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superstorm sandy
New Jersey Sues 5 Oil Giants, Industry Lobby for Climate Fraud
"We will work tirelessly to make sure these companies pay every last dollar for the harm they've caused," said state AG Matthew Platkin. "If you lie to the public to protect your profits, we will hold you accountable."
Oct 18, 2022
New Jersey on Tuesday sued five oil and gas companies and a leading fossil fuel lobby group for knowingly lying to the public about the existence of climate change and the role their products play in exacerbating human-caused global heating.
"The defendants have known for decades that use of fossil fuels is a major cause of climate change."
The lawsuit, filed in New Jersey Superior Court in Mercer County, targets ExxonMobil Corporation, Shell Oil Company, Chevron Corporation, BP, ConocoPhillips, and the American Petroleum Institute (API).
The plaintiffs--state Attorney General Matthew Platkin, the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs, and the Department of Environmental Protection--argue that "the defendants have known for decades that use of fossil fuels is a major cause of climate change, but instead of warning the public or the state about the danger, they launched public relations campaigns to sow doubts about the existence, causes, and effects of climate change with the goal of confusing the public, delaying the transition to a lower carbon economy and future, increasing their own profits, and further deepening dependence on their products."
The suit also accuses API "of playing a key role in orchestrating and implementing climate denial campaigns on behalf of and under the supervision of" the five oil giants.
Climate campaigners welcomed the lawsuit, with Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity, saying in a statement that "after lying for decades about their role in fueling the climate crisis, these oil and gas corporations deserve to be held accountable for the damages they have caused to communities across the country."
Oil companies including ExxonMobil, Shell, and Total have known since as far back as the early 1970s that burning fossil fuels emits greenhouse gases that cause global heating.
According to Platkin's office:
The state is seeking to hold the defendants accountable for systematically concealing and denying their knowledge that fossil fuel consumption could have a catastrophic impact on the climate, causing the devastating consequences of fossil fuel overconsumption: the significant sea level rise, flooding, and extreme weather that have battered New Jersey's citizens and businesses, requiring the state and its residents to shoulder the enormous costs of rebuilding, hardening New Jersey's defenses against severe weather, and making the necessary transition away from reliance on fossil fuels to a more sustainable clean energy future.
Platkin, a Democrat, said in a statement that the defendants "went to great lengths to hide the truth and mislead the people of New Jersey, and the world."
"In short," he added, "these companies put their profits ahead of our safety. It's long overdue that the facts be aired in a New Jersey court, and the perpetrators of the disinformation campaign pay for the harms they've caused."
New Jersey Commissioner of Environmental Protection Shawn M. LaTourette said that "New Jersey is ground zero for some of the worst impacts of climate change."
"Our communities and environment are continually recovering from extreme heat, furious storms, and devastating floods," he noted. "These conditions will sadly only worsen in the decades ahead, leaving us scrambling to prepare for a parade of harmful climate changes."
"All this while we rush to ween ourselves off the very products these companies have long known would fuel our pain but deceived New Jerseyans about, because keeping us addicted was better for their bottom line," LaTourette added. "It was wrong to mislead us; wrong to undermine climate science; wrong to put profit over people and the planet that we share. It is time New Jersey demands accountability."
New Jersey now joins dozens of states and cities that have filed similar lawsuits against fossil fuel corporations in recent years, including Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Vermont, Baltimore, Boulder, Oakland, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.
The suit's timing roughly coincides with the 10th anniversary of Superstorm Sandy, which killed 38 people in New Jersey while causing around $30 billion in damage.
"We will work tirelessly to make sure these companies pay every last dollar for the harm they've caused," Platkin vowed. "If you lie to the public to protect your profits, we will hold you accountable."
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The People vs. Petrocracy
In the absence of a federal fossil fuel phase-out—grassroots efforts are more essential than ever.
Jun 16, 2022
The United States is moving fast on climate change--in the wrong direction. The Energy Information Agency forecasts that by 2023, the nation will set a new annual record for oil extraction: 4.6 billion barrels. Plans to build more than 200 new natural gas power plants are in the works. More than 130 new oil and gas pipelines now under development will carry enough fuel to increase national emissions by 10 percent--560 million metric tons per year.
If that nightmare scenario unfolds, local and regional activism will not only become more essential than ever; it could be the nation's only route to climate mitigation and adaptation.
