HSBC has suspended Stuart Kirk, global head of responsible investing at the HSBC’s asset management division following his presentation the Financial Times Moral Money event last Thursday, Stuart Kirk said “throughout my 25-year career in the finance industry, there’s always some nut job telling me about the end of the world”. One of the slides points out: “Unsubstantiated, shrill, partisan, self-serving, apocalyptic warnings are ALWAYS wrong,”
These statements are true, but telling the truth in an age of universal deceipt is a dangerous thing to do.
Watch the 16 minute presentation. It’s well supported, factual, and cuts the climate crisis off at the knees in terms of claimed economic and financial impacts. It turns out central banks have to introduce huge interest rate shocks into the models to get anything scary to happen. Just like the CO2 hockey jockeys introduce huge non-existant water vapour feedbacks into climate models.
But the UN’s tinpot tyrantess Christiana Figueres isn’t interested in evidence or argument. She just wants him fired.
#SackThemAll
Tallbloke's Talkshop 
He was far too kind in fact, as he well knows. The margin of error on GDP in 2100 is far higher than the claimed loss from climate change for example.
His fundamental point is undeniable – whatever happens in fifty years time is uttey irrelevant to markets today. And we are missing real risks today in favour of fantasies in the future.
In a Time of Universal Deceit — Telling the Truth Is a Revolutionary Act
[…] Freedom of speech: Stuart Kirk suspended for dropping truth bombs in public. […]
As Stuart Kirk said…
MAY 22, 2022
What are the key climate themes at Davos?
Of the roughly 270 panels Monday through Thursday, one-third are about climate change or its direct effects.
https://phys.org/news/2022-05-key-climate-themes-davos.html
There is enough democracy left in the world that governments want people to accept what they are doing.
Of the Left’s million memes, the two biggies that have grasped the people’s attention, at least in the West, are racism and climate change. Davos panels will discuss what abominations the people will accept in the name of fighting climate change (still conspicuously undefined).
As ever with the Left, the issue is never the issue. It is, “How can we use this issue to get what we want?”
“Never let a crisis go to waste.”
They couldn’t care less about the weather. Or racism. They use them because YOU care.
Just a reminder:
At a news conference in Brussels, Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, admitted that the goal of environmental activists is not to save the world from ecological calamity but to destroy capitalism.
“This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution,” she said.
Referring to a new international treaty environmentalists hope will be adopted at the Paris climate change conference later this year, she added:
“This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model for the first time in human history.”
http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/climate-change-scare-tool-to-destroy-capitalism/
[…] Freedom of speech: Stuart Kirk suspended for dropping truth bombs in public. […]
For those of you who saw the Guardian’s Friday “HSBC pressured to sack banker who discredited climate crisis warnings” article ( https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/may/20/hsbc-banker-discredited-climate-crisis-warnings ), notice in the article’s 7th paragraph how they quoted most of Stuart Kirk’s bit about “some nutjob“, but they put an ellipsis in for the words they left out. What did they leave out? Here’s the full quote where I’ve placed the missing words within brackets. When he spoke of nutjobs, the computer tech “crisis” he cited was … well, an inconvenient truth.
“25 years in the finance industry, there’s always some nutjob telling me about the end of the world. [ I’ve dealt with goldbugs my whole financial career. The roof’s gonna cave down — Y2K, does anyone remember Y2K, anyone old enough? The lifts didn’t stop! ] But what bothers me about this one, is the amount of work these people make me do, the amount of regulation coming down the pipes, the number of people in my team and at HSBC dealing with financial risk from climate change.”
Don’t know about you, but by 2100, I plan on being completely, irrevocably, dead.
“Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run, we are all dead.”— John Maynard Keynes
“whatever happens in fifty years time is uttey irrelevant to markets today”
True. The time value of money makes it virtually impossible for an investment with a return 50 years out to be rational.
But don’t expect politicians – or journalists – to know that.
Roger Pielke Jr has a post on this topic:
https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/why-investors-need-not-worry-about/
My first comment was this:
The juiciest nugget in the presentation came at the end: Financial model projections from central banks are only made scary by injecting a huge interest rate shock. I think this one is known as implausible variable fraud.
Rival Bank Slams HSBC For Suspending Banker Over Climate Criticism
Bill Winters, chief executive of the FTSE 100 bank Standard Chartered, warned that “it’s increasingly difficult to speak out against anything” following the backlash against Stuart Kirk, HSBC’s head of responsible investing.
. . .
Speaking to The Telegraph in Davos, Mr. Winters said that people “should speak their mind” and hinted that he would not have suspended Mr. Kirk, calling the presentation “very colorful”.
He added: “Do I agree with the views? No. Do I encourage free speech? Yes.”
https://climatechangedispatch.com/rival-bank-slams-hsbc-for-suspending-banker-over-climate-criticism/
Andrew Bolt picks up the story
[…] in May we reported on the suspension of Stuart Kirk, who dropped some truth bombs about climate finance at a Times newspaper conference. Stuart has now […]
[…] in May we reported on the suspension of Stuart Kirk, who dropped some truth bombs about climate finance at a Times newspaper conference. Stuart has now […]
Heh.