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Fossil Fuels

“Hard Road Of Hope” Shows West Virginia Is A Mirror Of The United States

June 30, 2020 Margaret Flowers, Popular Resistance. , , ,
For years now Eleanor has been participating in climate justice camps and actions providing support to those on the front lines of the climate and environmental crises however it was needed from producing media to locking down. It was through this work that she became aware of the major shift from mountain top removal for coal to fracking for gas, both very exploitative and extractive industries, in West Virginia. As she went there to cover what was happening, it became clear that the story was too big for anything but a documentary. In "Hard Road of Hope," Eleanor teaches the untold history of how immigrants were brought to West Virginia to work in the coal mines and how they worked together against dangerous and oppressive working conditions. You will likely be surprised by this history. I was. As West Virginians tell the story of this struggle, Eleanor weaves in the roots of capitalism, colonization and cultural genocide that created and made it possible to maintain such oppression.

Organizing For Environmental Justice

May 24, 2020 Alex Gordon, Coalfield Justice. , , ,
Young people have been paramount to just about every successful social movement in this country, with the Climate Movement, and the revolt against oil and gas being no exceptions. Regardless, we still see a gap in youth involvement in petrochemical organizing. College students are an especially-untapped resource for the movement against petrochemical expansion and, this summer, I aim to work with these three aforementioned organizations to help mend that. Though things may have gotten a bit turned around by the current pandemic, this is a profound moment in our history. A line from My Shot in the musical Hamilton, stating “This is not a moment, it’s the movement,” plays frequently in my mind these days, out of recognition and excitement that this time is a moment for our movement, and an opening perhaps, to make lasting systemic change.

North Brooklyn Demands Halt To Fracked Gas Pipeline Construction

May 21, 2020 Erik McGregor. , , ,
Brooklyn, NY – National Grid resumed the North Brooklyn “MRI” Pipeline construction by allegedly authorizing themselves to continue, despite the risks of the COVID-19 pandemic and the extension of the shelter in place orders. Residents and local elected officials have expressed strong opposition to the pipelines cutting through their neighborhoods carrying highly volatile fracked gas. Members of the North Brooklyn community, supported by local and citywide elected officials, held a virtual press conference on May 20, 2020 to condemn corporate utility National Grid’s decision to restart construction of the Metropolitan Reliability Infrastructure (MRI) pipeline after Governor Cuomo extended the Stay At Home executive order until June.

Shell AGM Targeted Throughout Europe

May 20, 2020 Code Rood. , , ,
The Hague– After a night of autonomous decentralised actions, the group ‘Shell Must Fall!’ protests in front of the Shell Headquarters in the Hague during their annual shareholders meeting. Decentralised actions have taken place in several Dutch cities, as well as in Belgium, Czechia and Germany. The disastrous impacts of Shells business as usual have been spray painted on tankstations, banners have been dropped, slogans have been chalked. Right now, three petrol stations are occupied in Prague. Amongst other places, more protest will take place in Denmark and Portugal later in the day. The protestors demand public decommissioning of Shell, because the company continues to choose profit over climate, nature, and lives. 

Faith Groups In 14 Countries Divest From Fossil Fuels

May 20, 2020 Brian Roewe, Earthbeat. , , ,
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. , , ,
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. , , ,
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. , , ,
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. , , ,
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. , , ,
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. , , ,
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. , , ,
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.

The Climate Movement Has Gained Unprecedented Momentum Since 2018

March 9, 2020 By Sharon Zhang, Truthout.org , ,
The climate movement has started gaining momentum, and the oil and gas industry is getting scared. Fossil fuel companies have been ramping up their ad buying, placing loads of ads on social media, in magazines, and even at the global climate summits. Meanwhile, in Australia, a recent report found that the fossil fuel industry doubled its political donations over the past four years.

Tropical Forests May Be Heating Earth By 2035

March 8, 2020 Tim Radford, Climate News Network. , , ,
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. , , ,
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.
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