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arctic drilling
Our Financial System Is a Suicide Machine
Last week, Bank of America engaged in perhaps the single most irresponsible about-face of the climate era.
Feb 07, 2024
Bank of America has its roots in California. Founded in Los Angeles in 1923, it was acquired by a San Francisco bank, which took the name in 1930—and over time it has grown to become the world’s second-largest bank by deposits, second only to New York-based Chase.
I tell you this for two reasons. One, California is, as of this writing, being absolutely battered by an “atmospheric river” that has knocked out power to hundreds of thousands and caused mudslides on high ground along the Pacific Coast. As Andrew Dessler pointed out yesterday, the physics are pretty simple: “A warmer planet has more water vapor in the atmosphere. And, everything else being the same, an atmospheric river carrying more water vapor will cause more rainfall when it hits land and starts rising.”
And second, Bank of America is a proximate cause of this kind of chaos, because it refuses to stop lending for fossil fuel expansion. Indeed, last week it engaged in perhaps the single most irresponsible about-face of the climate era.
They’re far more afraid of some oil-soaked GOP state treasurer than they are of an atmospheric river bearing down on the world’s fifth largest economy.
Three years ago—in the wake of the Greta-inspired mass uprising of young people around the world—Bank of America apparently felt it had to make some gesture, so it chose a pretty easy route to demonstrate its newfound greenness. It said it would no longer lend for new coal mining or coal-fired power plants or for new oil exploration in the Arctic. These were seen to be beyond the pale because… well, they are. They represent some of the most egregious possible insults to this planet.
But last week they said, never mind. If you want some money for a new coal mine, our window is open again. If you’re an oil company that feels like searching for oil in the Arctic now that you’ve melted it, we can make a deal. As the Times reported last week
Bank of America’s change follows intensifying backlash from Republican lawmakers against corporations that consider environmental and social factors in their operations. Wall Street in particular has come under fire for what some Republicans have called “woke capitalism,” a campaign that has pulled banks into the wider culture wars.
That is to say, they’re far more afraid of some oil-soaked GOP state treasurer than they are of an atmospheric river bearing down on the world’s fifth largest economy. It’s proof, of course, that their words about climate change were just pious nonsense. They’d insisted that they understood how crucial it was to change: “Climate change is no longer a far off risk but rather a global concern with impacts that are already beginning to unfold, including increased frequency and severity of extreme weather conditions, melting glaciers, loss of sea ice, accelerated sea-level rise, and longer, more intense heatwaves and droughts.” But that was, we now understand, to be understood entirely as greenwashing, an effort to reduce the heat they were temporarily feeling.
The actual heat they could care less about. It’s not like something has happened since 2021—except the hottest year in the last 125,000, which takes us back even before the advent of money, if BofA executives can even imagine such a time.
But the only weather change they’ve noticed is political. Out with Greta et al., in with GOP politicians saying scary things. And BofA is not alone. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism reported last week that global giant HSBC, despite a solemn promise that it would stop financing new oil and gas fields, has found ways to keep
selling shares in the refining business of Saudi Aramco, one of the most aggressive expanders of oil and gas. An investor in HSBC told the Bureau of Investigative Journalism that the bank’s policy has been cleverly worded to allow it to fund some of the world’s biggest polluters while boasting about its green credentials.
An analysis of Refinitiv data by TBIJ has found that in the year since HSBC’s new policy was announced, the bank has helped raise more than $47 billion (£37 billion) for companies that are expanding the production of oil and gas, despite dire warnings from scientists that this will push the world beyond its survivable limits.
This is all just sick. The International Energy Agency said in 2021 that if we had a chance of meeting the Paris temperature targets, finance for fossil fuel expansion had to end now. But the banks, and big asset managers like BlackRock, just can’t help themselves. For short-term gain, and to protect themselves from attack by right-wing politicians, they are willing to break the back of the planet’s climate system. The unbelievable economic fallout of those decisions—the fact that the world be immensely poorer, with its prospects hugely degraded, by the resulting rise in temperature—will be the problem of some other CEO down the road; it’s hard not to see our financial system as a suicide machine.
Fighting back is hard. At places like Third Act, we’ve done loads of sit-ins and pickets, and it helps—that’s the kind of action that forced these pledges in the first place. But we need some big players on our side. We’re trying, for instance, to convince Costco to pressure its banker Citi; we need the big tech companies, too, to worry not just about about the climate impact of their phones but also about the climate impact of their money (which is far far larger).
