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Comment by colecut | Hacker News Reader

My guess is that very few "global leaders" are scientists, so based on the headline alone I'm not sure why this survey matters.

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It matters if said "global leaders" happen to manage loads of cash.

When Blackrock's CEO states his firm will divest away from fossil fuels in 2020, this has (sadly imo) roughly the impact of e^9 climate scientists ringing alarm bells for a decade.

Saying that Blackrock's getting out of coal, or that it will take a position of $1T in sustainable energy is just saying that they will invest profitably.

At this point it's cheaper to build new sustainable energy plants (and sadly natural gas) than to maintain running coal plants.

“...is just saying they will invest profitably”...

Couldn’t be more false. Existing coal companies can easily make money for investors when they trade at earnings yields of 25%. no new coal plants need to be built. Coal can even be phased out. If you get 6-7 more years of earnings at a flattish 25% earnings yield you can do very well. This is why deep value investing works on average.

As a layman: Governments all over are phasing out and closing coal plants in favor of newly built sustainable energy plants. That means sustainable energy companies will be on the rise while coal will be on the decline.

Which makes intuitive sense but doesn't take into consideration the price you pay for the investment, which is the primary factor in determining your returns.

The Blackrock letter did not state that they are divesting from fossil fuels in 2020. It stated that they are planning to remove companies that generate more than 25% of their revenue from thermal coal production (i.e., thermal coal producers that are not diversified, meaning the large diversified thermal coal producers are not affected) from their discretionary active investment portfolios, which only accounts for a minority of their assets. Note that thermal coal is already declining in the US and other markets due to increased competition primarily from natural gas, a fossil fuel which, like oil, the letter says nothing about.

https://www.blackrock.com/corporate/investor-relations/black...

In all fairness, if he's doing so because of the climate scientists' bell ringing then you could argue that it's their impact that's being seen.

> My guess is that very few "global leaders" are scientists

Often more than you'd think. Merkel is a Physicist (where Thatcher was a Chemist), Ursula von der Leyen is a licensed doctor (which almost counts?), and Abe Shinzō has a political science degree (which probably doesn't count :-D). That's 2.5 members of the G8ish.

All have been out of academia for long enough that calling them "scientists" is a stretch

By that definition, not a single politician is a scientist because they all works in politics, not in academia.

No: GP said "out of academia long enough." Recent newcomers to politics with extensive backgrounds in professional science (for some definition of "recent" and "extensive") could still count.

The question is, were they any good in their original profession, and why did they move away from it and go to politics?

I think the point of their comment is that they had exposure to Science, which is almost as important as being a good scientist, because it alters how you think.

I disagree that plain "exposure" is worth anything. Let me bring up a sort of unrelated example. Whenever I meet someone that claims they have "some" experience with people with disabilities, it turns out they are worse then those people that dont claim that.

"Some experience with people with disabilities" implies a far lower level of commitment and immersion than the "exposure to science" that's being discussed in this thread.

If a politician claims they have a scientific background, but it turns out all they did was take gen bio in first year and follow a dozen popular scientists on Twitter, they'd be derided.

I don't know the specifics of the people in the article, but examples like Cédric Villani demonstrate that it's not OK to be rash in one's judgment.

Even if they were, and/or are surrounded by advisors with science credentials, the overwhelming political pressure coming from corporate lobbyists will likely mean science will be ignored.

For the same reason that very few "global leaders" trained in the military, but it still matters if they decide to declare war?

Because leaders tend to actually influence policy.

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