The Big Pivot

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Become a Lobbyist

Is it possible that CEOs don’t know what their own lobbyists are doing? It’s a reasonable question when you look at how companies address issues like climate change in public versus what they—and the trade associations they fund—actually fight for or against.

A study by the Union of Concerned Scientists found a major disconnect between the public rhetoric at 28 large public companies (“all expressed concern about climate change,” the study says) and how they acted behind closed lobbying doors.¹ The nicest interpretation of this gap is that one hand doesn’t know what the other one’s doing. A more cynical view would say these companies know exactly what they’re doing.

I’ll be generous and say it’s a bit of both. ...