FOSSIL FUEL INDUSTRY ON THE GOVERNMENT TAKE, BAD FOR PLANET

Richest Countries Spending Billions to Expand Unburnable Carbon Stock

CLEAN COAL: Peabody false advertising, i.e. a lie and certainly far from science

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-20/peabody-clean-coal-advertisement-ruled-misleading.html

17 miners killed in coal mine blast in China | The Indian Express

17 miners killed in coal mine blast in China | The Indian Express

Peabody Coal: Spin Machine Working Overtime

Peabody's General Counsel for the Americas Mary Frontczak, has written an anguished and self-righteous defense of Peabody's support for development and democracy in the Post-Dispatch.  She dismisses the efforts of Take Back St. Louis, and the signatures of 20K+ St Louisans to restrict public handouts to extractive industries.  Frontczak, invoking a right-wing judge who ruled on the case, says this democratic initiative, an effort to shape how public money is spent, is somehow an attack on development.

But beyond the tone of the article, predictively dismissive of any kind of public mobilizing effort, what truth does it bear?

To pick apart the misrepresentations, not to say lies, in this piece, will take a few days.  Start with one overarching (and false) point -- that this initiative would have restricted the city's ability to deliver public services.  That is a lie.  Is this part of the general counsel's job description?

The initiative would have restricted the city's ability to hand over public money to a subset of businesses tied to the extractive industry.  It would not have restricted the rights or operations of those businesses, who should respond to market signals, not public handouts. (Frontczak refers to Peabody's own handout, a 20 million dollar tax break, i.e. TIF, as an "incentive" -- though it is not made clear why the world's largest coal company needed an incentive from a city that she herself describes as suffering decades of "urban decay".  Peabody CEO Greg Boyce took home over 10 million in 2013, and the company had revenues of about 7 billion that year.)

Against her assertion, the initiative would not have done anything to cut public services (or impact jobs). It would have exerted a democratic control on how public money is spent.  The shrill claim that any progressive change will destroy jobs is a canard, an idiot's argument.  The idea that any development is good development sets aside moral and environmental concerns tied to these extractive industries.  Frontczak is simply telling stories to defend one of many powerful corporations that blackmail struggling cities so that they will bow their heads to corporate interests.

The judge made his decision based on a criterion not mentioned by Frontczak, that, after Citizen's United, more or less, corporations are people too.  Given that the three branches of government celebrated by Frontczak disagreed with the people on this one is not surprising.  Peabody and its affiliated industries spend a lot of money giving, lobbying, and influencing these branches of government.  And, after all, this is Missouri, where the legislature and the Supreme Court are firmly rooted in (or corrupted by) the idea that anything that is good for any business (or at least the biggest corporate donors) must be the right thing to do.  She calls this democracy at its finest.  It's more like corporate corruption of the democratic process and of law. This is oligarchy at its worst.

St. Louis is a company town.  Frontczak and Peabody are merely deepening that reality.  There is no democracy in company towns, there is only dependence. The deepening of that dependence is the task of the company and those 'leaders' who are beholden to its interests.  Public acceptance of stories like Frontczak's is also part of what makes company towns persist. For the relationship to be maintained, communities have to remain silent and exercise docile consent.  Take Back STL was a challenge to this docility.

Peabody's counter-attack, carried out via the Mayor's office, was an assault on the democratic process and on citizen participation.

It does not hurt when a major media outlet lines up to genuflect as well.

Pick through the piece yourself, the front lines of the war on truth - and the war on climate, democracy, and public health – Peabody style.

Development, not democracy, at stake : Stltoday

St Louis: Is King Coal undermining our democracy? : Stltoday

Is King Coal undermining our democracy? : Stltoday



"why the democratic system is rigged in favor of big corporations"

Export coal to China? Klare on Big Carbon's Tobacco-Like Strategy to Ship Pollution Overseas

More on the topic of why companies like Peabody coal are doubling down on labor exploitation in the United States, while turning their sights on places like China, where they hope to export publicly subsidized American coal – to return to us cheap manufactures and a hefty dose of global warming and trans-oceanic pollution....read on.

Let Them Eat Carbon 
Like Big Tobacco, Big Energy Targets the Developing World for Future Profits 
Michael Klare

"The fossil fuel companies -- producers of oil, coal, and natural gas -- are similarly expanding their operations in low- and middle-income countries where ensuring the growth of energy supplies is considered more critical than preventing climate catastrophe."

READ MORE

COAL, RETREAT MINING: organized crime, industrial homicide, or Russian roulette?

Quote of the day, on "retreat mining" - responsible for two miners' deaths at a Patriot mine in W Va.:

“It’s Russian roulette,” said mine safety expert Davitt McAteer, who ran MSHA during the Clinton administration. “It should be abolished.”