Now, freaked out by high fuel prices, the Democratic majority in Congress is pushing to accelerate this fossil fuel rush while President Biden rushes, hat in hand, to Saudi Arabia, forgetting that the kingdom is supposed to be a pariah. Furthermore, as Robinson Meyer recently wrote in The Atlantic, the party's leadership seems blissfully unbothered by the fact that Congress has failed to pass even the weakest of laws to curb climate catastrophe. And if the Democrats--having been unable to defend either voters' rights or life on Earth over the past year and a half--lose their congressional majority to the oily authoritarians in November, our already dim hopes for the federal government to reverse course and start phasing out fossil fuels could fade away altogether.
If that nightmare scenario unfolds, local and regional activism will not only become more essential than ever; it could be the nation's only route to climate mitigation and adaptation. As the republic teeters on a knife edge in coming months, "In Real Time" will be recognizing grassroots movements across the country that stand as exemplars for collective climate action. Climate is not always the chief focus of such struggles, but the movements' strategies and methods are deeply relevant.
I'll begin this month with two such examples: Native struggles against fossil fuel infrastructure and the Los Angeles Bus Riders Union.
Keeping Turtle Island's oil and gas in the ground
Last year, the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) and Oil Change International reported on seventeen struggles against fossil fuel infrastructure across North America that were either ongoing or had already succeeded. The potential impact of such actions on greenhouse gas emissions, they concluded, was staggering. "If [all of] these struggles prove successful," they wrote, "this would mean Indigenous resistance will have stopped greenhouse gas pollution equivalent to nearly one-quarter of annual total U.S. and Canadian emissions." An emissions reduction of that size would be like shuttering 400 coal-fired power plants or taking 345 million passenger vehicles off the road--more than all the coal plants or cars in North America. IEN wanted the continent's governments and citizens to do one thing:
[R]ecognize the impact of Indigenous leadership in confronting climate chaos and its primary drivers. We hope that such settlers, allies or not, come to stand with Indigenous Peoples and honor the inherent rights of the first peoples of Turtle Island--the land currently called North America--by implementing clear policies and procedures . . . and by ending fossil fuel expansion once and for all.
Here are just a few of the campaigns included in IEN's analysis:
The infamous Keystone XL pipeline project, which would have carried oil from Canada's tar sands south through the United States, was finally killed in 2021 after a years-long struggle led by Indigenous communities on both sides of the border.
The White Earth Band of Ojibwe continues trying to shut down the 340-mile-long Line 3 oil pipeline in Minnesota, which has already severely damaged at least three aquifers. On March 20, 2022 in the worst incident, 300 million gallons of groundwater spilled from the aquifer. The battle continues.
In 2016, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe prevailed in the epic struggle they had led against the Dakota Access oil pipeline, but their victory in the face of appalling state violence was overturned the next year by the Trump administration. Now, tribal groups and white landowners are applying lessons learned in that struggle to block a different kind of pipeline in the same part of the country: the 2,000-mile Midwest Carbon Express Pipeline. The purpose of the pipeline would be to pump carbon dioxide collected from refineries producing climate-unfriendly fuel, ethanol, to underground storage sites throughout the region. The pipeline would not only cause extensive ecological degradation, it would also be a threat to human health in the areas it traverses.
Indigenous communities and their allies succeeded in completely scuttling a proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline through West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina. Although only about 1 percent of North Carolinians belong to Indigenous communities, an estimated 13 percent of people who would have been harmed along the pipeline's route through the state identified as Native American.
The Trans-Pecos gas pipeline runs about 150 miles through Texas out of the Permian Basin, home to gargantuan reserves of oil and gas that, if burned, could produce 60 billion tons of carbon dioxide--roughly equivalent to a year and a half of humanity's total carbon dioxide emissions from all sources. The Society of Native Nations has contested this pipeline from the start, significantly slowing but so far not halting the pipeline's construction or operation.
Native communities, says IEN, will continue "fighting through lived values and principles to keep fossil fuels in the ground and protect Turtle Island."
In the front of the bus
Preventing climate catastrophe requires not only keeping oil in the ground but also keeping private vehicles off the streets and compensating for their absence with public transportation, bikeways, and walkways. Car use has been reduced this way only in a limited number of places in the United States. And people who have low personal carbon emissions because they can't afford the many costs of car ownership are obliged to commute, often over long distances, in rundown, crowded buses that might show up at your stop once an hour, if you're lucky (and that cost more every year to ride). Fixing public transportation needs to be a fast-lane issue for both climate mitigation and protecting human rights.
