Climate change: Ralph Nader and the 'Kingpins of Carbon'

Over the past year, there has been a fair amount of concern expressed about UK energy companies and their pricing regime:
Futures Forum: "... a reckless use of public money at a time when people are very concerned about energy costs.”
Futures Forum: "SVEAG say 'unjustifiable' price rises by big companies will see another £1.5 million added to the estimated £15 million that leaves the area every year."

Meanwhile, although not perfect, the German model seems to be gaining ground:
Futures Forum: “Energiewende” – energy transformation... reducing dependence on fossil fuels and changing the role of the large traditional utilities.

On Start the Week on Radio 4, Naomi Klein argued that not enough is being done to tackle the entrenched position of the fossil fuel industy:
BBC Radio 4 - Start the Week, Naomi Klein on climate change and growth
Futures Forum: Climate Change: and growth on Radio 4

In the US, apparently $70bn worth of subsidies goes to the oil and gas industries - according to this vivid graphic:
Corporate Welfare

Ralph Nader has something to say about this:

Bowling Strikes Against the Carbon Kingpins

Ralph Nader 

Consumer advocate, lawyer and author

Posted: 09/19/2014 5:39 pm EDT Updated: 09/20/2014 4:59 pm EDT

Scientists agree. Businesses agree. Economists agree. Even the Pentagon agrees -- climate change must be a national priority. In 2010, The National Security Strategy, a memo released by the White House, warned:

The danger from climate change is real, urgent and severe. The change wrought by a warming planet will lead to new conflicts over refugees and resources; new suffering from drought and famine; catastrophic natural disasters; and the degradation of land across the globe.

Each year climate change and global warming are chronically worsening.

Despite this clear convergence on climate change, the only ones who won't agree on treating it are those who hold the most power to do so -- The United States Congress. The reason for their inaction, unsurprisingly, is tied to one of the biggest problems currently festering in America's weakened democracy, the corrupting influence of money in politics.

Greenpeace has just released a new report, written by Charlie Cray and Peter Montague, titled "The Kingpins of Carbon and Their War on Democracy." The report begins with the well-accepted premise that climate change or global warming is a catastrophic issue that requires immediate serious attention from the world's governments. The United States, however, remains frustratingly gridlocked and paralyzed on climate change. The report says,

In Congress, the fossil corporations' allies are refusing to act, based on the false claim that global warming is scientifically unproven or is even a hoax perpetrated by the world's major scientific organizations. Meanwhile the 3.6 ° F. 'safe' limit on global warming will soon disappear in our rear-view mirror.

Consider the "dog-whistle" issues that consistently divide Americans such as gun laws, school prayer and abortion, and one must ask what is it about climate change -- an issue that 83 percent of Americans agree on according to a 2013 survey -- that creates such turmoil? What is the source of the pushback in the face of a clear convergence?

The Greenpeace report identifies that source as "a multi-decade war on democracy by the kingpins of carbon -- the coal, the oil, and gas industries allied with a handful of self-interested libertarian billionaires." The self-interested libertarian billionaires are, of course, the infamous Koch brothers whose political influence has become well-known with the rise of the Tea Party movement. Not surprisingly Koch Industries has made billions of dollars off of the use of fossil fuels.

How is such a relatively small group of millionaires and billionaires able to achieve such great success in stalling national action on an issue that has dire consequences for the majority of the people on this planet? (See my letter to wealthy individuals asking them to band together to fund advocacy on climate change.)

Look to three Supreme Court decisions to find the answer. In 2010, Citizens United v. FEC gave big corporations like Pfizer, Aetna, Chevron, GM, Citigroup and Monsanto the ability to spend unlimited funds in independent expenditures to oppose or support candidates for public office. In 2013, Shelby County v. Holder overturned a provision in the Voting Rights Act that required areas with known, entrenched racial discrimination to be required to receive clearance from the U.S. Justice Department before instituting changes in voting laws. Finally, in 2014, the McCutcheon v. FECdecision significantly raised the amount that each individual can contribute to federal candidates and federal party committees from $123,200 to $3.6 million!

These Supreme Court decisions (mostly by a majority 5-4) are clear signs of a judicial dictatorship for plutocrats that carries the rancid banner for corporate privilege and power overriding the rights of individual voters. The unelected, life-tenured corporate court continues to tighten the noose of corporatism around the American people.

