Wccftech (April 4)
“Sometimes, going against the herd pays off massively. Case in point: Toyota is thriving right now with its hybrids-first strategy, while its competitors, including Tesla, the erstwhile king of the auto space, continue to contend with a challenging demand environment and shrinking margins.”
Tags: Auto, Challenging, Competitors, Contend, Demand, Environment, Hybrids-first strategy, Shrinking margins, Tesla, Thriving, Toyota
Fortune (April 24)
“National governments are spending a record amount of money on defense and arms, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and a more complicated geopoltical environment push countries to buy more military equipment.” All told, defense spending grew by 3.7% in 2002. Roughly “half of that increase was due to a 640% surge in military spending by Ukraine, as the country quickly expanded its armed forces to defend against the invasion.”
Tags: Arms, Complicated, Defense, Environment, Geopoltical, Governments, Military equipment, Record, Russia, Spending, Ukraine
Institutional Investor (April 29)
“One hundred days into Joe Biden’s presidency, his administration’s executive orders and agency actions have reinstated and advanced an environment that empowers sustainable investing…. All of this sets our children and grandchildren and wildlife up for a more secure future — but threats to sustainable investing remain.”
Tags: Administration, Advanced, Agency actions, Biden, Children, Empowers, Environment, Executive orders, Reinstated, Secure, Sustainable investing, Threats, Wildlife
New York Times (August 31)
“Worldwide, insect pests consume up to 20 percent of the plants that humans grow for food, and that amount will increase as global warming makes bugs hungrier…. That could encourage farmers to use more pesticides, which could cause further environmental harm.”
Tags: Bugs, Environment, Farmers, Food, Global warming, Humans, Hungrier, Insects, Pesticides, Pests, Plants, Worldwide
New York Times (November 23)
“Everything this president and this Congress are doing on economic policy seems designed, not just to widen the gap between the wealthy and everyone else, but to lock in plutocrats’ advantages, making it easier to ensure that their heirs remain on top and the rest stay down.” While the “terrible tax bills” may not make it through Congress, “environmental policy is largely set by administrative action, and this administration has been moving with stunning speed to get poisons back into our air and water.”
Tags: Air, Congress, Economic policy, Environment, Heirs, Plutocrats, Poisons, Trump, Water, Wealth gap
Institutional Investor (May 24)
Quants may be able to “fundamentally transform the ability of investors to find companies that embrace ESG principles.” Beyond crunching more widely available ESG data, some hope that unstructured data, ranging “from people’s comments on social media to data mined from online retailers,” can reveal “hard-to-measure issues like corporate culture or a commitment to the environment.”
Tags: Commitment, Corporate culture, Data mining, Environment, ESG, Hard-to-measure, Investors, Quants, Social media, Unstructured data
Bloomberg (December 24)
“Some climate activists worry that Donald Trump’s presidential election will be the death knell for the global environment. That’s almost certainly untrue. Whatever Trump’s attitude toward climate science and energy policy, two big outside factors will be much more important — technological progress and policy in developing nations.
Tags: Activists, Climate, Developing nations, Election, Energy, Environment, Policy, Science, Technological progress, Trump
LA Times (December 4)
China “has been quick to size up the environmental implications of a Trump victory, and officials in Beijing are contriving to cast China in a fresh role, to project the country as a—perhaps the—global leader on climate change.” The U.S. looks “poised to become the new climate-action outcast.” In contrast, “China is betting that clean energy and green technology will be what powers the global economy of the 21st century.”
Tags: Beijing, China, Clean energy, Climate change, Economy, Environment, Global leader, Green technology, Outcast, Trump, U.S.
Los Angeles Times (January 15)
“For too long, carbon dioxide has dominated the discussion of greenhouse gases.” Methane and other short-lived gases need more attention. Methane “is 80 times more potent at trapping heat than carbon dioxide for 20 years after it is released, and 20 times more potent over 100 years.” Reducing methane leaks would not only be good for the environment, it would also boost energy self sufficiency. In the U.S. alone, 6 million homes could be powered by the methane that is currently “lost through wells and leaky pipes.”
Tags: CO2, Energy, Environment, Greenhouse gases, Methane, Self sufficiency, Short-lived gases, U.S.
New York Times (December 27)
A quarter century ago Tiananmen appeared to signal the downfall of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Today, “the world’s largest political organization, with 86 million members, seems as robust as ever.” Despite this seeming success, the CCP remains riddled with contradictions and insecurity over everything from protests to environmental catastrophe, a housing bubble and slowing growth. “The dark side of the Chinese dream — the negative fantasy that haunts China’s psyche — explains why Mr. Xi, the strongest Chinese leader since Deng, is so skittish, so ready to jump at shadows.”
Tags: China, Communist party, Contradictions, Deng, Environment, Growth, Housing bubble, Insecurity, Protests, Robust, Tiananmen, Xi