For 30 years, the Los Angeles Bus Riders Union has been fighting the racism that they argue is built into the city's public transit. It's an epic struggle, still far from over. In a report from the 1990s, the union noted that the city's dirty, dilapidated buses, many providing unreliable service to low-income areas, carried 350,000 riders per day, more than 80 percent of them Latinx, Black, or Asian/Pacific Islander. Meanwhile, the city's clean, new rail system was carrying only 26,000 riders per day, a majority of them white and middle class. Public subsidies were less than a dollar per bus passenger, compared with $5 to $25 per rail passenger.
Based on this and other evidence, the Bus Riders Union accused the L.A. Metropolitan Transit Authority of taking funds intended for the bus system and using them to cover construction and operation expenses for the always over-budget and underused rail system. Union founder Eric Mann wrote at the time that these disparities grew out of a longstanding philosophy within the bus system. It was, he said,
based primarily on the importance of the "choice rider." According to this line of argument . . . the main purpose of public transportation is to reduce congestion and auto emissions. Thus, it would be precisely the suburban car rider who would be targeted to ride public transportation. According to this argument, the choice rider who lives in the suburbs and prefers to drive his/her car must be attracted by better and more convenient service. On the other hand, according to the theory, services do not need to be attractive to gain the ridership of the transit-dependent since, by definition, they have no choice.
In 1994, the union took the MTA to court to block further fare increases and service cuts, accusing the agency of violating a law that forbids using federal public transportation funds in a racist manner. The court sided with the union, issuing a consent decree under which the parties were to negotiate a plan. Dubbed "Billions for Buses" by the union, the plan eventually lowered fares, replaced high-polluting diesel buses with new ones run on natural gas (no electric buses were available then), and added a million hours of annual service. But when the consent decree expired in 2006, MTA went back to raising fares and cutting service.
Tired of being taken for a ride by the city, the union scored another big upset victory in 2012, when it organized a get-out-the-vote coalition to defeat a ballot initiative called Measure J. Had it passed, Measure J would have allocated $90 billion of local government funds to rail and highway projects. It included freeway expansion in the already freeway-choked city. Mann wrote that passage of Measure J also would inevitably have led to "crippling fare increases and services for the city's bus riders," whose numbers had risen by then to half a million, and who had a median income of only $14,000 per year. More than 80 percent continued to be people of color.
The defeat of Measure J was a big victory, but a decade later the struggle continues. Last year, Bus Riders Union organizer Channing Martinez wrote about how the MTA had continued its abuse of low-income residents, even scuttling a plan that would have provided free public transportation for K-12 and community college students. He laid out the union's strategy for carrying on the struggle into the 2020s: continue spending lots of time riding the buses to organize, make more alliances, and keep the heat turned up on local officials.
The transformation of L.A.'s public transit is not yet a reality. Bus ridership was falling even before COVID-19 struck, thanks to a classic feedback loop. The city's infamous, and increasing, traffic congestion bogs down buses even more than cars, leading more bus riders to go back to driving.. Congestion then gets worse, and the bus system loses even more riders.
Public transit advocates told the Los Angeles Times that "the only lasting solution . . . is to carve out space for buses on major streets using bus-only lanes and bus rapid transit." That would improve bus service immensely and leave less space for driving and parking cars, prompting more people to take the bus. These and other solid policies are needed to accomplish what the Bus Riders Union has been demanding for three decades: an adequate system of low-emissions buses providing high-quality service to the whole city--especially to the low-income communities who have always contributed the least to global warming.
Whether it's carried out by a local movement such as the L.A. Bus Riders Union or continent-spanning drives like the Native campaigns against Big Oil and Gas, no single effort can snuff out fossil fuel extraction and consumption on its own. In the absence of a federal phase-out, however, a multiplicity of grassroots efforts like these and others, popping up and spreading across the country like bermudagrass in June, are more essential than ever.
This essay was originally published by City Lights Books as part of its "In Real Time" series.
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Thousands March on 5th Anniversary of Superstorm Sandy
Demanding bold powerful action from state and local officials.
Oct 28, 2017
Five years ago Sunday, Superstorm Sandy slammed into the Northeast US, killing dozens of people and swamping parts of New York City under as much as 9 feet of water. The storm caused over $70 billion in damage.
Today, a broad coalition of local, state, national and global organizations marched across the Brooklyn Bridge to commemorate the 5th anniversary of Superstorm Sandy and demand bold powerful action from state and local officials.
According to 350.org:
With 153 groups signed-on, the #Sandy5 march will start at Cadman Plaza before crossing the bridge and gathering at the Alfred E. Smith Houses on the Lower East Side. Organizers are remembering the lives and livelihoods lost to Superstorm Sandy and demanding bold and swift climate action from New York's elected officials. Demands include actionable steps for Mayor Bill de Blasio, Governor Andrew Cuomo, Senator Chuck Schumer to address unmet needs from the storm's devastation, protect communities vulnerable to inevitable future storms, and secure transformative policies to make New York a true climate leader.