From Ken Ward, http://www.wvgazette.com/article/20140517/GZ01/140519359/1419

‘Explosions like this in the mines happen all the time’: What the Turkish disaster says about the world’s coal industry – and about all of us

‘Explosions like this in the mines happen all the time’: What the Turkish disaster says about the world’s coal industry – and about all of us



Ken Ward confirms, via McAteer and Howard, what we were saying:  "bottom line is mine operators putting production ahead of safety and mining regulators unable or unwilling to stop them"

Another Illinois miner killed on the job

Another Illinois miner killed on the job



Organized crime and dependent labor.

COAL MINE DISASTER IN TURKEY -- Industrial homicide, American (or Patriot) style?

After two men died on May 12 in a West Virginia mine owned by St Louis-based Patriot Coal, more than 200 appear to have lost their lives in a Turkish mine explosion on May 13.  Both accidents were more than likely due to the rush to cut costs by decreasing safety controls.  In the Patriot case, the men were 'retreat mining' - basically what companies that are scraping the bottom of the barrel - or mine, as the case may be - do to eke out the last few dollars from the earth.

http://www.msha.gov/POV/October2013Letters/BrodyMiningLLC.pdf

Retreat mining is dangerous, since it involves removing coal pillars that hold up the mine roof.  As reported by Ken Ward, Patriot Coal had been cited repeatedly for violations of safety regulations on "roof and rib" issues during 2013.  Patriot was declared a "pattern violator" – which is significant given the gutting of MSHA regulation and oversight. You have to be pretty bad to get this designation.   In other words, they had been negligent in ensuring compliance with minimal safety requirements.

File under organized criminality?
(Updated 5/14/14 @4PM: Ken Ward and NPR reveal inordinately high and systematically recurring violation rates at Brody mine, which was controlled by Patriot even before its formal purchase in 2012.  This is the way that scraping the bottom of the mine yields higher profits: cutting corners by jeopardizing a dependent labor force.  Conclusion: if the industry hadn't spent so much money to lobby legislators, seduce regulators, and rewrite rules that allow them to jam up regulators with incessant "contestation" of violations, and with minimal monetary consequences, all of this would be illegal.  They would have been shut down (or jailed) long ago and we would be calling Patriot an organized criminal entity.)

Patriot is a spin-off from Peabody Coal.  It seems Peabody was increasingly looking to international markets as well as Powder River Basin strip mining, recognized the growing costs of mining in the east, tried to slough off pension and health benefits of Patriot workers, and eventually took Patriot private to avoid public scrutiny.  (Despite the spin-off, many of the chief executives are ex-Peabody and there is clearly a cozy relationship among this strata of the corporate coal elite).  As the coal industry has gutted unions, weakened regulatory oversight (and destroyed economies) in the Appalachians, we continue to see the human costs of what is the end of mining in the American east.

How do you say industrial homicide in Turkey? "work assassination"

Relatives of miners grieved during a funeral
on Thursday in Soma, Turkey. CreditUriel Sinai for The New York Times

In Turkey, stay tuned, this may likely bring down a Prime Minister.  Workers' organizations are calling Turkey, after the article below, a graveyard for workers.  Surely Hollywood or the American press will turn this into a story of heroism and emotion rather than one of a war on nature and labor, as they did with Chile's Los 33.  (Update 5/15/14: Cengiz Aktar reports that following privatization, the CEO of Soma mine bragged of great cost reductions.  Workers' organizations decry rise of "work assassinations" despite Turkey's claim to be in a development boom.  Meanwhile, after dismissing the mine explosion as "typical," much like American coal men do, the Prime Minister Recep Erdogan, reportedly punched a protester in the face today.  Apparently he did not want to be upstaged by his assistant Yusef Yerkel, a former PhD candidate at London's SOAS, who kicked a protester (or mourner) yesterday.  The victim was already on the ground, being detained by two uniformed military men.  The things one does for coal?)

The West Virginia miners who died are Gary Hensley, 46, and Eric Legg, 48.  Facebook dedications ask for prayers for their families.

The CEO of Patriot Coal is Bennet Hatfield, formerly of Arch Coal and Massey Energy.  Hatfield took over in 2012, as Patriot exited a fabricated bankruptcy plan.  After massive protest and a lawsuit by the UMWA, Patriot (in fact Peabody, via Patriot) was forced to continue paying some health benefits.  Yet, as Patriot was going through Chapter 11 reorganization in 2013, it distributed almost $7,000,000 in bonuses to its executives.  The United Mine Workers of America, according to Bloomberg, called this "massive bonuses to corporate insiders."  At the time, Patriot was still trying to cut its benefit obligations to workers and reduce other obligations through the bankruptcy proceedings.

