On this day a new business lobby group was founded…
Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy (BICEP) is a coalition of businesses coordinated by Ceres whose primary goal is to call on the U.S. government to pass broad, bi-partisan energy and climate legislation.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 385.8ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that by August 2008 it was likely that – whoever was next president – there was going to be a push for climate action because Republican candidate John McCain was not a climate denier. And Barack Obama as a Democrat was going to have to pander to his constituencies (even though Obama had made vague comments about having lots of coal while on the campaign trail).
So, if you know that the next President is going to be more willing to do something on climate then George Bush (which, frankly, is a pretty low bar) then you’re going to want to get a lobby group together that can credibly push the versions of policy that you want, as opposed to what the radical civilization-hating communist Luddite greenies want.
And of course if you’re a specific company under attack for planet-butchering, then membership of such a pressure group can also be used in your adverts when you’re trying to convince consumers that the latest version of the crap that you peddle – that they maybe need but probably merely want – is somehow “green,” and that they’re doing something good for the planet by buying it (spoiler they are almost certainly not).
And so BICEP was born.
What we learn
See above
what happened next
BICEP kept going as far as I know, it’s still going, still doing its thing. Whether it got up on its hind legs, and attacked the Trump administration is another question. Probably played dead.