A recent study predicts that catastrophic flooding in New York City, similar to destruction from Sandy, will become far more common in the coming decades.
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Hurricane Victims Don't Have the 'Complexion for Protection'
A full-blown humanitarian crisis is on the horizon.
Oct 16, 2017
Millions of Puerto Ricans are still without water, food, electricity and shelter, four weeks after Hurricane Maria destroyed the island. With waterborne illnesses on the rise, a full-blown humanitarian crisis is on the horizon.
"Raw sewage continues to be released into waterways and is expected to continue until repairs can be made and power is restored," the EPA warns in a memo.
When the agency issued this statement, eighty-four percent of Puerto Rico was without electricity, and sixty percent of water treatment plants out of service.
"Water contaminated with livestock waste, human sewage, chemicals, and other contaminants can lead to illness when used for drinking, bathing, and other hygiene activities," the EPA says.
To make matters worse, Puerto Rico is home to 21 Superfund sites - the nation's most deadly depositories of toxic chemicals. The island also has a five-story-high coal ash dump in Guayama that was hit by the storm.
Floodwaters have already mixed deadly toxins from these sites into nearby waterways, which residents are forced to use to bathe and drink. In a desperate attempt to save their own lives, some Puerto Ricans are drinking highly contaminated water from wells that were once sealed to avoid exposure to deadly toxins.
Families who have lost everything now must contend with the possibility that their groundwater is tainted with poison.
The Complexion for Protection
On the same day the EPA issued its warning, President Trump took to Twitter to complain, "We cannot keep FEMA, the Military & the First Responders... in P.R. forever!"
First, Mr. President, a reality check. The devastation caused by major storms takes years, not weeks, to repair. FEMA is still at work in New Orleans, twelve years after Hurricane Katrina, and in New Jersey and New York five years after Superstorm Sandy. EPA cleanup of contaminated sites takes even longer.
Second, a political check. Puerto Ricans are American citizens, and have been for more than a century. They serve in our Armed Forces and pay taxes, even if they weren't allowed to vote for you - or any candidate - for President, and have no representation in Congress.
As Puerto Rico's Governor, Roberto Rosello, wrote in his response to Trump's Twitter tantrum, "The U.S. citizens in Puerto Rico are requesting the support that any of our fellow citizens would receive across our Nation.
This is discrimination, plain and simple. When President Trump visited San Juan, he threw paper towels at a crowd of suffering people and scolded them for busting his budget. They weren't amused by his theatrics.
They, like the Houston residents who live near waterways fouled by toxins from the San Jacinto Superfund site, are people of color - apparently not the right complexion for protection.
Dismissing the Victims
Dismissing victims is not unusual for this administration and for the EPA. The agency's new chief, Scott Pruitt, spends his time on the road meeting privately with corporate CEOs responsible for these toxic waste sites. He then takes their wish-lists back to Washington so he can draft new ways to roll back the environmental protections they loathe.
But local community leaders, with few exceptions, have not been given the opportunity to talk with Pruitt.
Congress passed legislation in 1986 directing EPA to pursue permanent remedies or cleanups that conform to stringent standards. Although permanent cleanups cost more at the front end, they save money over the long term, as evident by the disruption of buried waste from storms like Harvey, Irma, Katrina and Sandy.
So, why won't the EPA enforce the permanent cleanup of these sites to avoid future cleanup costs as well as protect the community?
Because the people who live around most Superfund sites are poor and of color and are considered not worth the investment.
This is even more the case in in Puerto Rico, since lawmakers in D.C. feel no accountability to the island's citizens, who are separated from the mainland and denied the right to vote.
The EPA Told Me So
How do I know this? An EPA regional representative recently told me they were not going to spend millions to clean up a site when the surrounding houses are worth $60,000. It doesn't make cost-effective sense, he said; we'll just try to contain the waste.
Yet these houses are people's homes; inside are human beings raising their families, having backyard picnics and celebrating birthdays. The homes are their American Dream. How dare these government officials devalue their neighborhoods because they are not wealthy!
These families pay taxes, contribute to society and deserve every protection available from our government, regardless of their wealth, language or the color of their skin.
I fear that families that have already lost so much in this summer's severe hurricanes will suffer even more in coming months because of the color of their skin and the level of their income.
And as they try to clean up the mud and debris and rebuild their lives, families must also worry about how much chemical residue is in the mud they and their children have been exposed to.
