It’s Getting Hot In Here

Recently a couple of articles about Hillary and Obama’s positions on clean coal have been hitting the media.

A couple of days ago, Reuters did one on their support of “clean coal” while staying away from the topic of global warming.

“In a bid to draw voters ahead of Democratic primaries in West Virginia on Tuesday and Kentucky on May 20, both candidates are playing up the ascendant role of commercially untested and so far economically nonviable ways of converting America’s plentiful coal supplies into electricity without spewing massive quantities of heat-trapping greenhouse gases.

“We need some big investments right now in figuring out how to capture and store carbon dioxide from coal,” Clinton told a rally in the rural town of Clear Fork on Monday.”

Obama for his part has been including statements about his support of clean coal in all his campaign lit being distributed in Kentucky.

“Not to be outdone, Obama’s campaign has distributed flyers in Kentucky stating that “Barack Obama believes in clean Kentucky coal.” The flyers show a picture of giant barges carrying coal down the Ohio River.”

Both West Virginia and Kentucky are swing states.  Both are also coal states.  Southern West Virginia and eastern Kentucky represent areas most ravaged by mountaintop removal (a brutal mining technique to extract “clean coal”).

I guess the topic is too hot for Dems to touch while campaigning in Appalachia and other coal states.

In a Financial TImes article today, Andrew Ward wrote about how both candidates are treading carefully around the coal dispute in Appalachia.

To me, it doesn’t seem like they are treading carefully around anything.  By supporting “clean coal” they are taking a stand with the industry’s (and some weak-willed big environmental groups) false solution to carbon emissions.

This article did talk to West Virginia residents that are fighting coal extraction (i.e. mountaintop removal) tooth and nail.  Maria Gunnoe, for instance, has been directly impacted by the backlash from Big Coal:

“When Maria Gunnoe started campaigning against open-cast mining on the mountains above her West Virginia home in 2003, she could not have imagined the ordeal that would follow.  Over the past five years, her car brake lights have been vandalised, sand has been poured into her petrol tank and two of her dogs have been shot dead.  The intimidation appeared aimed at silencing Ms Gunnoe’s criticism of a controversial form of mining that involves blowing up mountaintops to reach coal.”

All pandering aside, there is no such thing as clean coal as long as people’s water is poisoned by coal slurry, as long as floods created by mining wreck homes, as long as lakes of sludge sit next to schools, as long as mountains are bombed and as long as the coal industry targets it’s critics in the communities of Appalachia.

Talk about “direct action at the point of decision.” Mini-mobilizations and actions around the 2008 shareholder season has been quite lively. Especially around the issues of coal and climate.

In late April, Citi and Bank of America’s CEOs got earfuls about their investments in the coal industry inside and outside their meetings in New York and Charlotte. Last week, Duke’s CEO Jim Rogers got more of the same about the company’s Cliffside plant in North Carolina.

On Wednesday, the Clean Up Dynegy Coalition (I heard carloads are going from Georgia to raise some hell over the Long Leaf plant) will be holding Dynegy to account inside and outside their shareholder’s meeting in Houston.

Over the years, I’ve done my fair share of inside and outside actions at the shareholder meetings of Exxon, Halliburton and Wells Fargo. It’s an exciting set of tactics that have reminded me of the mass mobilizations that occurred at the beginning of this decade around corporate globalization (ex: Battle in Seattle).

These “mini-mobilizations” have the potential to not only send a message to corporate and media decision-makers about a company’s wrongdoing, but also help build a grassroots movement and direct action community that make a living revolution possible.

I am glad the climate movement is on it!

Now that bank shareholder season is over (BOA, Citi), I wanted to put something out about coal and coal finance campaigns going into the summer. Since, we’re all part of this KICK ASS decentralized massive movement against coal and coal finance, we need to continue to put pressure on them.

The coal finance campaign that I work on at Rainforest Action Network (RAN) has been pressuring Citi and Bank of America to end their financing of coal from the cradle to the grave since October. With the help of lots of friends and allies, we’ve done lots of actions and encouraged, inspired and facilitated lots more actions against these banks and the coal industry in general. We support and work in solidarity with communities fighting strip mining and mountaintop removal and those impacted by coal-fired power plants.

BUT, RAN can only do so much and people don’t need us to start their own coal and coal finance campaigns. If you live in place that is impacted by coal extraction or coal combustion, or headquarters coal and utility companies, than by all means keep up what you are doing! If you live in a place without coal or utility operations or offices, please look towards the financiers of coal.

Continue reading ‘Start Your Own Coal Finance Campaign, Here’s How.’

In conjunction with the international release of a report by Greenpeace today – that identifies the ridiculous risk, uncertainty and cost associated with industry-driven plans for carbon capture and sequestration (CCS),

Public interest groups (from across the country) sent the following letter to Congress, demanding that taxpayer subsidies be disallowed CCS, and that safe, affordable and market-ready energy technologies such as wind and solar be funded instead.

