Here are my remarks delivered today at the Walmart annual meeting in Fayetteville, Arkansas in favor of our shareholder proposal that asks for a report on the business risks of climate change:
Mr. Duke, I have some good news for you. You can stop worrying about global warming. The seas are not rising. The sky is not falling. And Al Gore has found a new role – as that crazed sex poodle.
During the elections last year, the American people spoke. Voters chose economic growth over pseudo-science and environmental alarmism. As a result, cap and trade legislation supported by Walmart is dead, and may be forever.
Cap and Trade was never about global warming. Instead it’s about politicians imposing a command economy on us, and raising taxes in order to enhance their own power.
Wal-Mart supported ObamaCare, too, which was never about health care. And it is even more unpopular now with the American people than when it passed, raising the question of how Walmart, one the biggest engines of American capitalism become a backer of these Socialist schemes.
It worked like this. Corrupt unions like the Service Employees International Union – the SEIU – and other anti-business activists targeted Wal-Mart for defamation. Instead of fighting back and defending the good name of the company, the CEO at the time, Lee Scott decided to cave in. Mike Duke has intensified these policies of appeasement.
Walmart even hired one of its critics, Leslie Dach, as a Vice President to guide this process. Today, Mr. Dach openly trashes Wal-Mart’s legacy in order to promote the “different corporate culture” he has helped introduce.
I happen to believe that Sam Walton’s company has a pretty good legacy, and Leslie Dach should stop disrespecting it.
Walmart is in the grip of political ideologues. On its website it says that its goal is to be supplied 100 percent by renewable energy, which is neither achievable nor desirable. This goal is revealing, however, about the philosophical orientation of the people that Walmart behind it. They are seemingly hostile to capitalism, progress, technology and the 21st century itself.
Wind generates two tenths of one percent of the world’s energy. It cannot compete with fossil fuels. Same for solar. These industries exist ONLY because of government subsidies, which in the coming years will be phased out as governments run out of money. It is already happening in Europe. Trust me, Walmart is never going to be 100% supplied by renewable energy.
Walmart pushes weird products like the compact fluorescent lights in the name of fighting global warming. These bulbs throw off a harsh light, and are big problem if you break them because they contain mercury. Consumers did not ask for them.
Wal-Mart announced plans to eliminate millions of tons of carbon emissions from its global supply chain by the end of 2015, thus imposing its political agenda on its suppliers. Leslie Dach’s friends used to complain that Walmart was too big and powerful because it could dictate to its suppliers. I guess that it is OK now that this power is being put to THEIR political ends.
Maybe it is time to put consumers back in charge.
Related:
SEC Says Wal-Mart Can’t Nix NLPC Shareholder Proposal on Global Warming
Flaherty Blasts Wal-Mart on Fox News Channel (video)
Wal-Mart Support for ObamaCare, Cap and Trade Ripped at Annual Meeting
No Surprise Here: Wal-Mart Endorses Obama’s Health Care Mandate
Flaherty: Wal-Mart Embraces Obama Health Care to Appease Unions (CNBC video)
Is Wal-Mart Too Liberal? (Newsweek)