Investment Banking - Climate Change Impact
Does working in investment banking make you complicit in global warming/climate change? Does anyone have any good arguments as to why IB is a morally sound career path?
For context, I am interning in IB next summer. Having doubts about whether or not it is somewhere I want to be long term. I really believe my motivations are good - I would do it for 1/2 the money if I could still survive on that amount in NYC. The real reason I am interested in IB is that it seems like it won't close any career-path doors after graduation. Still, if you believe climate change is a serious issue, can you still justify 2-4 years in IB?
You are just working in an office like a large chunk of the rest of the population. The negative impact you could have is by assisting Industrial companies become even larger by raising capital for them. On the other hand, the same can be said about Renewable companies. With regards to climate change impact, you are good. If you'd be working in a factory / driving a truck / meat processing etc. you'd be contributing directly to climate change. The bigger picture might be that Investment Banking fuels the capitalism-machine, but business would pollute with or without investment banking, in my humble opinion.
If climate change is important to you, start with yourself. I'm not sure if you do these things already but you can consider eating plant-based and locally grown, taking public transport, recycling your waste, showering shorter, washing dishes by hand and so on.
What are your motivations for potentially suggesting that IB is demanding for our planet?
Thanks. I think it's a great point to "start with yourself." I guess the motivation behind this post is that I believe that the rate at which we are polluting is harmful and needs to be slowed. And companies may still pollute at a high rate without IB but IB provides these co's with capital that they use to produce more and, therefore, pollute more. So IB may contribute to greater climate change. Is the solution to reject capitalism? Hell no. But does the government need to do more? Maybe others don't feel this is that serious of an issue. And maybe it isn't. It's just something that's worth thinking about.
Is gen-z really this soft?
Yup lol
If you're really that worried then don't do IB. Simple as that.
Fair enough but it’s a valid question. There is a reason why people say going to wall street is “selling your soul.” Being conflicted doesn’t mean I shouldn’t join IB, it means I’m not blindly following money and prestige without better understanding the industry and my role.
Let me ask you this, would working at exxon make you any more complicit than, say an accountant that benefits from the energy extraction at exxon? I don't think so. Just because you aren't tangibly attached to an industry doesn't mean you don't live in a world that doesn't benefit from it. It sounds really juvenile to judge the overall morality of a career path. Also, if you really wanted to "do good", go work for a non-profit instead of asking internet strangers to justify your choices.
What's your alternative? if IB is more environmentally damaging than the alternative then don't do it. If you don't have any alternatives rn then it's not really a question until you do.
Under your logic using air conditioning, charging your electric car (where do you think electricity comes from??), flying in an airplane etc make you “complicit” in “climate change”. FYI what’s your solution? How much energy does Google, FB, Apple, MS Amazon consume in there server farms. Also, do you have a clue how much coal, cement, lithium, copper, carbon fiber, and rare earth elements are used in windmills, electric batteries and solar panels.
Do you know the amount of water consumed to mine 1 ton of lithium? Probably not. First get deprogrammed from the propaganda you’ve been force fed and don’t even realize since you were in kindergarten and they taught you the virtues of recycling (do you know how much energy recycling consumes and additional pollution it generates vs a landfill???) 25 years ago they said there was no room left to store our garbage (not true) to justify polluting and inefficient recycling. Which was just part of creating a new “green industrial complex” to go along side the numerous others like the Military Industrial Complex, Pharma, Poverty/Charity Industrial Complex (the most hypocritical of all). The blue pill has always been the preferred choice when it comes to stark reality and ugly truths about how this world is run
In economics they used to teach the impact of unintended consequences, not so much any more. If the environment was really an issue then the so called “green industry” should be required to disclose the massive of amount of mining and consumption of resources that will be needed to build all this “green” infrastructure and what that estimated impact is on the environment, drinking water, costs for abatement, additional pollution, the amount of energy required. The steel in a windmill comes from burning coal, how green is that???
If you think oil and gas is bad for the environment go to Chile and look at the environmental degradation from mining lithium deposits which consumes enormous amounts of precious water and leaves behind toxic sludge.
Most of these elements are mined in China, LatAm and Africa where there is far less regulatory oversight and environmental regulations. But who cares right? As long as wealthy Americans and European can virtue signal in their Tesla, or Larry Fink can hop a private jet to Davos and wear a green scarf waxing on with the billionaire elites about the “climate change”, and feel good about themselves that’s all that really matters.
This. +1 SBed.
If you want to truly stop climate change become a BUDDHIST MONK.
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