Ignorance is Strength: Climate Change, Corporate Governance, Politics, and the English Language

In influential masterpieces near the end of his life, George Orwell dilated on the negative role that obscurantist language and the denial of objective fact could have on the ability of societies to protect democracy and human freedom. His 1984 invented a world where political elites had lost any genuine belief in a cause larger than themselves, and where “Power is not a means; it is an end.”  In pursuing power, these elites manipulated language and the very concept of truth so that their followers would happily embrace any portrayal of reality as a matter of identification with their chosen Party, even while recognizing that the portrayal was objectively untrue.

For the elites, truth did not matter; what mattered was that the message served their interests in securing their power, and that their Party acolytes accepted their message as part of their core identity.  Indeed, the way to accomplish this was to disconnect language and political messages from any concept of objective fact and to encourage compliant, unthinking, and emotionally manipulable reactions from the Party rank and file, using the rallying point of a common enemy to unify happy, rote acceptance of the Party line.  Thus, in the new language the Party was developing, there was no word for science, because the Party elites did not want anything to be empirically verifiable because that would interfere with their ability to reshape reality in accord with their own interests at any time.

No issue could be less ideological than human-caused climate change.  No one has any rational or emotional reason to want human-made carbon- and methane-based products to cause warming or other harm.  Any sane socialist, liberal, conservative, independent, reactionary, or anarchist would happily have it be that we could use these products to keep us warm or cool, depending on the season, or to help us move by car, rail, or plane, or for myriad other valuable purposes and have there be no harm.

But wishes are not realities, and human-caused climate change is real and not reasonably deniable.  Not only that, human-caused climate change is an objectively undeniable economic, not just environmental and societal, problem and risks an enormous decline in economic output and tremendous downside harm to many industries.  And, if anything, the response of the corporate and institutional investor sector to the risks of climate change has been too slow and too tepid, and the pace of climate change and its corresponding harm is outrunning efforts to constrain it.

One might think that the compelling implications of these objective realities would cause a concerted public-private national commitment, devoid of ideology or partisan divide, to address the fact of human-caused climate change on something like a war footing.  That might be thought particularly so within the ranks of business elites and investors; rationality in the face of facts is expected of loyal fiduciaries.

Instead, however, the so-called culture wars have penetrated the debate over climate change and corporate governance, and in a distinctly Orwellian way, as is explored in the full article on which this essay is based and which can be found here. The political leaders who say that corporations and institutional investors should not give weight to so-called ESG factors, and in particular climate change, argue that these fiduciaries should focus solely on seeking profit for their investors.  Marching under a banner that misuses a venerable term of the labor and civil rights movement, these public officials oppose business consideration of climate change within their larger attack on their own self-invented concept, “woke capitalism.”  In doing so, they largely sidestep or obfuscate the factual question of whether human-caused climate change is occurring and presents a danger to our economy, investors, the stability of the world order, and to the planet itself.  And they have attempted to intimidate business leaders and institutional investors who recognize the risks climate change poses for their investors and stakeholders, and who have forged industry-wide cooperative efforts to stem the looming disaster.

These “anti-woke” leaders ignore many confounding realities, including that:

Settled law permits corporations and institutional investors to take into account ESG factors that are rationally related to the profitability of their businesses and investments, and if those factors are obviously relevant as a matter of business and investment risk, may require consideration of those factors as a matter of fiduciary duty.

Major institutional investors focus on producing profits for their stockholders and address ESG risk—and climate—within that investor-focused framework.

An overwhelming scientific and business consensus exists that human-caused climate change is occurring and threatens enormous economic, social, political, and environmental harm.

The best evidence is that, like governments, the business community and institutional investor community are moving too slowly to address climate change before it is too late to avoid catastrophic consequences.

These Orwellian inconsistencies between the stated principles of anti-ESG leaders and their conduct are compounded by other realities:

The politicians who argue that corporations should focus solely on profit for their stockholders and have no legitimacy to use corporate resources to address social or political issues are among the largest consumers of corporate political donations.

