Thank you, Aaron [Klein], for that introduction. This summer was the summer of the cicadas. The dull hum of their song permeated the solitude of an evening stroll, along with the disconcerting crunch as pedestrian attempts to avoid squashing the creatures inevitably failed. Every seventeen years the beady-eyed cicadas emerge from underground—a natural wonder, perhaps therefore to be forgiven for their uncouth habits and off-putting appearance. [1] As eighteenth century farmer and self-taught naturalist Benjamin Banneker, having observed three appearances of cicadas, wrote:

[I]f their lives are Short they are merry, they begin to Sing or make a noise from the first they come out of Earth till they die, the hindermost part rots off, and it does not appear to be any pain to them for they still continue on Singing till they die. [2]

Cicadas arrive on schedule and behave with a comfortable predictability. Banneker could be quite sure cicadas would emerge when he was 68 as they had done when he was 17, 34, and 51. [3] He feared when meeting them for the first time at 17 that they would devastate the crops, so he tried to kill as many as possible. On their second time through, though, he “had more sense than to endeavor to destroy them, knowing that they was not so pernicious to the fruit of the Earth as I did imagine they would be.” [4] He had learned their patterns and was able to measure their schedule and their activity.

People like predictable and measurable things—things that we can quantify, standardize, and compare with one another. Especially when something is important to us, even when we cannot easily categorize, measure, and identify what is coming, we nevertheless try. This tendency is evident in another phenomenon of this summer season, the loud calls for environmental, social, and governance (“ESG”) disclosures to facilitate the measurement and comparison of issuers and investment products. People want hard data to allow apples to apples comparisons. [5] The natural desire for ESG certainty, however, runs into the many real-life uncertainties and complications that characterize the overflowing ESG bucket. Any ESG rulemaking will have to confront these difficult realities. Before I go there, however, I better give my standard disclaimer, which is that the views I represent are my own views and not necessarily those of the SEC or my fellow Commissioners.

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