They Don't Care, So We Must
There is no question in my mind that the Trump Administration does not care for victims, whether in Houston, Miami or San Juan. So we have to take responsibility to compel the administration to act and hold them accountable.
We have to force the government to protect people living near Superfund sites by permanently cleaning them up, and to give Puerto Rico's people the equal treatment they deserve.
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'Two-Faced' Texas GOP Seeking Hurricane Relief After Rejecting Sandy Aid
Ted Cruz, who voted against a relief package for states impacted by Superstorm Sandy, urged President Trump on Friday to quickly deliver aid to Texas
Aug 28, 2017
When Superstorm Sandy slammed New York, New Jersey, and a number of other states in 2012, Ted Cruz and more than 20 of his fellow Texas Republicans voted against an emergency aid package devoted to the areas devastated by the storm. Now that Hurricane Harvey is currently ravaging their own state, however, many of these same Republicans are changing their tune.
"The devastation of Hurricane Harvey has two-faced Texas politicians looking for the same sort of relief funding they flatly opposed five years ago."
--Larry McShane, New York Daily News
Last Friday, Texas Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn--two of the more vociferous opponents of the Sandy emergency aid package--sent a letter to the White House urging President Donald Trump to "provide any and all emergency protective measures available by a major disaster declaration." The senators also called on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to expedite emergency funding.
The two letters were quickly highlighted by lawmakers and commentators as shamelessly hypocritical.
"The devastation of Hurricane Harvey has two-faced Texas politicians looking for the same sort of relief funding they flatly opposed five years ago," noted Larry McShane of the New York Daily News. "Cornyn and Cruz were among the 39 Republican senators to oppose the [Superstorm Sandy aid] package, along with 179 GOP members of the House. Republican senators further delayed the vote by trying to offset the aid with budget cuts." Many of these senators, as ThinkProgress reported, had previously backed emergency aid packages after disasters struck their own states.
The relief was ultimately passed by Congress, 91 days after Superstorm Sandy struck.
On Sunday, Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) highlighted Cruz's about-face on hurricane relief aid, and vowed to support aid to Texas.
"I won't abandon Texas the way Ted Cruz did New York," King wrote.
In a column for the Los Angeles Times on Monday, Michael Hiltzik underscored the hypocrisy of Cruz, Cornyn, and others, and concluded that there was a common ideology underlying every vote against Sandy relief: "climate change denial."
"[V]irtually every lawmaker who voted against the package had also denied or expressed extreme skepticism about climate change, even though it may well have magnified the impact of of the storm on low-lying districts, and may well have contributed to the devastating potency of Hurricane Harvey," Hiltzik writes.
This climate denialism, combined with a decline in "regional cooperation," is "a particular danger today, when the possibility--nay, probability--of future devastation from climate change, not to mention other natural occurrences, is staring us in the face," Hiltzik concluded.
As for who will vote against aid to Texas, Hiltzik writes: "We'll know soon enough. The bills for Harvey will be coming due very, very soon."
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The New Normal: Organizing to Break the Cycle of Climate Disaster
Aug 20, 2016
The record-breaking floods in Louisiana are the latest example of what many working people already know all too well: climate change has already begun, and it is wrecking our communities.
So far, over 30,000 people have been evacuated from their homes, 10,000 people are in shelters, and those numbers are rising. The shelters themselves are experiencing flooding, and some families have already been relocated multiple times. At this point, almost 30 parishes have been declared major disaster areas.
Our communities are literally underwater due to the extreme weather and sea level rise brought on by climate change. Just a month and a half ago, West Virginia experienced a "1,000-year flood event." The Elk River was measured at its highest levels since such measurements began in the 1880s. Whole towns went under water, a burning house floated down the river at White Sulphur Springs, and 24 residents lost their lives to the deluge. Just a few weeks before that, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott declared a state of disaster across 31 counties in Texas due to flash floods.
These storms are the new normal, and their impacts are dramatic. Superstorm Sandy hit in late 2012, and there are still communities in parts of New York and New Jersey that haven't been rebuilt - families that are still displaced, almost four years later.
We know that pollution from the extraction and burning of fossil fuels has historically affected working-class communities and communities of color. With higher asthma and cancer rates, our families have long borne the burden of the same industries that are accelerating sea-level rise and extreme weather. We are now facing the facts that "unprecedented" storms, rainfall and flooding are no longer without precedent. In fact, what we are seeing now is but a sobering preview of what we should all come to expect.