Dear Members of Congress

On behalf of our members and supporters we are writing to express our opposition to any policies that promote or provide taxpayer subsidies for carbon capture and storage (CCS), the practice of trapping carbon dioxide from fossil fuel combustion and storing it below the sea or beneath the surface of the earth.

As you know, global warming is one of the greatest challenges facing the planet today. To avoid the worst impacts of global warming scientists have warned that we need to reduce global warming pollution by at least 80 percent by 2050. Climate stabilization, national security and economic prosperity depend on substantially reducing our use of fossil fuels. That means no new investments in major infrastructure that increases fossil fuel dependence. Every dollar invested in CCS is a dollar unavailable for investment in renewable energy, efficient vehicles and energy efficiency.

CCS raises a number of serious financial, environmental and safety concerns:

· CCS cannot deliver in time. The best-case scenario is that the technology would be ready by 2030. Every decision made about new power plants today influences the energy mix for the next 30-40 years. We need to make the smartest choices to address the global warming crisis and invest in proven solutions as soon as possible.

· CCS is cost intensive. It increases the cost of power generation by 40 to 80 percent compared with conventional coal plants. Current research shows electricity generated from coal equipped with CCS will be more expensive than other less polluting sources, such as, wind power.

· CCS technology reduces the efficiency of power plants. Up to 30 percent more fossil fuel must be burned when CCS is used to achieve the same power output.

· CCS poses a risk of carbon dioxide leakage. Continuous leakage, even at very low rates, could undermine the climate benefit of CCS and large releases of carbon can also pose significant risk to human health.

As evidenced by mountain-top removal and dangerous emissions, CCS cannot make coal clean. Renewable energy sources are already available without the negative environmental impacts that are associated with fossil fuel exploitation, transport and processing. It is renewable energy together with energy efficiency and energy conservation that has to increase so that the primary cause of climate change – the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas – is stopped.

We strongly urge you to oppose any policies that provide mandates or taxpayer funded incentives for CCS. We should instead fund clean, renewable, domestic sources of energy, energy efficiency and conservation. Congress must prevent the construction of new coal-fired power plants that are inconsistent with an energy future that is good for the economy, the environment, national security, and safe for communities.

Sincerely,

ActionPA • Alliance for Appalachia • Appalachian Voices • Black Mesa Water Coalition • California Communities Against Toxics • Canary Coalition • Cape & Islands Self-Reliance Corporation • Center for Coalfield Justice • Co-op America • Chesapeake Climate Action Network • Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana • Clean Power Now • Coal River Mountain Watch • Cook Inletkeeper • Energy Justice Network • Environmental Alliance of North Florida • Environmental Research Foundation • Friends of the Earth • Global Exchange • The Grand Canyon Trust • Green Delaware • Greenpeace • Heartwood • Help Our Polluted Environment • Indigenous Environmental Network • Jefferson Action Group • Kentuckians for the Commonwealth • Meigs Citizen Action Now • Mountain Watershed Association • North Carolina Waste Awareness & Reduction Network • Nuclear Information and Resource Service • Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition • Palm Beach County Environmental Coalition • Protect Biodiversity in Public Forests • Rainforest Action Network • Residents Against the Power Plant • Rising Tide North America • Save It Now, Glades! • Save Our Cumberland Mountains • Southern Energy Network • Valley Watch

UPDATE- Two actions against Carbon Capture and Storage today;

• Anti-CCS action in Pittsburgh at the CCS conference;
• Anti-CCS action in Knoxville, TN, organized by Save Our Cumberland Mountains.

Not sure how many of you follow RAN’s blog, the Understory. But, we’ve been cranking out a new “Greenwash of the Week” every week. As a coal campaigner, I found “The Dirty Truth about Clean Coal” inspiring enough to share. Enjoy

A coordinated Day of Mountain Music Action against the Banks that fund coal.

Bank of America and Citi are the biggest funders of the coal industry. Continued dependence on coal as an energy source means dirtier air and water, more global warming and the all-out destruction of Appalachian communities and ecosystems by Mountain Top Removal (MTR) coal mining. MTR is a form of strip-mining for coal by which up to 1,000 vertical feet are blasted off the tops of mountains and dumped into the valleys below. The process has already destroyed 800 square miles of mountains and 1,200 miles of streams in Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee.

Recently as Bank of America and Citi continue to fund the destruction of Appalachia, Action Jackson, a string band from East Tennessee has brought bluegrass and old-time jams into bank branches across the south in protest of the banks’ investments in coal. Now Mountain Justice is asking for musicians and others to join Action Jackson in a great big jam down at the bank on Friday May 9th and Saturday May 10th. Where will this jam be held? At any Bank of America or Citi location near you. You don’t play Appalachian music? Well a boom-box and a CD playing any kind of music will be just fine.

