Is it going too far to accuse a large number of Danish corporate executives for being irresponsible and greedy, considering the response they have given to the Danish government’s new climate plan? Well, judge for yourself when you have read this.
Recently, a Danish newspaper indirectly exposed how bad things still stand in the business sector when it comes to reducing CO2 emissions and protecting the future of the planet.
Business leaders, along with both the Federation of Danish Industries and a large number of Danish parliamentarians, apparently don’t give a damn about the climate and the nation’s long-term future. This has become apparent after the government launched its 78 new proposals as to how Denmark can reduce its CO2 emissions drastically in the coming years. They want to make money here and now — no matter what the consequences, even if these include the horrendous price which their children and future generations will be having to pay.
Deaf and blind consulting group
On 14 August 2013, the Danish newspaper Berlingske published journalist Carsten Steno Hansen’s article about Rich Lesser, CEO of the global firm Boston Consulting Group. He is an influential person which the Danish business community listens to. The article describes, involuntarily, just how bad things are in parts of the business sector.
For example, Rich Lesser and Boston Consulting Group does not think much of the Danish governments’ expectations that the manufacturing companies will be able to grow through new jobs and possibilities in the green industries — “in a situation where the world will experience declining energy prices and copious amounts of fossil energy,” as he formulates it.
His analysis completely ignores the possibility that the Danish authorities due to the climate crisis could soon begin to demand extra charges on fossil fuels, or that the country will find ways to reduce its consumption — including citizens’ own initiatives.
According to Berlingske, Rich Lesser points at the Danish offshore industry in oil and gas, among other things, as an obvious position of strength, “where the Danish production still has a future if given the right framework conditions,” as he formulates it. (Another word for subsidies, most likely.)
Blind and deaf consultants?
A future? Mmh… well, pardon me, but what future? Is Boston Consulting Group, one of the world’s largest and most influential consulting firms, both blind and deaf in relation to climate scientists’ warning about global warming and CO2 pollution? Or are they just pretending to be so for strategic reasons?
The entire climate science of the world has measured and calculated that in the way we conduct ourselves at the moment, we are heading directly towards a planetary disaster — thanks to top executives like Rich Lesser and his staff with climate blinkers on. As the years go by it will become more and more clear that these executives of the business world who think and talk like Boston Consulting Group, can be accused of having contributed to the eerie devastation of our urban communities, if not of outright genocide.
Journalists must be knowledgeable
On 14 August 2013, the Danish government launched its climate change plan to take the bull by the horns while there is still time and to get something done about the problem. Doesn’t this mean that we have reached that point where also a newspaper such as Berlingske has a responsibility as well? Shouldn’t the paper be expecting its journalists to be knowledgeable about the climate crisis and about how the CO2-bomb is ticking? This among other things should mean that uncritical holding up the microphone for irresponsible oil-, gas- and coal-promotional types such as Rich Lesser, and other climate-skeptics, is a thing of the past.
If not trained journalists can’t figure out how to ask these people sharp and critical questions about that oil-gas-coal-based future, which the corporate executives apparently continue to wish for, then who can?
Wouldn’t there by other parts of the Danish business sector who can speak up now and help get business-Denmark onto a more sensible and responsible climate-track in the style of what the government has proposed?
The ‘job-creating’ smoke screen
In the media, these corporate executives obviously do not talk openly about their selfish and self-centered motivations. They justify their position by using words like ‘creating and protecting jobs’, which has a nicer and more socially responsible sound to it. But the fact is that it is incredibly irresponsible not to take the threat of a carbon-induced climate disaster seriously now.
Besides, a green economy is going to create far more jobs that the fossil fuel industry could ever hope for. These jobs won’t cost of the Earth, literally.
For instance, for an alternative view, just take a look at the economic modelling which was recently done by Vivid Economics and Monash University in Australia (click on the image) in reference to the Australian economy:
Sharan Burrows, the General Secretary of the International Trade Union Federation, recently explained the core of this matter in all its simplicity: “We will have no jobs if we have no planet.”
Berlingske – 14 August 2013:
Hjemvendte job går uden om Danmark (Returned jobs bypass Denmark)
Many jobs can come back from Asia, but foreign investors opt Denmark because of high costs, says the American head of the world’s largest consulting company. He predicts that Denmark stands to lose 60,000 industrial jobs over the next seven years. By Carsten Steno Hansen
The same text in Danish language:
