The last time we shared an advertisement here? Never. Occasionally, we promote a video like Kill the K-Cup that serves the opposite purpose. But this ad? Must see. It promotes a powerful message, and paradoxically at the same time, as Bill McKibben points out in this week’s newsletter, a whole other big mess is lurking just behind the curtain. He starts by bringing our attention to a new bill being considered in California, and then relates that bill to Apple in a way that raises questions about the accomplishments celebrated in the ad:

…#In California, SB 253 made it through the legislature, which is an incredibly big deal. Because California is the fifth largest economy on earth, and this law would force the big companies that do business there—which is everyone, really, because who is going to miss out on that economy?—to fully disclose their carbon emissions, including their “Scope 3” emissions, which are the ones that come from the supply chain. Before the bill could pass it had to overcome huge lobbying by the Chamber of Commerce and the fossil fuel industry—they know that if companies like, say, Google are required to report, say, the carbon that comes from their banking arrangements with Chase or Citi, then Google will start putting pressure on those banks to stop lending to Exxon and Chevron. Enormous thanks to the legislators and activists who pushed—and who now must push Gavin Newsom to actually sign the law. He talks an excellent climate game, but rest assured there will be enormous pressure on him here. The Sierra Club’s executive director Ben Jealous called on Newsom to sign, and added that the “Securities and Exchange Commission should join California, the European Union, and other jurisdictions in taking a comprehensive approach to requiring the disclosure of all emissions and major climate risks.”

To understand why this is so important, consider Apple’s new product launch today, which featured a quite wonderful environmental skit starring Apple boss Tim Cook and his sustainability vp Lisa Jackson (former head of the EPA), playing opposite Octavia Spencer as Mother Nature. It was part of the company’s announcement that their Apple Watches were now carbon-free—a real accomplishment in metallurgy, fabric science, and so on. But also not quite true, because Apple’s biggest source of carbon emissions is the money it keeps in America’s banking system, which is lent out for new pipelines and the like. When you count those emissions, Apple’s carbon footprint goes up 64 percent. And SB 253 will make them count those emissions—and I have no doubt that their teams will then get to work reducing them, by pressuring the (much smaller in corporate terms) megabanks to stop bankrolling fossil fuel expansion. If you’re the head of Chase, and Tim Cook says ‘bro, we cannot meet our promise to be net zero by 2030 if you don’t change,’ then you have precisely the kind of problem that’s necessary for progress…

McKibben treated this topic in much greater detail last year, and it is worth reading again.