There is spirited debate in the corporate community and among capital market players:  Is global warming occurring…what are the causes (if so)…and can anything be done by the private sector and governments to mitigate the effects if our planet is heating up?  The Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) was careful in reminding corporate boards a few years ago to pay closer attention to downside “risk,” and upside opportunities related to climate change.  In specific terms, “global warming” was not included in the staff interpretation to corporate issuers.
Other organizations can be much less politically correct — and more strident in the “warnings” — like the Union of Concerned Scientists (USC), which looks to put the issue in more familiar (and anxiety-raising) terms. Like, for example, as the USC believes, the Ellis Island national park in New York Harbor at some point being underwater. Or the glorious glaciers in Glacier National Park (USA) virtually disappearing.  (Citing there were 125 glaciers there a century ago; now there are 25 or so.)
The Union of Concerned Scientists has a report out now on “National Landmarks at Risk” — you can read highlights at: http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/legacy/assets/documents/global_warming/National-Landmarks-at-Risk-Executive-Summary.pdf
Blogger Pallavia Thakur posted a video interpretation of the USC’s “top 10” prominent landmarks that the UCS identified in the report.
The organization sees as threatened the American Everglades in Florida, the nation of the Maldive Islands, and more.  See our Top Story for his blog post and the link to a fascinating YouTube video presentation (7 minutes).  This approach (with professionally produced video, voice over) no doubt is designed to help UCS make the “global warming case” for the consumer audience.  It’s important that corporate managers and capital market players tune in to these kinds of arguments about climate change and the potential “dire effects.”
As our G&A Institute team analyzes the dramatically increasing flow of corporate sustainability, responsibility, corporate citizenship, and environmental disclosures and reports coming from a wide range of public companies, it’s clear that the corporate leaders in the reporting practice are skilled at presenting their views on climate change.  And where they stand in terms of risk and opportunity — often citing competitive advantage.
The peers of leadership companies that are not reporting are at risk of falling further behind in addressing the climate change concerns and expectations of their stakeholders.  You know, those who may be watching the UCS video on YouTube (as you can see in the story link below — do watch).
Climate change — whatever the corporate community view – -the issues are being effectively addressed by a growing number of thoughtful boards, C-suite and managerial teams, as we see every day in our research efforts.
10 Places that could disappear due to Global Warming
(Wednesday – August 19, 2015) Associated Profiles : Union of Concerned Scientists
Source:  Speaking Tree – According to a new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), there are many national parks and landmarks under serious threat from climate change, so much so that they will be irreparably…