At Least 238 Are Killed in Turkish Mining Disaster

By SEBNEM ARSU and ALAN COWELL NEW YORK TIMESMAY 14, 2014

Fight Global Warming: But Mayor's Office on the Backward Train w/ WUSTL

Slay’s office turns to Legislature to block local ballot measure : News



Mayor and Peabody supporters, alongside @wustl, fighting against democracy and the rising public support for a move beyond fossil fuels.   Dinosaurs all....

Breaking the grip of fossil fuels: akin to the struggle for the abolition of slavery

The New Abolitionism
Christopher Hayes
to appear in the May 12, 2014 issue of The Nation

"In fact, the parallel I want to highlight is between the opponents of slavery and the opponents of fossil fuels. Because the abolitionists were ultimately successful, it’s all too easy to lose sight of just how radical their demand was at the time: that some of the wealthiest people in the country would have to give up their wealth. That liquidation of private wealth is the only precedent for what today’s climate justice movement is rightly demanding: that trillions of dollars of fossil fuel stay in the ground. It is an audacious demand, and those making it should be clear-eyed about just what they’re asking. They should also recognize that, like the abolitionists of yore, their task may be as much instigation and disruption as it is persuasion. There is no way around conflict with this much money on the line, no available solution that makes everyone happy. No use trying to persuade people otherwise."..."As the great abolitionist Frederick Douglass said, “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” What the climate justice movement is demanding is the ultimate abolition of fossil fuels. And our fates all depend on whether they succeed."

Read the whole article

Students against Peabody Energy

ON THE STUDENT SIT-IN, COAL, AND WUSTL INTEGRITY: TIME TO SPEAK THE TRUTH

ON THE STUDENT SIT-IN, COAL, AND WUSTL (Washington UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS)  INTEGRITY - BG - APRIL 18, 2014

I have been asked by a number of students to share the call below, and here, to sign a petition of support for the sit-in.  (There is also a rally Saturday 4/19 at 3 PM on Brookings Steps).  This does not commit us to particular demands, but affirms our commitment to science, public health, sustainability, and social justice (words we often say around here, but which ring hollow because they are systematically undermined by our relationship to the fossil fuel industry).  What follows are my thoughts on this.

In 2008, many WUSTL faculty members – invoking both science and gender equality – bravely protested an honorary PhD given to anti-feminist anti-evolution extremist Phyllis Schlafly.  Yet today, the work of the coal industry against climate science (and against public health, and by virtue of the patriarchal form of extractive industries everywhere, against women) is infinitely more extreme than Schlafly.  Our relationship with the coal industry has become institutionalized complicity which undermines our integrity and credibility when we talk about climate change, science, health, medicine, or sustainability.  

The IPCC (UN Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change) has just released another report which highlights the urgency of confronting carbon emissions in the next decade. The AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) has also established a consensus position that drastic steps need to be taken to address carbon emissions and global warming.  Even conservative economists argue for modest policies such as carbon-pricing (or tax).  Former Republican mayor of NYC Michael Bloomberg has signed on to Sierra Club's 'beyond coal' campaign, a move summarized on the memorable post-Sandy cover of Business Week in November of 2012: "It's Global Warming Stupid!".

Peabody, Ameren, Arch, and the rest of the fossil fuel industry fight against scientific consensus and even modest policy proposals with lobbying, PR, anti-regulation lawsuits, and public disinformation.  (The most recent publication of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, ACCCE, of which Peabody, Arch, and Ameren are members, is titled "The Social Costs of Carbon? No, The Social Benefits of Carbon"). This would be funny if it were not so scary.  These companies should not be using their money to distort the core mission of American universities.  By allying with the coal industry, branding, and lobbying, we are positioning ourselves with anti-science extremists.

Peabody alone spends at least as much per year ($3-5 million of late) on anti-climate lobbying as the one-time payment (reportedly $5 million) made to cajole WU into embracing the 'clean coal' fallacy.  As one colleague suggested, If we are going to sell our credibility and integrity, at least we ought to demand a higher price than a year's worth of DC lobbyists.  (Though because of lack of transparency, we do not know how deep the money goes or what autonomy has been signed away in contracts with university units.  Rumor has it there is a plan to deepen the coal tie perhaps to push the industry goal of increasing coal exports to China, a monumentally bad idea.).   

There is no such thing as clean coal and there never will be. None of the research under that label comes anywhere near addressing the urgent problem of carbon emissions as recognized by scientific consensus.   This is not to question the research that our colleagues do (though none of it should be called 'clean coal utilization'). The students are engaged in an ethical and empirical questioning of our values and our commitment to science and truth, all undermined by our relationship with the coal industry.  

