Will The Reality And Dangers Of Climate Change Sour Big Business On GOP Extremists? Not So Far

Conservatives were wily enough to realize-- long ago-- that democracies are tough ground for them. Campaigning on a platform of basically keeping the social order as it is-- the rich stay rich and powerful and the poor stay poor and powerless-- only works when rich people are the only ones allowed to vote. After working diligently to disenfranchise as many people as they could-- minorities, renters, women, young people, non-white people, ex-felons… anyone who isn't white, wealthy, male and old-- conservatives realized they would have to make common ground with riffraff. Nationalism worked well but that tended to eventually give way to xenophobia, which, quite naturally, led to anti-Semitism and racism. Voilà-- the modern Republican Party. The wealthy vested interests using poorly educated-- and just plain stupid-- paranoids, racists and bigots of every stripe have put together an ad hoc party based on Greed, Selfishness on one hand and Hatred and Fear on the other.

Unfortunately one of the things the unwashed Republican idiots have been taught to hate and fear is anything resembling an effort at ameliorating climate change. The Koch Brothers black bag operation made sure of that. So now respectable businesspeople are scratching their heads and wondering what they're doing on the same side of the aisle as a the flat earth sociopaths.

Yesterday, writing for ThinkProgress' Climate section, Emily Atkin looked at major food conglomerates worrying that Climate Change is threatening their bottom lines. "While politicians continue to bicker over whether or not climate change exists," she wrote, "companies now have no choice in the matter-- they must acknowledge the science and the risk and disclose the reality of that risk to their investors’ pocketbooks. Whether that risk actually manifests itself is another matter, but the fact that companies are increasingly putting climate change on their threat lists speaks volumes to the severity of the problem."

She mentions 8 food companies in all: Chipotle, Keurig Green Mountain, Michael Foods Group, Heinz, Big Heart Pet Brands, Omega Protein, Marine Harvest ASA (formerly Pan Fish), and Coca-Cola. Here's the Coke story:

Coca-Cola’s risk statement about climate change is pretty basic, but it’s simple enough to encapsulate the basic big picture: that the affects of climate change as scientists see them could be bad for profits.

“The growing political and scientific sentiment is that increased concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are influencing global weather patterns,” a company 10-K filing says. “Changing weather patterns, along with the increased frequency or duration of extreme weather conditions, could impact the availability or increase the cost of key raw materials that the Company uses to produce its products. In addition, the sale of these products can be impacted by weather conditions.”

In addition, the company also acknowledges that regulations to curb greenhouse gas emissions imposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency could also negatively impact business. Current regulations have had a “minor” affect on business now, but the filing said that future regulations could “directly or indirectly affect the Company’s production, distribution, packaging, cost of raw materials, fuel, ingredients and water.”

But do the fears of GOP antipathy towards climate science change anything about these companies' political giving? Heinz has a political action committee that contributes hundreds of thousands of donors to politicians. 2012 was their biggest single year so far, contributing $179,322-- 59% to Republicans and 41% to (mostly conservative) Democrats. So far this year Heinz has only spent $59,083, 50% to Democrats and 50% to Republicans. In the House the biggest portion of their contributions are going to virulent and fanatic climate change deniers like Jim Jordan (R-OH), Joe Pitts (R-PA), Dave Camp (R-MI), Tim Murphy (R-PA), and Cory Gardner (R-CO).

2012 was also Coca-Cola Company's biggest contribution year ever. The company PAC handed out $827,076, 59% to Republicans and 41% to (mostly conservative) Democrats. Again, the lion's share of the loot went to climate fanatic change deniers like John Boehner (R-OH), Tom Price (R-GA), Fred Upton (R-MI), Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), John Kline (R-MN), John Fleming (R-LA), Paul Broun (R-GA), Allen West (R-FL), Phil Gingrey (R-GA), Peter Roskam (R-IL), Mike Pompeo (R-KS), Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), Virginia Foxx (R-NC), Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA), Scott Desjarlais (R-TN), Rob Woodall (R-GA), Frank Guinta (R-NH), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), etc. So far this year Coke has handed out $736,249, 53% to Republicans and 47% to Democrats. They are clearly not letting their worries about Climate Change get in the way of their affinity to Republican Party extremists.

Big Heart Pet Brands is a more modest operation than Coca-Cola or Heinz. In 2012 they handed out $14,000-- 57% to conservative Democrats and 43% to Republicans, all climate change deniers) and so far this year they gave away $10,500, 54% to Republicans and 46% to Democrats.

So… no correlations whatsoever between worries about climate change/worries about GOP extremists and political campaign contributions. German industrialists in the 1920s and '30s, miscalculated disastrously by propping up Adolf Hitler and the far right Nazi Party. Without the immense sums Hitler receiver from the German equivalents of the Koch brothers-- say Ruhr industrialist Fritz Thyssen-- he would have died on the vine long before coming to power. German plutocrats at I. G. Farben, Flick, Krupp, Siemens, etc now rewrite history-- they have the money to hire the hacks to do so-- to show that they were only paying "protection money" to the Nazis, utter bullshit and no different whatsoever from the American plutocrats today shelling out millions for Republicans Imagine a history book one day claiming that David and Charles Koch and Sheldon Adelson gave so much to the Tea Party and the GOP because they were afraid!

The German plutocrats thought they could control Hitler; the underestimated him and he eventually made them his slaves and wrecked their world. Will the Tea Party and GOP Frankenstein monster devour the Kochs and Adelsons and the rest of the plutocrats one day? Or drown them in rising oceans?