The same politicians who argue that industry collaboration to address climate change violates the antitrust laws are allied closely with long-standing industry groups, such as the American Petroleum Institute, that have been at the forefront of climate denial and obfuscation.

This Orwellian opposition to business and institutional investor consideration of climate change contradict objective reality and involves the simultaneous embrace and rejection of certain principles in a manner consistent with Orwell’s concept of doublethink.  The situation is also Orwellian in the sense that there is no basis to believe that the political leaders casting doubt on the human connection to climate change (or relatedly, vaccine efficacy or President Obama’s birth origins) themselves believe in the doubts that they sow.  In fact, there is a great deal of evidence, in the form of their own avid desire to get vaccinated, and their own refusal to engage on the specific factual issues involved when challenged, that they do not.  To this point, many opponents of consideration of climate risk by business fiduciaries, have at times acknowledged that human-caused climate change is a substantial economic danger.  This illustrates another Orwellian quality, which is that the Party leaders obfuscate their past positions and their acolytes are asked to put contradictory past statements into the “memory hole,” where they disappear and do not cause them cognitive dissonance.

But as with the party leaders in 1984, or the ruling pigs in Animal Farm, the point of climate-denying rhetoric is not to advance an idea of the good that is grounded in truths that the leaders themselves accept as a basis for their own behavior.  It is to secure the power base of the Party leaders by manipulating and shaping the tribal identities of the Party faithful.  In the case of climate, the woke left-wing CEOs who are seeking to misuse corporate resources for extreme social ends are the context-specific “Goldsteins” who symbolize the larger incursion on traditional American beliefs that these political leaders argue is occurring.

In the face of an overwhelming scientific and business consensus that climate change is real, temperature readings that show a disturbing and continuing pattern of record highs, and resulting increases in high-impact storms, heat waves, glacier melting, and reef deaths, the climate-denying and obscuring rhetoric proceeds.  “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears.  It was their most final, essential command.”  Facts about climate (and vaccines and the nationality of President Obama) are not important to the Party leaders.  The utility of those issues is to inculcate a sense of identity and fealty in the masses who serve as their power base.

The counterintuitive emotionalizing of issues of science like climate change and vaccines is, of course, intentional.  Suggesting that they result from conspiracies to enslave right-thinking free Americans, and to impose upon them restrictions and changes in their way of life to promote a woke agenda, transforms them from issues of scientific, objective factual consideration into ones of quasi-religious tribal identity.  The Orwellian success of these political leaders in obscuring reality can be seen in the poll data that demonstrates a striking disconnect between their political base and the factual realities of climate change, vaccines, and President Obama’s birth.   In this respect, their acolytes embrace a key tenet of the Party in 1984:  “IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.”

The exponential increase in the use of the already tired, overbroad, and misleading term “woke capitalism” illustrates this kind of tribal incantation used to sharpen identification with the party while simultaneously dulling real thought.  Enclosing an intentionally manipulative message that climate change is in essence not real, and not a proper business consideration for corporate and investment fund leaders addressing an objectively real risk factor, within a larger, supposedly legally grounded argument that their fiduciary duties require them to focus solely on profit, underscores how sloppy language and thinking can corrode public discourse in a society where what citizens understand as reality matters to policy outcomes.

Because of the contradictions in their stated principles, the leaders of the anti-woke capitalism movement and their acolytes also display another Orwellian characteristic:  the ability to proceed while knowing that what was being said was untrue but acting as if it were true—i.e., to engage in  “doublethink.”  The self-described anti-woke capitalism movement can be fairly said to embrace these non-exclusive examples of doublethink:

Companies that wish to stifle information about climate change and action to address it may join together in industry groups to discuss and promote their views; companies that believe climate change is an urgent business and human problem violate the antitrust laws if they take identical action.

Like other companies, insurance companies should focus only on profit; but they must provide insurance without pricing the risks of climate change to the constituents of climate-denying politicians.

Companies should shut up about political issues and concentrate on profit; but they should continue to give tens of millions of dollars in treasury funds that could be used for dividends or capital investment every year to “anti-woke” politicians and partisan political committees.

