Time to set up the American Business Chamber

JBowers makes a good catch in a prior comment thread.  From one chamber to another:

Climate change dispute erupts with Aspen telling U.S. Chamber of Commerce to take a hike 

Aspen's chamber of commerce isn't the first to sever ties with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over political differences. The chamber in Homer, Alaska, made national headlines when it canceled its membership last year....  

At a retreat on Tuesday, the Aspen Chamber Resort Association's board voted 11 to 1 to withdraw its membership from the national organization. Tension between Aspen's chamber and the national one existed for years. The 680-member local chamber penned a letter to the national group in 2010 delineating its differences. But this year — which saw the driest winter in Aspen since the 1976-1977 season — politics are in overdrive thanks to the coming November general election. Several weeks ago, Aspen's chamber began feeling pressure from Schendler and his Aspen Skiing Co. bosses, the mayor, a pair of county commissioners and residents who had had enough of the local chamber's affiliation with the right-wing U.S. Chamber and its obstruction of solutions to climate change. .... 

The local chamber's recap continued: “Aspen’s economy is inextricably tied to the future of the global climate and all area entities have deeply embraced the idea of reducing our carbon footprint. With our resignation from the U.S. Chamber, the ACRA shows its solidarity with this position.” 

Two small cities are more than enough to christen this a trend sweeping the entire country.  Okay, maybe it's just a good sign, but I'll take it.  There are plenty of other small liberal resort towns and ski towns.  As the article notes, there are also a number of large businesses that have had enough of the US Chamber and its decision to favor conservative-leaning businesses over moderate and progressive businesses.

I think our local Silicon Valley chambers, and other places with strong green energy business interests, should be following the same steps to support their local business interest, along with the national and human interest.  I've gone back and forth in the past over whether businesses should fight to change the US Chamber from the inside or the outside, but I think the outside is looking more like the best alternative.

There already exists a Green Chamber of Commerce, pushing for business-friendly environmental solutions.  I think that's a great idea, but in addition to that maybe we need an umbrella American Business Chamber to be the Gandalf to the US Chamber's Saruman - to be what the US Chamber should have been.  The Green Chamber, local Chambers, and individual businesses rejecting Saruman could join a politically neutral, national level American Business Chamber rather than one that's decided to be a tool and player on one side of the political spectrum.  They should get back to ABC.

YouTube on the Chamber's problems over climate change

Via ThinkProgress:

Pressure's on the Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce

The San Jose Mercury News published this editorial:

U.S. Chamber is a dinosaur on climate change

Silicon Valley's future, and the nation's, is clean technology....But the U.S. National Chamber of Commerce, which purports to be the voice of the nation's businesses, has turned into a dinosaur when it comes to clean energy. The chamber's strong opposition to climate change legislation makes clear its allegiance to the destructive oil- and coal-based industries of yesteryear.

PG&E took the extraordinary step of quitting the chamber earlier this month because of its "extreme rhetoric and obstructionist tactics." Valley companies and venture capital firms that have been proclaiming green credentials should follow suit. And the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce, along with other Bay Area branches, should make it clear that unlike their national umbrella, they look to the future.

....

The San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce expects to take a position on this by the end of the year, according to Pat Dando, president and CEO. It has had discussions with the U.S. Chamber and the California Chamber as well as PG&E and several other members.

But on Friday, Dando clearly separated herself from the national chamber, saying that "there isn't anyone who doesn't realize that climate change is a man-made phenomenon and something we need to address and address quickly."

She says the position taken by business, legislators and community members on this issue may be the most important legacy this generation will leave for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

She's right.

We hope her organization agrees, and that individual valley companies make their voices heard in Washington — whether through the national chamber or despite it.

I know Pat from my day job, mostly from being on opposite sides on various bad development projects that have been proposed here. Unlike some others, however, she is nobody's fool and is not unreasonable. It will be interesting to see where they go with this - I understand the US Chamber does not like dissent within the ranks.

Another complication is that here, unlike some other cities, there's competition to represent business interests. The Silicon Valley Leadership Group and Sustainable Silicon Valley both have strong business representation and take a pro-environment position. The regional Chamber risks losing influence to these organizations if it doesn't keep up, although the Chamber might also be less influenced by businesses that work primarily through these alternate groups.

Unrelated bonus blogging: Richard Dawkins was in the area last night, promoting his latest book on evolution to an absolutely packed crowd at Keplers in Menlo Park. A very good speaker, but unlike what I've read elsewhere, he seemed fairly combative regarding his assertion that evolution makes God an unnecessary hypothesis.

