Dear editor,
I have followed Jeremy Grantham of GMO investments for the last 10 years. That’s all I can do because the minimum to open an account is $25 million.
Grantham has done a lot of research on climate change as well as companies with his personal money. When he first started pitching investing in the green industry to the super rich, he got a lot of pushback. In the last two years, however, they’ve all come on board.
I believe in climate change, but a lot of my friends do not. What they do not realize is that global warming is going to harm them the most. When this pandemic started and all the countries in the world halted their economic engines, airplanes stopped flying, highway transports cut back by half, people stopped driving to work, and even Uber shut down.
This disruption caused carbon emissions to drop so much that skylines across the world — Los Angeles, Denver, Paris, Shanghai — suddenly became visible, establishing a level that we must maintain from here forward.
Unfortunately, President Trump does not believe in climate change so the government is not going to help unless the Democrat, Joe Biden, wins.
Even without the president’s support, we see wind and solar panel farms popping up all over America. Amazon just ordered 1,800 electric delivery vans and plans for 100,000 by 2024. China has seven electric car and truck manufacturing companies. They think Tesla will deliver 800,000 cars in the next two years.
There are 18 alternative energy companies and two green-based ETF funds to invest in. Most are at all-time highs.
BHP, the world’s largest coal mining company, just announced it is switching to alternative energy. Coal energy produces one-third of the carbon emissions in the world.
I have many friends in the oil business. I could feel their pain when oil went below zero for a week or so because I own oil-related stocks. I am still in the red though it has come back a bunch.
It is going to be a while before we will be driving electric autos on a massive scale, but it is coming faster than you think. We have the Chevy Volt, Ford Fusion, Kia Niro, Nissan Leaf, Hyundai Kona and Tesla. GM just bought 11% of Nikola stock. Nikola will build its Badger pickup truck and semi-hydrogen engines in a new factory, yet to be decided where by 2022.
If Biden wins, he said he is going to convert 250,000 government autos to electric and install 500,000 charging outlets across the country.
Who is this going to hurt? Well, Kansas for one if we continue to put our resources into fossil fuels. Wichita had better go after the Badger factory. They have lots of available buildings from the fallout of the airplane industry.
David Comstock,
Colony, Kan.