It may be tempting to throw up our arms, declaring that there's nothing we can do, that we are woefully unprepared. But we know better. There is something that we can do, and it's something that we know how to do quite well. We need to organize. We must intervene at every level to ensure that our systems for prevention and recovery start doing their jobs effectively and accountably.
One opportunity for intervention, the reauthorization of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), will soon be upon us. The NFIP was established in 1968 through the passage of the National Flood Insurance Act to provide government-backed insurance protection in flood-prone areas, a market from which private insurance companies had been withdrawing. If you have a mortgage, and if you live in a floodplain where FEMA designates it is required, then you have to have national flood insurance. While it is mandatory for homeowners in floodplain communities, it has proved to be a wholly inadequate response to the challenges that they face. In fact, the process for getting a payment from your flood insurance turns out to have been rife with fraud and underpayment, delays and complications that have cost families their homes and economic stability.
We saw this after Superstorm Sandy, when families up and down the mid-Atlantic coast filed flood insurance claims assuming it would be OK. It was not. A PBS Frontline special, "The Business of Disaster," that aired in May profiled Sandy survivors in New Jersey and New York, many of whom are still waiting for a fair insurance settlement and still struggling to rebuild. Their report "found that their private insurance companies that administer the government's flood program made as much as an estimated $240 million to $406 million in profit annually over the past four years." Which is to say, they made roughly $400 million in profit off Superstorm Sandy-affected communities.
As we re-imagine programs such as the NFIP, our communities must come first before big insurance companies and outside developers. We know that the frequency of extreme weather is only increasing, and we need the programs and the funds in place now to support mitigation, preparation and recovery. If we cannot effectively oversee and monitor the private sector's participation in these programs, then we should de-emphasize or even eliminate its participation. In short, these programs must be rebuilt now to place people and planet before profit.
Storms are just the beginning. Flood survivors often say the storm was the easy part when compared to the road of recovery. Neighbors, community members, and families have come together in flood after flood to rescue one another, to help clean up and to rebuild together. Flood survivors everywhere have stories of the people who've touched their lives, who've reminded them what our communities are capable of. We must come together in that same way, now, to make sure that our government programs work for us - not Wall Street corporations. And, if experience is any indication, that's just what we're going to do.
With Amanda Devecka-Rinear, New Jersey Organizing Project, and Gary Zuckett, West Virginia Citizen Action Group.
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Amid Flooding, Groups Call for End to 'Unconscionable' Fossil Fuel Auctions
"Allowing next week's fossil fuel auction to move forward is rubbing salt in the wounds of a region already in a state of emergency"
Aug 19, 2016
A coalition of climate and advocacy groups on Friday called on the Obama administration to cancel an upcoming fossil fuel auction as Louisiana reels from the unprecedented floods that have ravaged the state--and which rescue groups have described as the worst U.S. disaster since Superstorm Sandy.
The organizations, including 350.org, CREDO, and Greenpeace, circulated a petition imploring President Barack Obama to call off the planned August 24 offshore drilling lease auction for a portion of the Gulf of Mexico "the size of Virginia." The auction is set to take place in the New Orleans Superdome, which became an infamous symbol of climate injustice and bureaucratic callousness when Hurricane Katrina victims were forced to take shelter there in 2005.
In the wake of the flooding, the groups said, allowing any more fossil fuel extraction--and in turn, facilitating the release of more climate-changing greenhouse gases--would be "unconscionable."
"My heart is filled with both a deep sadness and deep anger--at the fossil fuel companies driving this ongoing crisis, and at an administration that continues to sell them the right to do so," said Cherri Foytlin, a Gulf Coast mother of six and state director of the grassroots climate group Bold Louisiana.
Foytlin's home was one of the 40,000 that flooded in the disaster.
"The fact that this fossil fuel auction is set to take place in the New Orleans Superdome--the site of one of the most visible and tragic instances of climate injustice in recent history--is nothing short of insulting. Allowing next week's fossil fuel auction to move forward is rubbing salt in the wounds of a region already in a state of emergency," Foytlin said.
Hundreds of activists are also planning to march in New Orleans on Saturday to protest the auction and the administration's continued sacrificing of the Gulf Coast to the fossil fuel industry.
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Hurricane Katrina Proved That If Black Lives Matter, So Must Climate Justice
The environmental justice and Black Lives Matter movements are complementary. We can’t afford to choose between the two
Aug 25, 2015
Those of us from low-income communities of color are on the frontlines of the climate crisis. US cities and towns that are predominantly made up of people of color are also home to a disproportionate share of the environmental burdens that are fueling the climate crisis and shortening our lives. One has only to recall the gut-wrenching images of Hurricane Katrina's aftermath to confirm this.