For more info check here

Coal and climate activists have really been stepping it up in Charlotte and North Carolina. Between Duke Energy building a 800 NW new coal plant in Cliffside, NC and Bank of America funding every coal related enterprise under the sun, the Tarheel state is really seeing activist things happen.

Coal filled Ken Lewis clone in downtown Charlotte.

Today it happened again, Bank of America was besieged by climate activists inside and outside their annual shareholders’ meeting.

Bank of America has been had economic troubles with the faltering economy and the mortgage crisis. Fortunately, the government can always bail them out of those problems. Not so much on the climate crisis.

Outside, about 20 activists chanted, messaged to shareholders, employees and passer-bys and kept a vocal visible presence throughout the meeting watched over with a careful eye by a coal-filled effigy of CEO Ken Lewis. Pics are posted here.

Inside details will be shared soon.

One last blog from the Citi shareholders’ meeting yesterday. Chair of the Board Win Bishoff told RAN Campaign Director Rebecca Tarbotton that either he or CEO Vikram Pandit would join her in a flyover of mountaintop removal sites in Appalachia.

Reposted from the RAN Understory:

I got a date with Citi! (or, Inside the Citi AGM

I’m about to hop on a plane to Charlotte, but I wanted to capture some of the excitement from Citi’s Annual Shareholder Meeting. It was an amazing day – there were over 50 activists outside on the streets making sure that every shareholder that entered the meeting had absolutely NO doubt that Citi is funding coal and why it should stop. The New York crew were amazing – as always, creative and kick-ass every last one.

Appalachia’s own Maria Gunnoe and I went inside the meeting on proxies and spoke in support of shareholder resolution #9, calling on Citi to cease financing of coal-fired power plants and mountaintop removal coal mining. Inside, the scene was just about as raucous as on the streets! There must have been 500 shareholders at the meeting – most of whom were NOT happy. Obviously, Citi’s recent financial woes due to the credit crisis have shareholders antsy, and almost every question revolved around why Citi didn’t recognize the risk inherent in subprime loans. Why indeed? We want to know why Citi is heading directly from the credit crisis to the climate crisis, which is rife with financial risk, human risk, cultural risk and environmental risk.

Maria stood up and spoke movingly about the hypocrisy of releasing ‘Carbon Principles’ while continuing to fund the biggest proponents of mountaintop removal. Speaking directly to Citi CEO Vikram Pandit and Chairman Sir Win Bischoff, she asked: “Where is the principle in that?” No one had an answer for her. When it was my turn to speak, I reiterated our request to Citi to cease financing coal and climate change, and pointed out that it is the people and lands like those of Appalachia that are most impacted by our continued reliance on coal. These are the real victims of climate change.

Then I asked a simple question: Would Vikram Pandit please commit to accompanying me on a flight over Appalachia to witness the effects of mountaintop removal, financed by his bank?

He laughed and looked a little uncomfortable. I assured him that I would be a wonderful flying companion. What followed was a slightly awkward silence. Then, to my surprise, Sir Win Bischoff interjected and said: “I can commit that one of us will accompany you on that flight.”

And with that, I got a date with Citi.

As I left the meeting, several shareholders approached me to say they hoped I would be back next year to report on the flight.

My response? You bet I will.”

A little detail from the policy and financial side on what we’re doing inside meeting:

“Rainforest Action Network, Appalachians Confront Citi Over Coal Financing at Annual Shareholder Meeting

Groups to support landmark climate change resolution

NEW YORK-Activists with Rainforest Action Network (RAN) were joined by Appalachian residents at Citi’s Annual General Shareholder Meeting today to protest the bank’s role as a leading financier of the coal industry and to support a landmark shareholder resolution on climate change. The resolution-which was offered by Boston Common Asset Management, Catholic Healthcare West and Pleroma Inc.-requests that Citi cease all financial support for mountaintop removal (MTR) coal mining and the construction of new coal-fired power plants. This marks the first time a shareholder resolution addressing the climate change implications of a bank’s external financing will come to a vote.

Continue reading ‘Appalachians Confront Citi Over Coal Financing at Annual Shareholder Meeting’

Today is Citi’s annual shareholders’ meeting. It’s the day where the company executives give a report on the state of the company (which is pretty bad for Citi right now, $5.1 billion loss 9,000 more about to be laid off). As a company they are being hit pretty hard by the credit and subprime mortgage crisis, unfortunately they think it means they can ignore their financing of the climate crisis.

We’re reminding Citi about how their investments in dirty energy will not go silent.

They are funding some of the dirtiest companies in the carbon intensive world. They fund coal from the cradle to the grave. Not only creating an investment friendly atmosphere for global warming, but also financing bombing campaigns and cultural genocide in Appalachia.

Continue reading ‘Hey Citi, Coal is Over! Start Funding Wind and Solar!’