More Pressure On Chamber Of Commerce Over Climate Change Stance

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce's hostility to climate change legislation is making for something of a hostile climate for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Picking up on the momentum of the high-profile defections of Apple and the PG&E Corp from the business association, the Environmental Defense Fund and Silicon Valley groups are running ads in the San Jose Mercury News and the National Journal's Congress Daily to let the Chamber know that "Silicon Valley is ready to lead the world in the next great technological revolution: clean energy."

"No one can look at a Chamber executive and believe they speak for American businesses on climate change," said Environmental Defense Action Fund prez David Yarnold in a statement. "The Chamber is spoon-feeding Congress and the public a tired message that's stuck in the past. Thousands of companies are ready to move on to a new energy future, and a number of them are leaving the Chamber to prove it."

(The EDAF is the lobbying arm of the Environmental Defense Fund.)

Last week, Chamber CEO Tom Donahue complained that environmental groups are waging an "orchestrated pressure campaign" to get Chamber members to defect.

The ad, designed to look like an email from Silicon Valley to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, is signed by Silicon Valley Joint Venture president Russell Hancock and Silicon Valley Leadership Group president Carl Guardino.

Here's a shot of the ad:

Click here to view a PDF of the ad.

Comments

[mamacat]

Silicon Valley depends on facts, logic, and science for their very existence, so it only makes sense that they have no time for global warming deniers.

[RomeoMD25]

Carbon dioxide, a benign, life giving molecule has been miscast by a world wide political movement to be an environmental hazard in what
will soon be discovered to be the hoax of the century. This molecule, CO2 is vital to all life on earth. It is exhaled by all living
things and even comes from nocturnal emissions by plants. It forms the bubbles in your soda, wine and beer.

[dadw5boys]

Carbon dioxide will bind with other gases and become trapped. That is your arguement falls apart.

[Philclock]

If CO2 is so evil and will cook the earth how come the earth developed an Ice Age and Solar Caps when millions of years ago during the age of dinosaurs there was no ice at the poles? And up until about 10,000 years ago glaciers covered most of north america? (all this stuff is coming off the top of my head from hanging around my son's room, too lazy to look it up!)

[HansDelbruck]

Yeah, it's so vital that we have to eliminate it from our bodies, LOL! Try breathing in a room containing, say, 8% CO2, and see how long you remain happy, or alive. What are you, five years old? Get off the denial hyperbole, or the industry payola, and engage the science. Then, you might become as concerned as the serious people who study the issue. The non-chemist comment that 'CO2 will bind with other gases and become trapped' flunks remedial chemistry. CO2 is pretty non-reactive, and frequently is used as a near-inert gas. For the talk-radio illiterate, that means is doesn't bind very well.

[Pushpin100Count]

Based on an article that I read several years ago in Fortune magazine, most companies have dealing with climate change as part of their risk management strategies and long term planning. Mostly on the idea that it's better to be prepared than not.

For it to be such an accepted part of corporate strategy does lead you to believe that the Chamber doesn't really represent the beliefs of most of it's larger constituents.

[Philclock]

Nothing to do with beliefs, it's a matter of surviving in the middle of a religious war: Man is an Evil Climate-Changer vs. No He Isn't, my super-computer multi-variable statistical projections vs yours.

If I were running a company, I would have a sizeable contingency fund. The Man is Evil crowd will go after any deep pockets I have, and the No He Isn't crowd will hit me up for donations to fight them.

The next big meteor or Krakatoa eruption will put that argument to rest once and for all, but I can't afford to wait around.

[realpolitic]

The Chamber is also wildly overstating its membership from the 200.000 or so members they really have to about 3 million. According to Mother Jones, "the chamber began exaggerating its membership numbers in February 1997, when its ranks suddenly grew from about 200,000 to a staggering 3 million. The jump coincided with the appointment of current president Tom Donohue."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/13/us-chamber-of-commerce-ma_n_318503.html