At a time when police abuse is more visible than ever thanks to technology, and our communities continue to get hit time and time again by climate catastrophe, we can't afford to choose between a Black Lives Matter protest and a climate justice forum, because our survival depends on both of them.
As a young woman, I started organizing against racial violence and police misconduct. For the last 20 years, I have struggled for environmental and climate justice. As descendants of slavery and colonization, our communities have lived and continue to live at the intersection of all these challenges. Both have a long history rooted in the extraction and abuse of our labor and, later, the extraction and abuse of our resources. Both involve people who are the descendants of historical trauma and are now faced with the catastrophe of a changing climate.
Over the years, as we were fighting for housing, jobs and better schools, decisions were being made to site some of the most toxic industries in communities with a large proportion of people of color: power plants, waste transfer stations, landfills, refineries and incinerators. As a result, communities of color have become cancer clusters and have the highest rates of asthma. In response, we in the environmental justice movement have said there is nothing more fundamental than the right to breathe - including the right to clean air.
The environmental justice and Black Lives Matter movements are complementary. Black lives matter in the Gulf, where most of the fatalities resulting from Hurricane Katrina were black people, and which was home to the largest marine oil spill in history five years later. Black Lives Matter in Red Hook, Brooklyn, where hundreds of black families waited for weeks for electricity, heat, and, in some cases, running water to be turned back on after Superstorm Sandy. Black Lives Matter in Richmond, California, home to the largest oil refinery on the West Coast. Black Lives Matter in Detroit, home to the largest solid waste incinerator in the US. The list goes on of cities and towns that are predominantly made up of people of color and are also home to a disproportionate share of this nation's environmental burdens.
We as people of color people now face the effects of a changing climate neither our ancestors nor we are responsible for creating. Climate change demands another rhythm. The current dig, burn, and dump economy is no longer acceptable. Similarly, a climate movement led by people of traditional power and privilege will not relieve our crises. Our communities know another way. As people of African and Indigenous ancestry, we come from societies and ways of life that protect and nurture Mother Earth. Now is the time to reconnect with our old ways. The knowledge is there - it is in our historical memory, and we are doing this work. Environmental and climate justice activists are working at the grassroots level to develop indigenous leadership around local climate solutions.
This redefines the face of the climate movement and provides a just and necessary alternative to the racial and ecological structures that have led us to where we are. Through this process of living, working, and struggling with one another, we guarantee our children and grandchildren the right to breathe freely.
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Scientists Identify 'Triple Threat' Endangering US Coastal Cities
The 'meteorological double whammy' of heavy rainfall and storm surges is only further exacerbated by rising sea levels, scientists say
Jul 27, 2015
A trio of phenomena attributed at least in part to climate change--sea-level rise, storm surges, and heavy rainfall--poses an increasing risk to residents of major U.S. cities including Boston, New York, Houston, San Diego, and San Francisco, according to new research published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change.
"Call it a triple threat," Steven Meyers, a scientist at the University of South Florida and one of the paper's authors, told the Guardian.
Using historical data on rainfall, tide gauge readings, and extreme weather occurrences, the scientists explored the combined risks that endanger broad stretches of the U.S. coasts. Specifically, they looked at scenarios in which heavy rainfall combines with so-called "storm surges"--the abnormal rise of water generated by a storm--to create "compound flooding."
Writing for Climate Central, Andrea Thompson further explains: "The wall of ocean water that the winds of a storm system, such as a hurricane, can push in front of it can combine with heavy rains to exacerbate flooding in two ways: Either the rainfall inland can ramp up the severity of the surge-driven flooding, or the surge can elevate water levels to the point that gravity-driven flow of rainwater is impeded, causing that water to collect in streets and seep into homes."
That "meteorological double whammy," as Thompson calls it, is only further exacerbated by rising sea levels. Experts have linked climate change to both extreme weather and rising oceans.
Nor surprisingly, the risks of compound flooding are getting worse over time, the study shows.
As lead author Thomas Wahl, also of the University of South Florida, and University of Maine professor Shaleen Jain wrote in a piece published at The Conversation on Monday, they found that "along large coastline stretches around the U.S. a systematic linkage exists between the two important drivers for coastal flooding, making it more likely that the two occur in tandem. Our analysis showed that over the past century, the number of compound flood events for many U.S. coastal cities has increased."
In New York City, for example, the weather conditions that typically cause the combined conditions are twice as likely to occur today than in the mid-20th century, the researchers found.