We have some champions, of course, but they’re not as hard-hitting as their Red State counterparts. Brad Lander, comptroller of New York City, gets credit for being willing to take the banks on—last week he announced that he’d try to get them to disclose their ratio of dirty energy to clean energy lending, which would certainly be good to know.
“Despite all their talk, the big banks have made little progress in the energy finance transition over the past couple of years,” said Comptroller Lander. “As long-term investors exposed to climate risk, we can’t just take their word for it. Reporting transparently on their ratios of clean energy to fossil fuel finance is key to seeing whether or not they are living up to their net-zero commitments. Right now, they aren’t—and that must change. Our planet, our economy, and our investment portfolios are all at stake.”
All of that is true. But if the planet is at stake, then perhaps a somewhat harder shove might be required. Lander’s plan seems like a way to win slowly, which on most political issues makes sense. But unless he also has a plan to refreeze a melted Arctic, this kind of pressure seems a tad too gentlemanly.
As you can tell, this about face by BofA stings. It takes so much work to move these guys an inch, and then given half a chance they slide right back to where they were before.
Small banks seem able to make money doing decent things—here’s a nice story about a merger of local California banks where they pledged, among other things, to “refrain from any new financing of fossil fuel extraction activities, especially expansion projects that would develop and lock in dependence on new fossil fuel infrastructure, either through corporate or project-based finance, subject to compliance with banking rules and regulations.”
But the big boys? Damn them to hell, which is clearly where they’re content to send all of us.
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The Arctic Is Speaking Truths About Climate Change. Is Anyone Listening?
Jun 25, 2015
The Arctic is screaming. Can you hear her in the floods of Houston, the drought in California and the epic snowfall in Boston this past winter? In Alaska, the only Arctic state in the United States, it was a record-smashing 89 degrees in Anchorage at 6:30 at night on June 15, 2015, one of several 80 degree days. Historically, June temperatures fluctuate between the mid-60s to mid-70s. Currently, 238 wildfires, burning 408 square miles, are forcing the evacuation of residents in several communities. Fifty-seven new fires ignited on June 22.
Our collective failure to limit greenhouse gas emissions has pushed atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide -- the primary driver of climate change -- to levels not seen for millions of years, when the Earth did not support human life. These increases are causing significant changes in the Earth system and most profoundly in the Arctic. In the last half-century, Alaska and the Arctic have warmed twice as fast as the global average.
In Alaska, record-breaking high temperatures, lack of snowfall and decreased Arctic sea ice are colliding to accelerate dramatic environmental changes. In 2014, plants grew in January in Anchorage during a 10-day warm spell when temperatures hovered in the 40s and reached 50 degrees on January 27. In August 2014 children swam in the frigid Chukchi Sea, north of the Arctic Circle, to get relief from a heat wave. Winter snows have shifted to winter rains.
This past year was the lowest snow season on record in Anchorage, with no snowfall accumulation over four inches. February's record-breaking temperatures in the 40s was followed in March, when snow covered the ground for only the first five days of the month -- that snow cover was less than an inch when 10-13 inches of snow typically covers the city. Gardeners who traditionally wait until Memorial Day weekend, planted as early as April. May was the hottest on record and hovered in the 70s in Anchorage and the 90s further north -- reaching this temperature earlier than Atlanta Georgia. In Barrow, perched on the edge of the Arctic Ocean, temperatures soared for three consecutive days, including a record high on May 19 that was eight degrees above the previous daily record set in 2009. To the south in Fairbanks, temperatures reached 86 degrees, breaking the old daily record by six degrees.
Arctic sea ice is also rapidly diminishing. Historically, Arctic sea ice reaches its maximum extent in March, but in 2015, Arctic sea ice was at its lowest maximum extent since record keeping began in 1979. In the past four decades, Arctic sea ice has decreased 40 percent, with projections that it will disappear entirely during summer within the next 30 years or less. This is bringing catastrophic consequences to the communities, cultures and wildlife of the region.
And, ultimately, to those beyond the Arctic, as these changes impact the polar jet stream and contribute to the extreme weather occurring in lower latitudes, such as Hurricane Sandy in New York in 2012, the 2015 blizzards in Boston, Super Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines in 2013, and Cyclone Pam in 2015 in Vanuatu -- which wiped out that island nation in the South Pacific with sustained winds of 155 mph.