Companies that have pro-Christian, pro-gun, or anti-climate views have values; companies that have contrary positions are illegitimately using other people’s moneys to promote a “woke” agenda.

Members of the inner party get vaccines and factor in climate change to protect themselves, their families, and property; but the party minions should distrust vaccines and climate change as made-up parts of a larger conspiracy to restrict their freedom.

There are no easy answers to addressing the enormous problem that Orwellian tactics pose for our society’s ability to address many urgent problems, and climate change in particular.  Urgent, coordinated action is needed to prevent enormous economic, human, and environmental harm.

But when a large percentage of the population of a republican democracy has been inculcated to deny the basic reality of human-caused climate change and its dangers, our society’s ability to act with the speed and scale necessary to help humanity meet the challenge is fundamentally undermined.  The counter-majoritarian mechanisms that exist in our constitution as an intended break on tyranny instead become a tool to impede progress at the insistence of political leaders using a genuine emergency as an opportunity for self-interested, fact-denying manipulation of their political base.

One way to redress this threat to our society and the genuine freedom of its citizens is to draw on Orwell’s protagonist Winston Smith himself and to recognize that the potential power of his resistance is greater in a society that is not Totalitarian.  Insisting that “two plus two make four” is no small thing.

In this context, asking and insisting on principled answers—over and over again if necessary— from climate-manipulators to questions like these is urgent:

• Just a few years ago, you admitted that human beings caused climate change.  Why are you denying that now?
• What is your scientific basis for denying that the emission of huge amounts of carbon and methane in the past 50 years is not causing the demonstrable increase in temperatures, storms, glacier meltage, and reef deaths?
• If corporations breach their fiduciary duties by taking stands on political or social issues, how come you have accepted millions of dollars in contributions from them?  Will you agree to stop accepting those contributions?
• If the Net Zero Alliance is illegal under the antitrust laws, why are you not investigating the American Petroleum Institute?
• If corporations must focus on profits, doesn’t an insurance company have to price climate risk in writing policies covering property that is at risk for damage because of climate change?
• If institutional investors must be prudent in investing, don’t they have to take into account objective reality, such as the threat climate change poses to certain industries?
• Do you accept the evidence that your own state has suffered greatly from increased storms and heat waves over the last two decades resulting from climate change?  In fact, haven’t you sought federal assistance to pay your state to help deal with the resulting harm?  Why should federal taxpayers subsidize your state if you continue to deny the reality of climate change and refuse to do your part?

In other words, although there surely are other measures that must be taken to better guarantee that our society resolve differences about important public policy issues on a factually sound basis, the relentless insistence that those who obscure objective reality be confronted with the fact that they are doing so is a necessary place to start.  When someone denies fact, mainstream institutions should call that out and refuse to legitimize their misinformation tactics.  Lies should be labeled as lies.  Manipulative, fraudulent half-truths should be labeled as just that.  Changes in factual position unexplained by reason should be called out as self-interested hypocrisy.  And when someone denies objective reality on one subject, their views as to all subjects should be regarded with justifiable suspicion.

As to climate change in particular, this is essential and justified.  There is nothing intrinsically wrong with carbon or methane, and reducing their use is not a moral end in itself.  All of us wish that useful products that keep us warm in winter, cool in summer, and enable our mobility could continue to be used safely and without harming our futures.  But the fact is that they cannot.

And those who deny the objective reality that carbon and methane usage have already caused substantial, harmful climate change and will cause enormous future warming and harm if not arrested who are conspiring against the basic idea of empirical truth.  A free society cannot function if the resolution of legitimate political differences is not grounded in an acceptance by all political leaders and citizens that they must accept that two plus two make four and work out their disagreements about how to address that undeniable reality.  Otherwise, those who seek to have their own facts will undermine our society’s ability to collectively pull together to sensibly and timely address the large-scale problems that must be confronted if the basic framework for a safe, healthy, stable, and economically prosperous society is to be secured.  Without that kind of framework, the fact-deniers will deprive everyone else of this nation’s animating promise to be one where people of good faith, but different beliefs, can thrive and provide future generations of Americans with even better lives.