With nearly 40 percent of the U.S. population residing in coastal counties, the paper warns, "[i]mpacts of flooding in these usually low-lying, densely populated, and highly developed regions, can be devastating with wide-ranging social, economic, and environmental consequences."
As Arielle Duhaime-Ross wrote at The Verge, "[b]etween 2010 and 2014, the average flood claim was almost $42,000. And that doesn't even take into account the number of people that are displaced following a severe flooding event. That's why researchers are trying to figure out which factors contribute to flooding; it's the kind of information that can really come in handy when rebuilding a city, for instance."
Indeed, that is precisely the researchers' goal. "Gaining more insight into the frequency and likelihood of compound floods can help planners better assess risk from flooding to critical infrastructure," Wahl and Jain wrote.
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'Screwed?' US Climate Report says Era of 'Normal' Over
Sen. Bernie Sanders: "It is no longer acceptable that coal and oil companies spend millions of dollars to defeat efforts to protect the planet."
May 06, 2014
"We're screwed. Right now. And it could get much worse."
That was how 350.org co-founder Jamie Henn responded to Tuesday's release of the federal government's National Climate Assessment, the national scientific community's definitive statement on the current and future impacts of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.
Compiling the efforts of 300 leading climate scientists and experts, the message is "bleak" as the NCA details how human-caused global warming is being felt "here and now" nationwide.
"I just hope that we convince as many people as possible that they live in a dynamic climate, that the old normal is broken and we have no idea what the new normal is going to look like when all of this is done." --Gary Yohe, report co-author
As a consequence of the nearly two degree Fahrenheit rise which occurred throughout the country over the past century, the report says, Americans are experiencing water scarcity in dry regions, increasing torrential rains in wet ones, increasingly severe heat waves, worsening wildfires, and the death of forests as a result of heat-loving invasive insect species.
And all of this is likely to worsen as average temperatures continue to increase. The authors, who were solicited by the National Climate Assessment and Development Advisory Committee, estimate that global warming could exceed 10 degrees Fahrenheit in the United States by the end of this century.
"I just hope that we convince as many people as possible that they live in a dynamic climate, that the old normal is broken and we have no idea what the new normal is going to look like when all of this is done," said Gary Yohe, an economist at Wesleyan University, who since 2010 has been a leader of the NCA advisory committee.
Following its release, many noted that the report provides an abrupt wake-up call to politicians and the fossil fuel industry, saying that their ongoing denial of mankind's disruptive impact on the planet has significantly hastened many of these dangerous effects.
"As our communities reel from droughts, floods, forest fires, fossil fuel disasters, crop failures and more, it becomes harder for these polluters and those aligned with them to hide just how out of touch from reality they are," said Trip Van Noppen, president of Earthjustice.
"The divide between the fossil-fuel industry's misguided attempts to place profits above the needs of our families and communities grows as each new scientific report is released," Van Noppen continued. "The National Climate Assessment paints a bleak picture, but it is a picture we have seen clearly for many years, and we have to act on it now."
Independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders said that the report is another "loud and clear warning that greenhouse gases are rising faster than ever," warning that our continued "refusal to recognize and deal with the crisis could have catastrophic consequences."
"It is no longer acceptable for a majority in Congress to ignore the overwhelming scientific evidence," Sanders added. "It is no longer acceptable that coal and oil companies spend millions of dollars to defeat efforts to protect the planet."
Recognizing the 'call to arms,' Bill McKibben, noted environmentalist and founder of 350.org, tweeted:
To mark the official roll-out, President Obama announced a series of executive actions, including introducing the first-ever limits on carbon pollution from existing power plants and setting new goals for renewable energy sources like wind and solar. The President is also taking the opportunity to promote new initiatives to prepare for the inevitable effects of climate change, such as supporting climate-resilient investments, developing climate-preparedness tools and encouraging smart rebuilding after climate disasters, such as Superstorm Sandy.
However, these efforts have repeatedly faced criticism by leading scientists and environmental groups who say that they are not dramatic enough, in light of the current crisis, and that the continuation of the President's "all-of-the-above" energy policy will only further our dependence on polluting fossil fuels, worsening the problem.
Obama on Tuesday has scheduled interviews with a number of meteorologists from major network stations in an effort to promote the report and stem "the strong current of climate skepticism among weather forecasters," the Guardian reports.
According to a 2012 Pew report, 62% of Americans trust television weather reporters on climate change far more than they do climate scientists. And another survey in 2010 by George Mason University's Center for Climate Change Communications found that only 19% of TV weather forecasters accepted that human activity was the main driver of climate change.
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