Several news items have recently been published that show the conditions are getting very frigid for climate crisis narratives and global warming scams.
To begin with, it is being reported that the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) lost 71% of its $468 million investment in the CalPERS Clean Energy & Technology Fund (CETF), a private equity fund focused on clean energy and technology.
CalPERS has declined to provide detailed explanations of how this loss occurred, citing state laws that exempt many alternative investment records from public disclosure… which may come back to haunt California taxpayers and everyone involved in the fund.
These losses are a major problem for California taxpayers, who at least for now are the backstop for underfunded state pensions, but also for state employees who trust CalPERS to responsibly manage their retirement plans.CalPERS says its pension benefits are only 79% funded, leaving the state, and its taxpayers, on the hook for the other 21%. According to a recent report from Reason Foundation, CalPERS’ pension shortfall is approximately $180 billion.CalPERS’ overall returns for the 2024-2025 fiscal year were 11.6%. While its private equity returns were 14.3%, its public equity investments were 16.8%.“Returns were similar … so why go through all the trouble — if you can get these kinds of returns on the public markets, why bother with all the complexities and the illiquidity involved in private equity?” asked Marc Joffe, a public finance expert and visiting fellow at the California Policy Center, in an interview with The Center Square regarding the performance of CalPERS’ private and public equity investments.
The fact that no explanation is forthcoming indicates there is no good way to salvage the narrative about clean energy technology being up to the task of replacing either fossil fuels or nuclear energy. We’ll see if Californians remain willing to sacrifice either their retirement funds or their tax dollars on the altar of global warming over the next few years.
Signs indicate the political wind direction is changing. While Californians brace for the pain that results from the profits not being as large as promised, a new poll indicated Americans are now waking up to the climate scam. A new poll now shows that a significant majority of Americans are no longer willing to pay a $1 monthly fee to help combat climate change, supposedly.
The numbers point to a significant shift in attitude from just a few years ago.
A poll released on Thursday from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC) found that only 38% of Americans are on board with paying a $1 monthly carbon fee.Back in 2021, 52% of Americans were willing to pay the supposed climate-fighting fee.Unsurprisingly, as the hypothetical fee goes up from $1 monthly to $10 or $20, only 3 in 10 Americans are okay with paying up. And only 2 in 10 said they would pay $75 or $100 monthly.Climate activism has become a key issue for Democrats in recent years. High-profile politicians like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NYC), for example, famously said back in 2019 that the world would end in 12 years if we don’t drastically address climate change.
The Democrats’ world may end substantially sooner. But, I digress.
Finally, billionaire activist Bill Gates is stepping away from NetZero inanity…despite being one of the biggest pushers of carbon emission reduction.
In a stunning and significant pushback to the “doomsday” climate activist community, Bill Gates, a leading proponent for carbon emissions reductions, published a remarkable essay Tuesday that argued resources must be shifted away from the battle against climate change.Instead, Gates argues, the world’s philanthropists must increase their investment in other efforts aimed at preventing disease and hunger.Climate change is not going to wipe out humanity, he argued, and past efforts that strive for achieving zero carbon emissions have made real progress. But Gates said that past investments fighting climate change have been misplaced, and too much good money has been put into expensive and questionable efforts.
Of course, there may be more monetary considerations for Gates’ change in tune…given the enormous amounts of energy AI data centers require.
While it is good to see the move away from pseudoscience mischaracterizing carbon dioxide’s influence on climate and poor energy policies, it has only occurred after enormous amounts have been diverted, and estimates for NetZero implementation are in the trillions of dollars.
The transformation of the global economy needed to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 would be universal and significant, requiring $9.2 trillion in annual average spending on physical assets, $3.5 trillion more than today. To put it in comparable terms, that increase is equivalent to half of global corporate profits and one-quarter of total tax revenue in 2020.
It’s a shame a more robust and honest science-oriented review about both climate and technology could not have been considered before California employees funds were thrown into a green energy pit.
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