Fossil Fuels

Faith Groups In 14 Countries Divest From Fossil Fuels

May 20, 2020 Brian Roewe, Earthbeat. Resist! churches, climate crisis, Divestment, Fossil Fuels

More than 40 faith institutions committed to divest their finances from fossil fuels while at the same time calling for the post-pandemic economic recovery to shift the world toward a low-carbon future. The announcement was made from Rome on May 18, at the beginning of Laudato Si' Week, the Vatican-sponsored celebration of the fifth anniversary of Pope Francis' encyclical on ecology, "Laudato Si', on Care for Our Common Home." A total of 42 faith organizations from 14 countries pledged to divest from fossil fuel companies or avoid such investments in the future. Organizers said it represents the largest joint divestment announcement by faith communities to date. The institutions are a mix of Methodist, Anglican, Quaker, Buddhist and Catholic, the latter accounting for 24 of the divesting groups.

Grassroots Activists Defeat Controversial Williams Fracked Gas Pipeline In New York Harbor

May 18, 2020 Lee Ziesche and Robert Wood, Sane Energy Project. Resist! Fossil Fuels, New York (NY), Pipeline Resistance, Willliams Pipeline

The victory over the pipeline is a momentous one for New Yorkers and demonstrates the unequivocal power of grassroots climate activism in the state, which outmuscled every corporate effort to convince the public that the project was in its interests. Those efforts were considerable and largely unethical and included an illegal gas moratorium, efforts to link the pipeline to the fate of a $1.4 billion development project, National Grid’s unethical lobbying of its own ratepayers, the manipulation of NYCHA residents, a dubious report asserting the climate benefits of the pipeline, hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on ads, and, most recently, two 100-page reports doubling down on the utility’s claims that more fracked gas infrastructure was needed because of a gas shortage.

Water Protectors Make Minnesota’s Line 3 Pipeline The Next Target Of Resistance

May 14, 2020 By Stellan Vinthagen, Waging Nonviolence. Resist! Fossil Fuels, indigenous, Pipeline Resistance, Water Protectors

The fight for self-governance on White Earth: The Line 3 pipeline will bring tar sands oil — the worst kind of dirty fossil fuel — from Canada through the United States. It will pass through over 40 wild rice watersheds and at least eight waterways, which are a traditional source of food for the indigenous Ojibwe people. This pipeline entangles us even more in an energy system that is destroying the climate, at a time in history when we should shift to a carbon-neutral energy system and economy. LN3 is exactly the opposite of what is needed in a world challenged by a climate emergency. To me, it seems possible that White Earth will be one of the next major pipeline resistance campaigns, like Standing Rock in nearby North Dakota. The situation at White Earth is different than Standing Rock, but the struggle in Minnesota has the potential to bring different native communities together with allies in a broad mobilization of water protectors like the #NODAPL movement did.

New Report Reveals Big Oil’s COVID Lobby Bonanza

May 14, 2020 Friends of the Earth. Educate! Congress, COVID-19, Fossil Fuels, Lobbyists

Big Oil is wasting no time exploiting the coronavirus for profit. Polluters fought hard for kickbacks in the first coronavirus stimulus package and they are undoubtedly up to it again. As Trump and the GOP continue their crusade to prop up Big Oil, we must stop the fossil fuel industry from snatching more taxpayer money. Highlights of the report include: At least 11 oil and gas companies and trade associations reported lobbying on tax issues in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, the $2.2 trillion stimulus package passed in March. The filings indicate that tax policy was Big Oil’s largest single intervention in stimulus negotiations. This lobbying blitz seems to have been rewarded with over $100 billion in tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the industry, especially companies like Halliburton that reported losses last year and companies like ExxonMobil beginning to report losses this year. These new giveaways are in addition to $16 billion in annual direct subsidies for oil and gas.

Under Pressure, JP Morgan Chase Demotes Former Exxon CEO

May 2, 2020 Jamie Henn, Stop the Money Pipeline. Resist! Divestment, Fossil Fuels, JP Morgan Chase, Oil and Gas

New York, NY — Bowing to pressure from climate and shareholder activists, JP Morgan Chase will be demoting former Exxon CEO Lee Raymond from his Lead Independent Director position on the bank’s board. The news was buried in a filing with the SEC released on Friday. Stop the Money Pipeline, a coalition of over 100 groups working to pressure Wall Street institutions to stop financing fossil fuels, have been pressuring JP Morgan Chase for months to kick Raymond off the board entirely. Tens of thousands of activists with organizations such as the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth and others have sent messages in recent months calling on Chase to remove Lee Raymond from the board.

How Militarism Fuels The Climate Crisis And Vice Versa

April 24, 2020 Lorah Steichen and Lindsay Koshgarian, the Institute for Policy Studies. Organize! climate crisis, Fossil Fuels, Penta, Wars and Militarism

In a strange twist, it has taken a global pandemic to significantly reduce the world’s fossil fuel emissions. The COVID-19 pandemic has utterly changed life as we know it — but it’s also laid bare how Washington’s militaristic budget priorities have left the country woefully unprepared for a crisis. With massive shortages in public health resources and shocks to the broader economy throwing Americans off their health care, states are left clamoring for help from the military to cope. All this could be a preview of shocks to come as our climate crisis continues unabated. While meaningful climate action has stalled on Capitol Hill and in the White House, planners at the Pentagon have been quietly preparing a militarized, “armed lifeboat” response to climate chaos for years.