Despite the vast differences in wealth, development and technological and organizational resources, no country in the world has yet been able to adapt to these weather furies. What place in the world currently has the capacity to withstand 155 mph sustained winds? A focus on adaptation efforts is urgently needed to reduce the death, damage and destruction caused by extreme weather events
But extreme weather events are not the only environmental events challenging our ability to adapt to climate change. Accelerating rates of erosion, caused by permafrost thawing and decreased Arctic sea ice, are threatening the infrastructure and the very lives of residents of many coastal communities in Alaska. Situations are so dire that several indigenous communities have decided that the relocation of their entire village is their only viable long-term adaptation strategy. State and federal government officials concur, but not a single community has yet relocated, placing residents in extreme danger from autumn storms when hurricane-force winds batter Alaska's western coast. Only one rural Alaskan village, Newtok, is in a relocation process. The lack of a governance framework -- including the policies and protocols to determine when and how a community needs to relocate -- has been a major barrier. No federal or state government agency in the United States has the mandate or funding to relocate communities.
The issue of relocation is not isolated to Alaska but also impacts millions of people residing in low-lying coastal areas around the world. No relocation institutional framework exists anywhere in the world. Yet the land on which people live and maintain livelihoods will permanently disappear, swallowed by rising sea levels.
In an impressive display of the schizophrenic approach that characterizes much government response to climate change these days, the Obama Administration has simultaneously made Climate Resilience and Preparedness a priority, while also granting a permit to Shell Oil to drill in the Arctic. Scientists have made it clear that at least half of the world's reserves of coal and oil needs to "stay in the ground" if we are to avoid the most catastrophic warming scenarios. Drilling in the Arctic is a "climate breaker." So I have to ask again: Is anyone listening to the Arctic? I hope so.
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I Stood Between Shell and the Arctic--Join Me
On Wednesday morning off the coast of British Columbia, I went face to face with Shell's Arctic drilling rig, the Polar Pioneer. It was terrifying. But there are moments in life when--despite your fear--you must act.
Jun 18, 2015
On Wednesday morning off the coast of British Columbia, I went face to face with Shell's Arctic drilling rig, the Polar Pioneer. It was terrifying. But there are moments in life when--despite your fear--you must act.
Standing in my tiny inflatable boat, feeling small and vulnerable as Shell's rig approached, I had to steady myself physically, emotionally and spiritually. Feeling the waves and cold wind being out there on the open waters, I was reminded of exactly what I am protecting. I chose to stand there and use my voice to express my opposition to the devastating work Shell's rig is on its way to do in the Arctic.
The truth is, I am angry.
I am angry that, yet again, the voice of the people is being ignored. I am angry that corporations like Shell continue with their Arctic drilling plans despite more than 7 million people telling them to stop. I am angry that the best interests of the people are being shoved aside to accommodate corporate greed.
I am scared that our future is being sacrificed for oil companies that would seal our fate away with catastrophic climate change to pad their own profits.
Despite all this, I will not be made to feel powerless again.
The First Nations have had our rights and freedom stripped from us for centuries. We are the original stewards of this land and water. For that reason, I will continue to use my voice and presence to protect what is sacred. If that means staring down an enormous machine in the middle of the ocean, I'll do it. All I have is my voice, my body and the truth I speak.
I will not be bullied or coerced into silence and inaction.
The truth is that we--the people--can turn this thing around. When we unite, become one and move with open minds and hearts, we are unstoppable. When we connect and stand as an indivisible and determined force for good, we can only succeed.
As a First Nations woman, I no longer accept inhumane treatment and violations that have been forced on my people for centuries. I no longer accept the lies that have been served up as truth for centuries. We have been duped into believing that we have no power and no say from corporations like Shell. The truth is that we do have power. We do have a say.
We cannot stand idly by and let the destruction continue.
People Vs. Oil
Shell places itself in opposition to all land defenders by pushing through with its Arctic drilling plans. Shell places itself in opposition to the First Nations who have emphatically said 'no' to Arctic Drilling. I stand with thousands of years of ancestors to say 'no more.' I stand with indigenous women from around the world to say 'no more.'
We are the life-givers. We are reclaiming our power. We are reclaiming our dignity. We are reclaiming our rightful place on the lands we love and the sea that we care for. We stand for preserving and protecting the land and water that have sustained life since the first sunrise.
We will carry on the work of my ancestors.
Whether in the Arctic, in Canada, in Asia, in South America, in Europe or anywhere in the world, we must unite and empower each other and ourselves. Our job is to use our voices and presence to shine a light on injustice. We must be indivisible. We must always know what we are up against. Even more importantly, we must know what we are protecting.
That is why we must unite and be one in our fight together.
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