Still more companies drop the Chamber of Commerce

So Nike quit the US Chamber Board of Directors on Wednesday in protest of the do-nothing position on climate (although Nike didn't drop its membership entirely). Along with PG&E quitting, two other large utilities, Exelon and PNM Resources, are dropping the Chamber.

This seems to be moving fast, and it will be interesting to see if it keeps happening. I'm sure the corporate interests in the Chamber that support inaction on climate aren't persuaded by any of this, but other corporations that hadn't cared much before might want to start thinking about their own self interest, as the Chamber starts losing significant political and financial capital.

The Chamber's response is a smokescreen statement pretending they'd support a treaty that would somehow get 60 votes in the Senate and that would also force "each nation" in the developing world, no matter how poor and how tiny its per-capita greenhouse gas emission is, into binding reductions. What would be much more interesting than this nonsense is to know what the internal discussions are saying. Time for business journalists to get on it.

As for environmental strategy, I think in the short term at least this incipient crisis for the Chamber supports a quitting strategy over the "stay and fight" strategy I've advocated. Maybe a merger of the two strategies would be for environmentally-oriented businesses to start turning around local and state chapters, though. Another would be for BICEP or a similar group to organize more broadly as a business alternative to the US Chamber, something that might truly scare it.

UPDATE: completely unrelated bonus blogging - Ardipithecus! The link has some good stuff and should have more. I'm sure Afarensis will too. I've seen a few experts question the bipedality claims, so the fur will be flying on that issue.

Greening the Chamber: the current Board of Directors is a challenge

John Mashey suggests reviewing the US Chamber's Board of Directors for likely willingness to change their do-nothing approach to climate change.* Some of the members are below:

• President and CEO Thomas Donahue: as the guy in charge, I assume he's personally responsible for the know-nothing approach, a Lee Raymond type who won't change except under threat to his career, if then. Also, former president of the trucking industry association.

• Chair Robert Milligan: runs an "animal and meat protein processing company" in the Midwest. Not likely receptive to the problems of climate change to meat use and the fertilizer intensive agriculture that supports it.

• Vice-Chair Thomas Bell: a mystery on the Chamber's page. According to Forbes, he's working for property owners, a theater chain, and a natural gas distributor. Could be a prospect, I suppose.

• Donald Shepard: an insurance guy - a possible realist? Unfortunately his background is life and pension insurance, but maybe he's been infected with some understanding of what property insurers think of reality.

• Steve Van Andel: from Amway, which isn't a problem, but also very Michigan-oriented, which could be.

• Those are the above-the-fold directors, then a huge list of others here. I don't have the hours of time to go through them all here, except to notice the first guy is from the Black Chamber of Commerce, who embarassed himself while insulting Barbara Boxer some months back.

So, not very encouraging from the first glance. Not too surprising either - there had to be institutional reasons for taking such an awful stance. In addition, I know personally that real estate agent associations are very active at local chambers and often take great exception to land use controls, so I could see the same attitude reaching the national level.

On the other hand, we do have industries that have good reason to support addressing climate change, as well as normal industries that want a planet they can continue to do business on, so I think there are still prospects for change.

*I previously labelled the Chamber's approach as denialist, but instead of actually denying human-caused warming, the US Chamber just doesn't want to take serious steps to address it, either under the Clean Air Act or through current proposed legislation.

BICEP and USCAP mean it's time to Green the Chamber of Commerce

BICEP is a new business affiliation of progressive companies that's calling for quick action on climate change. USCAP is an even bigger coalition of companies and environmental groups, including some major power users, that calls for climate legislation (although not to the same urgent level as BICEP).

And then there's the US Chamber of Commerce, which has done all it can for years to stop attempts to control greenhouse gas emissions. The inmates are in control, and I've seen this as well on the local environmental level here in the Bay Area, where city Chambers take destructive environmental stances that have little or nothing to do with business interests.

But not always. The Chambers aren't monolithic entities, and individual ones can take different stances. The Morgan Hill Chamber of Commerce has a strong Environmental Committee organized by a friend of mine, Alex Kennett. That Chamber organizes the city's Earth Day celebration and the environmental committee promotes green businesses. Not coincidentally, the Morgan Hill Chamber has abstained from the destructive environmental stances taken by other Chambers.

There is a real opportunity for growing environmental businesses to change the destructive policies of the Chambers. Especially here in Silicon Valley, an epicenter of renewable energy, our Chambers should be taking pro-environment stances. By pushing local Chambers in the right direction, environmentalists could start affecting the state and national levels as well. I've thought for a long time that this is something some major environmental groups and foundations should be working on changing. Time to get going.