The Greenpeace report reveals that 89 wealthy political spenders with ties to the coal, oil and gas industries are the leading aggressors in support of fossil fuel companies that are raising the Earth's temperature with little regard for the rest of humanity or posterity. Because of the current state of campaign laws, most of these donors remain anonymous and regularly pull the strings of government in their favor with few repercussions.

The singular agenda of these "Carbon Kingpins" according to the report:

Prevent Congress from taking action to mitigate global warming; Eliminate all remaining restrictions on money in federal and state elections for legislators and judges, allowing totally-secret, unrestricted donations; Cut taxes [for the corporate and wealthy classes] to starve and shrink government, to keep it ineffective; Eliminate regulations that protect the environment, and, finally, Crush labor unions and reverse the victories of the civil rights movement.

It's a common theme in blockbuster Hollywood science fiction movies to demonstrate how an extraterrestrial invader can prompt the nations of Earth to set aside their various disagreements and band together to defend against a common foe. Climate change is, essentially, the equivalent of an extraterrestrial enemy. Just imagine if a handful of self-interested billionaires influenced the United States to let the Martians invade? The public would not stand for it. Yet the reality in America today is that a small group of reckless corporatists have put the entire world in danger to protect their harmful, environmentally destructive industries.

Obviously, the "Kingpins of Carbon" are not going to back down when their profits are on the line. It's going to take a rising rumble from the people to turn the tide in favor of protecting the planet for future generations.

One simple solution would be to enact a carbon tax -- supported by some conservatives and companies -- that would place a fee on polluters that emit greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. This tax would discourage the use of dirty fossil fuels and encourage clean energy alternatives to avert global warming while raising considerable revenue that could be applied to bettering life in America in other innumerable ways.

Such solutions will not enact themselves without the will of the people, however. The clock is ticking. It's time for immediate action on climate change and global warming.

Visit democracyforus.org to learn more.

Follow Ralph Nader on Twitter: www.twitter.com/RalphNader

Bowling Strikes Against the Carbon Kingpins | Ralph Nader
Futures Forum: Ralph Nader: UNSTOPPABLE

Here's a piece from last week from the author of the Greenpeace report:


THE CARBON KINGPINS’ WAR ON DEMOCRACY

September 26th 2014
BY CHARLIE CRAY

26SEP

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt set off a rush to the American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC) exit doors by other companies this week because, as he put it, ALEC has been “literally lying” about climate change and his company wants nothing to do with it.

ALEC claims Google’s decision to drop out is based on “misinformation from climate activists who intentionally confuse free market policy perspectives for climate change denial.”

It’s a preposterous claim. ALEC regularly invites climate deniers from the Heartland Institute and other front groups to make presentations at its closed-door meetings. ALEC has also pushed model legislation written by climate deniers which suggests that global warming will be “possibly beneficial.”

Beneficial to whom? Perhaps to ALEC itself. ALEC has received strong financial support from big fossil fuel companies like Exxon, Peabody Coal and Koch Industries.

In recent years ALEC has been attacking renewable energy by pushing various bills, including one that would impose a fee on any homeowner who chooses to install solar panels on their roof. That’s ALEC’s “free market policy perspective”: Intervene in the market to dissuade homeowners from the many benefits of solar, including lower utility bills, less asthma-inducing coal pollution, and a community that is more more resilient to superstorms and other threats, including terrorist attacks on the electricity grid.

The New York Times summed it up pretty well: “The Koch brothers and their conservative allies in state government have found a new tax they can support. Naturally it’s a tax on something the country needs: solar energy panels.”

Since Google’s recent announcement, a bunch of companies have started to follow, including Facebook and Yahoo. You’d think there’d be a lot more companies rushing for the door. Why would any self-respecting company side with habitual liars like the Kochs, who are probably the single biggest source of climate denier front group funding (at least $67 million since 1997)?

The Kochs’ lies are not just polluting the air, but the airwaves:

Non-partisan media analysts at Politicfact.com report that NONE of the statements made by Americans for Prosperity — the Koch brothers’ lead political arm – are true or even “mostly true.” None. 86% are “mostly false,” outright “false” or deserving of a “pants on fire” rating.

