Meet Prof. Lisa Sachs – Watts Up With That?

From MasterResource

By Robert Bradley Jr.

“One-sided argumentation/advocacy in place of intellectual rigor is fraudulent and morally wrong. It speaks to desperation in a dark hour. Your climate courses should be restructured or terminated. At a minimum, a new reading curriculum is needed.”

Lisa Sachs, Director of the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment, and Director of the Columbia Climate School’s Master of Science program in Climate Finance, recently wrote on social media:

Couldn’t be more excited for the official launch of Columbia Climate School‘s new MS in Climate Finance, as I hear from more and more incredible applicants AND practitioners, underscoring the importance, timeliness and breadth of rigorously understanding the intersection of Climate and Finance!!

I responded that climate finance was producing Net Zero for investors, with Sunnova being the most recent example. She deleted the comment and sent me this personal communication:

Rob, I don’t find your comments on my posts very helpful to anyone. If you’d like to discuss at some point, I’m happy to. I connected as a collegial connection but if it’s just to troll my posts, perhaps best not to be connected.

I responded:

Hi Lisa.  Did you delete my comment about climate investing resulting in ‘Net Zero’ for investors, with Sunnova being the latest example? The empirical record is clear on this….   But the bigger issue is intellectual diversity and the obvious need for Climate Finance program to have fair presentations on climate science, CO2 science, climate economics, and energy policies. The case against climate alarm and forced energy transformation is strong and politically ascendant. Net Zero (“immoral” to DOE head Chris Wright) is dying for predictable reasons. So my question: does your Masters Program have a professor sympathetic to these views, or can there be public debates on campus on these issues for your students?  If not, why not?

No response. I again asked her:

Lisa: I was hoping for a response.  Is there not room in Climate Finance for a different perspective on climate alarm and forced energy transformation?

She responded lawyerlike:

Our program is focused on equipping students with the tools to understand risks, impacts, and opportunities in climate finance—this is not a political stance, but a necessary foundation for sound decision-making. There is broad international agreement on the realities of climate change and the transition, which also brings economic and energy benefits, including cost efficiency, stability, and independence. We welcome diverse perspectives, and if you have a rigorous and constructive case to make, I’d be happy to engage.

I answered:

Chris Wright, head of DOE, gave just that to the CERA conference before several thousand yesterday.

There are plenty of very top, qualified people to dispute each and all of your seven assumptions in your statement:

“There is broad international agreement on the realities of climate change and the transition, which also brings economic and energy benefits, including cost efficiency, stability, and independence.”

Is there a professor on campus who can make these arguments? Can a series of debates be held at the Columbia Climate School on the benefits of CO2 enrichment and the fallacies of the ‘energy transition’?

After no answer, I asked:

Any response to my previous communication?  Is it your position that there are not two sides to the debates over climate alarm and forced energy transformation? 

Again, no answer. To her, there is not debate about fundamental questions, just the ‘obvious’ need for ‘climate investments’ that are ‘sustainable’ (my characterization).

Earlier Exchange

Professor Sachs posted two days earlier:

Well, we’re getting closer and closer to a more coherent and honest conversation on climate finance and net zero… it’s taking time to peel back the layers of confusion, conflation and misrepresentation from the past several years!!

She then outlined five points, all of which assume what is in debate (climate alarm) with false optimism about an area in retreat. (All this from a scholarly professor?)

1. “Net Zero” is a global GHG accounting concept – not one that can be atomized at the entity level. We must systematically reduce emissions across energy, transport, industry and land use, and then permanently remove and store any residual emissions….

2. That is NOT to say that transformations cannot and will not happen – they can, they must, and they will. And individual corporate actors and financial institutions have an important role to play….

3. It’s also categorically true that those who invest in the future will win in the future…. Those who have the ability, the leadership, and the insights to invest in the future will reap the economic and diplomatic rewards; right now, that is unequivocally China….

4. Many important sectors (finance, energy, industry, transport, etc.) are decisively responsive to (and in some ways, dependent on) policy frameworks…. In the US and in the EU, that has led many sectors to invest in ways that gamble with our fate and bet against a sustainable future — because the policy makers are doing the same.

5. But the energy transition is happening and present unprecedented opportunities. Climate impacts are real and present great risks. Leadership is possible. Truth-telling helps. Policies and politics are responsive to powerful voices (for better and worse). Vision is rewarded.

I responded:

Your assumption is that CO2 is a pollutant and worse–and Net Zero is a worthy goal. Maybe just the opposite! Do you allow debate at Columbia Center on this? The students deserve to hear both sides, particularly when the ignored side is winning in business and in politics.

Other critics joined in:

David Brattain: “Banks are lowering targets because NetZero is a loser. Climate Cult is a loser and the US Government is out of the fantasy funding business!”

And an ally of Sachs questioned her faith in China:

Nicole Reynolds: “Coal is still heavily favored in China’s electricity market design and the continued construction of coal plants alongside renewables hardly supports its decarbonization commitments…. Countries always defend their own interests so let’s not pretend that their technology advancements ‘benefit’ the world when China’s actions may very well push us past tipping points.”

Final Comment:

“The more rigorously and honestly we can chart the transition pathways and the challenges (indeed),” Lisa Sachs states, “the more we can help to shape solutions.” This is fair game for those of the opposite view. Look out the window, read the room, Lisa. Your naive view that it is business-as-usual with climate government subsidies and climate bulling is wrong. The failed Podesta-Biden-Harris era is over. It is Trump time, unleashing the best energies as chosen by consumers with taxpayers neutral.

One-sided argumentation/advocacy in place of intellectual rigor is fraudulent and morally wrong. It speaks to desperation in a dark hour. Your climate courses should be restructured or terminated. At a minimum, a new reading curriculum is needed, the subject of tomorrow’s post.

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