2nd Vote is out with the names of 78 corporations (it says 81 — more on that below) that have signed on to the White House’s “American Business Act on Climate Pledge.”

The “Pledge” states that “…No corner of the planet and no sector of the global economy will remain unaffected by climate change in the years ahead. Climate change is a global challenge that demands a global response, and President Obama is committed to leading the fight.” It commits the signatories to:

Cheer on countries who have already put environmental agendas in place; Aim to continuously reduce emissions, increase low-carbon investments, deploy more clean energy, and take other actions to build more sustainable businesses and tackle climate change; Put company-wide policies in place that aim to reduce emissions by almost half; Reduce water usage by 80 percent; Reduce waste-to-landfill to nothing; Purchase 100 percent renewable energy; and Pursue zero net deforestation in supply chains.

Many of these non sequitur proposals would do immense harm to the poor and nothing to help the environment, as explained by George Will in his response to Pope Francis’s advocacy of left-wing environmentalism:

“People occasionally forgive, but nature never does.” The Vatican’s majesty does not disguise the vacuity of this. Is Francis intimating that environmental damage is irreversible? He neglects what technology has accomplished regarding London’s air (see Page 1 of Dickens’ “Bleak House”) and other matters. …

Francis deplores “compulsive consumption,” a sin to which the 1.3 billion persons without even electricity can only aspire. He leaves the Vatican to jet around praising subsistence farming, a romance best enjoyed from 30,000 feet above the realities that such farmers yearn to escape.

The saint who is Francis’ namesake supposedly lived in sweet harmony with nature. For most of mankind, however, nature has been, and remains, scarcity, disease and natural — note the adjective — disasters. Our flourishing requires affordable, abundant energy for the production of everything from food to pharmaceuticals. Poverty has probably decreased more in the last two centuries than it has in the preceding three millennia because of industrialization powered by fossil fuels. Only economic growth has ever produced broad amelioration of poverty, and since growth began in the late 18th century, it has depended on such fuels.

Matt Ridley, author of ‘The Rational Optimist,’ notes that coal supplanting wood fuel reversed deforestation, and ‘fertilizer manufactured with gas halved the amount of land needed to produce a given amount of food.’ The capitalist commerce that Francis disdains is the reason the portion of the planet’s population living in ‘absolute poverty’ ($1.25 a day) declined from 53 percent to 17 percent in three decades after 1981. Even in low-income countries, writes economist Indur Goklany, life expectancy increased from between 25 and 30 years in 1900 to 62 years today. Sixty-three percent of fibers are synthetic and derived from fossil fuels; of the rest, 79 percent come from cotton, which requires synthetic fertilizers and pesticides.”

The 78 corporations are:

  1. ABENGOA BIOENERGY US
  2. AEMETIS
  3. ALCOA
  4. AMERICAN EXPRESS
  5. APPLE
  6. AT&T
  7. AUTODESK
  8. BANK OF AMERICA
  9. BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY ENERGY
  10. BEST BUY
  11. BIOGEN
  12. BLOOMBERG
  13. CARGILL
  14. CA TECHNOLOGIES
  15. CALPINE
  16. CAMPOS BROTHERS FARMS
  17. COCA-COLA
  18. COX ENTERPRISES
  19. DELL
  20. DSM NORTH AMERICA
  21. EMC
  22. ENERGY OPTIMIZERS
  23. ENER-G RUDOX
  24. FACEBOOK
  25. FULCRUM BIOENERGY
  26. GE
  27. GENERAL MILLS
  28. GENERAL MOTORS
  29. GOLDMAN SACHS
  30. GOOGLE
  31. HERSHEY’S
  32. HEWLETT PACKARD (HP)
  33. IBERDROLA USA
  34. IBM
  35. IKEA USA
  36. INGERSOLL RAND
  37. INTERNATIONAL PAPER
  38. INTEL
  39. INTEX SOLUTIONS, INC.
  40. INVENERGY
  41. JOHNSON AND JOHNSON
  42. JOHNSON CONTROLS
  43. KELLOGG’S
  44. KINGSPAN INSULATED PANELS, INC.
  45. LAKESHORE LEARNING MATERIALS
  46. LAM RESEARCH
  47. LEVI STRAUSS & CO.
  48. L’OREAL USA
  49. MARS
  50. McDONALD’S CORPORATION
  51. MICROSOFT
  52. MONSANTO
  53. NIKE
  54. NESTLE
  55. NOVOZYMES
  56. ONE3LED
  57. PACIFIC ETHANOL
  58. PEPSI-CO
  59. PG&E
  60. POET
  61. PORTLAND GENERAL ELECTRIC
  62. PwC US
  63. PROCTER & GAMBLE
  64. QUALCOMM
  65. RICOH USA
  66. SALESFORCE.COM
  67. SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC
  68. SIEMENS CORPORATION
  69. SONY CORPORATION OF AMERICA
  70. STARBUCKS
  71. SYNGENTA/QCCP
  72. TARGET
  73. TRI-GLOBAL ENERGY
  74. UNILEVER
  75. UPS
  76. WALMART
  77. THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY
  78. XEROX CORPORATION

(Note: It was kinda funny writing this, because whatever idiot the White House got to write the original press release can’t count. He/She said that there were 81 companies, not 78. I can’t blame 2nd Vote for not noticing.)