Considering that Koch-connected non-profits ran over 43,000 mid-term TV ads between January and the end of August – nearly one out of every 10 political ads aired in the entire country — if the sample analyzed by Politifact reflects the broader pattern, then the Kochs are basically carpet-bombing the country with all sorts of lies.

That’s the kind of political “speech” John Roberts and rest of his Supreme Court majority unleashed in their Citizens United decision. And the effect is so corrosive to the entire political discourse that as Rob Sisson, president of ConservAmerica (formerly Republicans for Environmental Protection) has said,Republicans are now “afraid” to even talk about global warming, fearing “political repercussions” of doing so. The only Republican running for Senate in 2014 to even mention climate change on his web site – Jim Rubens – fell silent after signing the Koch brothers’ pledge not to do anything about global warming.

Where’s the “free speech” in that?

Everyone but Congress understands the urgency.

Scientists get it. Health professionals get it. Companies with extended supply chains at risk from increasingly intense and frequent superstorms get it.

National security leaders get it and are saying it clearly and repeatedly: Both the 2010 National Security Strategy and the U.S. Quadrennial Defense Review of 2014 describe global warming as a top national security threat. And yet, as Michael Chertoff and Leon Panetta suggest in their introduction to a Military Advisory Board’s 2014 report on the national security risks of projected climate change, “We are dismayed that discussions of climate change have become so polarizing and have receded from the arena of informed public discourse and debate.”

The congressional climate deniers are way out of step with their own base, which suggests that siding with the Kochs and climate liars is a very big risk to take: According to a survey conducted for the League of Conservation Voters, over half of young Republican voters (i.e. under 35 yrs old) think politicians who deny climate change is happening as “ignorant,” “out-of-touch” or “crazy.”

If they win this fall, the Republicans in control of Congress will have a hard time convincing the American people that spewing a poisonous fog of lies about the global warming “hoax” and the Obama administration’s reckless “war on coal” is real leadership.

In truth, it’s becoming clear that there IS a war — a war on democracy waged by the conservative billionaires like the Kochs who hailed Mitch McConnell (R-KY) at their secret retreat in June, when he vowed to destroy the EPA if Republicans win back the Senate this fall.

McConnell, who was coal baron Shaun McCutcheon’s co-plaintiff in the Supreme Court case that gave the assembled plutocrats the right to spend $3.6 million each election cycle, praised the Supreme Court during his speechfor “level[ing] the playing field for corporate speech.”

“We now have, I think, the most free and open system we’ve had in modern times,” McConnell told the assembled plutocrats. “The Supreme Court allowed all of you to participate in the process in a variety of different ways. You can give to the candidate of your choice. You can give to Americans for Prosperity, or something else, a variety of different ways to push back against the party of government. It has nothing to do with overly political speech.”

In other words, in addition to the $3.6 million they can give directly to candidates and party committees, they can give millions of dollars to the Kochs’ network of dark money groups and super PACs, which added up to about $400 million in 2012.

Although almost everyone has heard about the Kochs, not many of the other top donors are so well known. In our new report, “The Kingpins of Carbon and Their War on Democracy,” Greenpeace analyzed the list of top 2012 political spenders, identifying 88 individual top donors who are connected to the fossil fuel industry. That’s 88 Carbon Kingpins who (because of the McCutcheon decision) can now give up to $3.6 million each directly to candidates and party committees every two-year federal campaign cycle.

We also identified 67 top political donors who are also closely tied to the Koch brothers. Many of whom were no doubt in the room when McConnell praised the court for setting them “free” from the onerous regulations that restricted them to contributing “just” $123,200 – i.e. twice the amount that an average American family makes each year.

This is what plutocracy looks like: The Koch brothers and their billionaire cronies have so oiled the Congress and many state legislatures (as well as some universities and colleges) – that, in essence, they have set our ability to address climate change far back enough to become a national security threat.

(Speaking of national security — Koch Industries also put more lobbying muscle than any other company into killing proposed legislation to protect communities from chemical disasters caused by terrorist attacks or accidents like the one in West, Texas a few years ago. The company operates 57 facilities that put 4.4 million workers and nearby residents at constant risk from a catastrophic release of the poison gases they store on-site.)