Covid-19’s Viral Lessons For Climate Heating

April 5, 2020 Kieran Cooke, Climate News Network. Create! climate crisis, COVID-19, Environment, Fossil Fuels

London − There are some glimmers of hope discernible in the loss, confusion, and misery that’s spreading worldwide, and one is that Covid-19’s viral lessons could help to equip us all to tackle the climate crisis that’s remorselessly building up. A major side effect of the battle against the spread of the coronavirus, for example, has been a significant reduction in the amount of climate-changing greenhouse gas being pumped into the atmosphere. Power plants and factories in China and elsewhere have been shut down: the use of fossil fuels, particularly oil, has plummeted. As a result of this reduced pollution, millions of people in cities and regions across the world are breathing fresher, cleaner air. The epidemic has had other environmental consequences: residents of Venice in northern Italy say they have never seen such clear water in the city’s canals, mainly due to the dramatic drop in tourist numbers.

What Planet Are We On?

April 3, 2020 Michael Klare, Tom Dispatch. Strategize! climate crisis, Fossil Fuels, Pandemic, Rights of Nature

In case you hadn’t noticed, the exploding coronavirus pandemic (we’re #1!) has taken a tad of our attention lately and the definition of “the future” has largely become: When will this be over? Not surprisingly, then, much real news about our future planet has largely gone missing in action. Take, for example, a story that's received next to no attention in this country, a report on the massive bleaching of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef this year thanks to record warming waters. Think of it as Australia’s oceanic equivalent of the staggering wildfires that burned through parts of that country in such an unprecedented fashion earlier in 2020. And coral reefs around the world, crucial to the life systems that rely on them (and that we humans rely on), are suffering similarly on a planet being transformed by human activity in ways large and small.

Tropical Forests May Be Heating Earth By 2035

March 8, 2020 Tim Radford, Climate News Network. Educate! Carbon sequestration, climate crisis, Forests, Fossil Fuels

London – Within about fifteen years, the great tropical forests of Amazonia and Africa could stop absorbing atmospheric carbon, and slowly start to release more carbon than growing trees can fix. A team of scientists from 100 research institutions has looked at the evidence from pristine tracts of tropical forest to find that – overall – the foliage soaked up the most carbon, most efficiently, more than two decades ago. Since then, the measured efficiency of the forests as a “sink” in which carbon is sequestered from the atmosphere has been dwindling. By the last decade, the ability of a tropical forest to absorb carbon had dropped by a third. All plant growth is a balancing act based on sunshine and atmospheric carbon and rainfall. Plants absorb carbon dioxide as they grow, and surrender it as they die.

A New Generation Of Climate Activists Is Reviving Fossil Fuel Divestment

March 4, 2020 Nick Engelfried, Waging Nonviolence. Organize! climate crisis, Divestment, Fossil Fuels, Student Activism

A wave of student-led actions swept across the campuses of around 60 U.S. and Canadian schools last month, as students turned to sit-ins, walkouts and banner drops to pressure universities into divesting their endowments from fossil fuel companies. Called “Divestment Day” by activists, the Feb. 13 series of actions was just the latest escalation for a movement that’s been undergoing a serious revival. In fact, even just one year ago, something like the events of Divestment Day would have been unimaginable, as the movement was just coming out of a protracted lull. Since then, however, existing and newly formed divestment-focused groups have begun working together, old campaigns have adopted new tactics and the next generation of youth climate organizers has risen to the forefront.

Extinction Rebellion Tots Take Down BP

February 23, 2020 Jess Glass, The Ecologist. Resist! BP, Extinction Rebellion, Fossil Fuels, Museums

London - Children and families have held a die-in at the Science Museum in an Extinction Rebellion protest against air pollution. Protesters, including children as young as two, staged the peaceful demonstration at the Making The Modern World gallery in the central London museum on Thursday morning. The group lay on the floor for 20 minutes wearing bespoke gas masks reading Enough Is Enough On Air Pollution on and holding signs referencing the impact on children's health including poor lung development. Other signs quoted the government's figures on air pollution in London, which found there are around 9,400 excess deaths in the capital due to long term exposure to particulates and harmful gasses.

Inside Clean Energy: A Case For Optimism

February 16, 2020 Dan Gearino, Inside Climate News. Educate! Clean Energy, climate crisis, Corporatism, Fossil Fuels

I spend just about every day talking to the researchers, entrepreneurs and advocates behind the transition to clean energy. Their enthusiasm, plus the evidence of their progress, makes me feel like I'm covering the story of our lifetimes. Don't get me wrong. I'm not hand-waving and talking about how markets and innovation will solve everything, although both of these things are crucial. And I'm not minimizing the reality that the U.S. and most countries are way behind in cutting emissions enough to stave off the worst effects of climate change, or the fact that there are many bad actors. The negative indicators, from melting arctic ice to the wide-ranging effects of extreme heat, are often terrifying. But I'm optimistic, largely because of the big changes happening in the ways we produce and consume energy.

Exxon Market Value Drops $184 Billion Since 2014 Peak

February 11, 2020 Peter Castagno, Citizentruth.org Educate! Divestment, ExxonMobil, Fossil Fuels

ExxonMobil’s stock plunged to a nine-year low on Tuesday after posting poor fourth quarter results, leading the fossil fuel giant to plunge $184 billion since its’ market valuation since its 2014 peak, as per CNN business. Some analysts argue that Exxon’s bad quarter is emblematic of a broader decline in the fossil fuel industry.

Student Victory: Georgetown University Divests From Fossil Fuels

February 10, 2020 Staff, Georgetownfossilfree.wordpress.com Resist! Divestment, Fossil Fuels, Higher Education

On the evening of February 6, 2020, Georgetown University announced its decision to divest its endowment from all fossil fuel companies. This decision comes after eight years of dedicated campaigning from GU Fossil Free; our members, past and present, could not be more proud. We are thrilled that our university has taken this important step in supporting climate justice, student voices, and financial accountability.

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