objectives of our clients,” EST Today reported. The company also said it was “very focused on the increasingly elevated sustainability standards and reporting requirements imposed by regulators around the world.”

“Goldman Sachs also confirmed that its goal to align its financing activities with net zero by 2050, and its interim sector-specific targets remained in place,” EST Today reported.

Five Goldman Sachs funds are listed in Texas’ ESG divestment list.

While announcing it was leaving the alliance, a JPMorgan spokesperson also affirmed the company’s commitment to reaching net-zero emissions. “We aim to contribute to real-economy decarbonization by providing our clients with the advice and capital needed to transform business models and lower carbon intensity,” the spokesperson said, Reuters reported.

Yahoo!Finance also notes that JPMorgan will continue to work with Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero. “We will also continue to support the banking and investment needs of our clients who are engaged in energy transition and in decarbonizing different sectors of the economy,” the spokesperson said.

Citigroup and Bank of America also remain committed to net-zero objectives, including continuing to report on efforts to achieve 2030 net-zero targets and reducing CO2 emissions associated with corporate lending, FiNews reported.

The Comptroller’s office remains committed to “enforcing the laws of our state as passed by the Texas Legislature,” Hegar said. “Texas tax dollars should not be invested in a manner that undermines our state’s economy or threatens key Texas industries and jobs.”

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International

Three major wildfires rage in Southern California, killing two and destroying homes

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From The Center Square

By 

Three major wildfires are tearing through Southern California while firefighters struggle to contain them with major Santa Ana winds getting up to 100 mph.

As of Wednesday morning, two people have been killed and over 1,000 homes, businesses and other buildings have been destroyed in Los Angeles County.

“Last night was one of the most devastating and terrifying nights that we’ve seen in any part of our city in any part of our history,” Los Angeles City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson said during a Wednesday morning news conference.

The City of Los Angeles has declared a state of emergency and the national guard has been deployed to assist the hundreds of firefighters tackling the fires.

The fire in the Pacific Palisades was the first wildfire to break out after the weather alert warnings, burning over 11,000 acres in 24 hours and tens of thousands of local residents having been evacuated. The Pacific Palisades is home to some of the most expensive homes in the state and now thousands of these multi-million-dollar homes have burned to the ground.

A second fire broke out Tuesday evening in Eaton Canyon near Pasadena and has burned over 10,000 acres as of Wednesday morning, forcing tens of thousands of individuals to evacuate and burning numerous buildings.

The other major fire – the Hurst fire – has burned around 700 acres. The wildfire located in San Fernando was discovered late Tuesday night and continued to spread, forcing the evacuation of those living in the Sylmar neighborhood.

During Wednesday morning’s press conference, Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone emphasized the importance of evacuating when the orders are in place, reporting a “high number of significant injuries” to those who didn’t evacuate.

None of the fires have been contained with firefighters being stretched thin, working 48-hour shifts. A combination of increased vegetation, dry conditions and extreme winds created a perfect storm for weather that the National Weather Service said is “as bad as it gets.”

“The preconditions for a January fire in Southern California couldn’t be much worse. After two years of generous moisture (especially in 2022-23), the state’s 2024-25 wet season has gotten off to an intensely bifurcated start: unusually wet in NoCal and near-record dry in SoCal,” wrote meteorologist Bob Henson in Yale Climate Connections. “On top of the unusually dry conditions for early January, we’re now in the heart of the Santa Ana wind season. These notorious and dangerous downslope winds, which occur when higher-level winds are forced over the coastal mountains and toward the coast, typically plague coastal Southern California a few times each year.”

Approximately 10% of Los Angeles County schools have been closed including the entire Pasadena Unified School District and numerous roads including much of the Pacific Coast Highway, 10 Freeway going westbound, Topanga Canyon Boulevard, parts of Angeles Crest Highway and the 210 Freeway going westbound.

Gov. Gavin Newsom urges all of those near evacuation zones to stay vigilant as the worst still may be yet to come as the Los Angeles Fire Department has issued a red flag warning to last through Thursday evening in some areas.

“This is a highly dangerous windstorm that’s creating extreme fire risk – and we’re not out of the woods,” Newsom said in a statement. “We’re already seeing the destructive impacts with this fire in Pacific Palisades that grew rapidly in a matter of minutes.”

Newsom announced Tuesday that he was able to secure fire management assistance grants from FEMA for both the Palisades and Eaton fires.

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