Of course the Koch brothers are not the sole source of congressional climate denial.  Together the dozens of other carbon kingpins (should we call them “pollutocrats”?), their corporate lobbyists, trade associations, think tanks and congressional sock puppets have, as the Union of Concerned Scientists puts it, “dictated how the public understands (or misunderstands) climate science and how the national discussion on climate policy has progressed – or not progressed.” And these enormous political investments even pays them back in spades. Oil Change and the Sierra Club calculate that the subsidies, tax breaks and handouts the federal government gives to the fossil fuel industries each year is over 5,000 percent larger than their total political contributions and lobbying expenditures.

This kind of outsized influence and its destructive consequences for communities, businesses and the environment extends across the board to other issues, leading one to reach the reasonable conclusion that the Koch brothers’ club of billionaire cronies and other Carbon Kingpins and plutocrats have so stymied common sense and congressional action addressing so many issues of importance to the country that they pose a fundamental threat to the very future of American democracy.

It’s no wonder that 54 Senators voted in favor of a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court’s destructive Citizens United decision and that unions, civil rights groups and environmental groups (including Greenpeace) have joined together through the Democracy Initiative.

Some, at least, understand the nature of the crisis and the need for real leadership.

Any honest, self-respecting leader – regardless of his or her political affiliation – has to agree with Schmidt that the Kochs and other Carbon Kingpins and front groups like ALEC who have effectively sabotaged every effort to pull the world back from the climate change cliff “are really hurting our children and our grandchildren and making the world a much worse place…we should not be aligned with such people – they’re just, they’re just literally lying.”

As children we learn the importance of standing up to lying bullies. When someone is courageous enough to do so, it’s everyone else’s responsibility to back them up.

ALEC sees mass exodus of companies leaving the group Greenpeace Blogs

Here's the full report:
www.greenpeace.org/usa/Global/usa/planet3/PDFs/Kingpins-of-Carbon.pdf
Kingpins of Carbon | Greenpeace

And here's something a little more provocative:

Totalitarianism, American Style

Understanding the subtle ways democracy has been undermined in the US.

September 22, 2014   

Chris Hedges made these remarks Saturday at a panel discussion in New York City titled “The Climate Crisis: Which Way Out?” The other panelists were Bill McKibben, Naomi Klein, Kshama Sawant and Sen. Bernie Sanders. The event, moderated by Brian Lehrer, occurred on the eve of the People’s Climate March in New York City. For a video of some of what the panelists said, click here.

We have undergone a transformation during the last few decades—what John Ralston Saul calls a corporate coup d’état in slow motion. We are no longer a capitalist democracy endowed with a functioning liberal class that once made piecemeal and incremental reform possible. Liberals in the old Democratic Party such as the senators Gaylord Nelson, Birch Bayh and George McGovern—who worked with Ralph Nader to make the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Mine Safety and Health Act, the Freedom of Information Act and the OSHA law, who made common cause with labor unions to protect workers, who stood up to the arms industry and a bloated military—no longer exist within the Democratic Party, as Nader has been lamenting for several years. They were pushed out as corporate donors began to transform the political landscape with the election of Ronald Reagan. And this is why the Democrats have not, as Bill Curry points out, enacted any major social or economic reforms since the historic environmental laws of the early ’70s.

We are governed, rather, by a species of corporate totalitarianism, or what the political philosopher Sheldon Wolin describes as “inverted totalitarianism.” By this Wolin means a system where corporate power, while it purports to pay fealty to electoral politics, the Constitution, the three branches of government and a free press, along with the iconography and language of American patriotism, has in fact seized all the important levers of power to render the citizen impotent.

Totalitarianism, American Style | Alternet
Inverted Totalitarianism: A New Way of Understanding How the U.S. Is Controlled | Alternet

See also:
Futures Forum: "Fossil fuels at a tipping point?"
Futures Forum: Peak Oil... and the oil industry

and:
Futures Forum: Climate change: the language of framing.... "Climate change hysteria is really a feeling."
Futures Forum: Climate change: the language of framing... "Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change"
Futures Forum: "Climate science has been dragged into the American-style culture wars that are turning British intellectual life into a battlefield."
Futures Forum: The continuing politicisation of the climate change debate
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