COUNTRY CAPITALISM
How Corporations From the American South Remade Our Economy and the Planet
by Bart Elmore
How five major U.S. corporations based in the South are dealing with climate change.
In his latest, environmental history professor Elmore, the author of Citizen Coke: The Making of Coca-Cola Capitalism and Seed Money: Monsanto's Past and Our Food Future, makes an evenhanded, informative effort to view matters from the points of view of Coca-Cola, Delta Air Lines, Walmart, FedEx, and Bank of America. Of course, such massive corporations focus on profit, but they have no objection to a nominal expense for beneficent projects. Currently, pressure is increasing to spend money fighting climate change. Elmore begins with a short history of each company and then describes their responses, with outcomes varying from modest to minimal. Few readers would expect Coca-Cola to lead these efforts, but its CEO was the only one to pledge to eliminate its major pollutant, hydrofluorocarbons, used in the world’s refrigeration systems, which are thousands of times worse than carbon dioxide in warming the planet. Although converting to other chemicals has proved unexpectedly difficult, Coca-Cola did not back away from its pledge, but the results have been unimpressive so far. Delta boasts that it reduces its carbon footprint by flying fuel-efficient aircraft, but Elmore shows how there is less there than meets the eye. Since fuel is an airline’s highest operating cost, efficiency is good business. Ironically, with declining petroleum prices in the 2010s, older gas guzzlers from the 1970s became so cheap that Delta began investing in them. Walmart, which sucks up land and small businesses, imports most merchandise from China, and pays workers poorly, proclaims its greenness but seems to be dragging its feet. Although not widely considered a polluter, Bank of America admits that its loans support urban sprawl, highways, fossil fuel production, and the destruction of wetlands and forests, and it intends to continue those practices.
A compelling argument that companies are willing but not eager to fight climate change.