Faculty acquiescence to the WUSTL pact(s) with coal is surprising. There is nothing to fear; reason and right are on the side of these students.  The integrity and credibility of our administration, our leaders, our board, and our university are at stake. How much is your scientific and ethical integrity worth?

WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY: If you truly stand for public health and science...

U.N. Climate Panel Warns Speedier Action Is Needed to Avert Disaster 

To the Washington University Board of Trustees, the Chancellor, the Provost, many scientists among you, most probably have grandchildren, and you hope that your grandkids and others look to your legacy kindly:  What part of this universally accepted set of scientific arguments is not clear? Do we, or do we not stand for science and public health? When will you find the courage to stand up for your professed values?

(quoted material and entire article here by Justin Gillis, NYT, April 13, 2014, no connection to this blog)

"countries of the world have dragged their feet so long on global warming that the situation is now critical
only an intensive worldwide push over the next 15 years can stave off potentially disastrous climatic changes later in the century"

 “If we lose another decade, it becomes extremely costly to achieve climate stabilization.”

 "the emissions problem is still outrunning the will to tackle it, with global emissions rising almost twice as fast in the first decade of this century than in the last decades of the 20th century. That reflects a huge rush to coal-fired power plants in developing countries that are climbing up the income scale, especially in China,"

"Scientists fear that exceeding the target degrees could potentially produce drastic effects, such as the collapse of ice sheets, a rapid rise in sea levels, difficulty growing enough food, massive die-offs of forests and mass extinctions of plant and animal species."

“The I.P.C.C.'s new report highlights in stark reality the magnitude and urgency of the climate challenge,”... “It shows, even more compellingly than previous studies, that the longer society waits to implement strong measures to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the more costly and difficult it will become to limit climate change to less than catastrophic levels.”

WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY: Time to move to the future/Cut ties with Coal

On the side of science, sustainability, and public health, Wash U needs to commit to its own professed values.  To the board of trustees: cut ties with the coal industry (Peabody's not the only culprit, might as well go all in), be coherent in your values in support of this great university, this city, this region, and the country. To Wash U scientists: Peabody and the industry are waging a war against climate science. Time to speak out. To Wash U doctors: the coal industry acts against public health. Do you profess to ethics of 'do no harm'? These students are the future.  Our children and grandchildren and their grandchildren are the future.  Dirty coal and the logic of being bought and sold in a company town are the past. Wash U needs to stand with the future.

Follow @WUStopPeabody on twitter  or http://studentsagainstpeabody.tumblr.com/ or https://www.facebook.com/pages/WashU-Students-Against-Peabody/508037472634639

The Upper Big Branch Mine Disaster, April 5, 2010

Remembering those lost, still waiting for justice:

The Upper Big Branch Mine Disaster, April 5, 2010

Scientists Sound Alarm on Climate: "Ultimate Consequences Could be Dire.."

New report out by AAAS: "efects of human emissions of heat-trapping gases are already being felt, that the ultimate consequences could be dire, and that the window to do something about it is closing...."

And why are some scientists still promoting burning more coal?  Why are universities so bone-headed about confronting our dependency on fossil fuels head on?  Why are corporate and university boards committed to science and public health so cozy with anti-science, anti-health industries like coal?  Is it as simple as money?  Or are you mad?  Or mad with money?  No principles whatsoever?  Just trying to figure it out.  Or St. Louis really needed to brand its opera house? Opera is important for big cities, so maybe that's it.  A good reason.  Yes, that's it! It's the arias, and that makes it all worth it....

Scientists Sound Alarm on Climate
Justin Gillis - NYT - March 18, 2014

Global warming has been much harder to understand, not least because of a disinformation campaign financed by elements of the fossil-fuel industry.

But the new report is a recognition among scientists that they bear some responsibility for the confusion — that their well-meaning attempts to convey all the nuances and uncertainties of a complex field have obscured the core message about risks. The report reflects their resolve to try again, by clearing the clutter.

Will the American people hear the message this time?"

READ MORE

GENDERED LINES OF VIOLENCE & DEPENDENCE AMID A FOSSIL FUEL BOOM

North Dakota oil boom: American Dream on ice

By Jude Sheerin and Anna BressaninBBC News, Williston

FRACKING: Survey of latest health impact research

Drilling for Certainty: The Latest in Fracking Health Studies
ProPublica

Naveena Sadasivam

In 2011, when ProPublica first reported on the different health problems afflicting people living near gas drilling operations, only a handful of health studies had been published.  Three years later, the science is far from settled, but there is a growing body of research to consider.

READ MORE:
http://www.propublica.org/article/drilling-for-certainty-the-latest-in-fracking-health-studies

DALAI LAMA: FREE MARKET SOLUTIONS WILL NOT SOLVE CLIMATE CHANGE

And, he said that at a forum at the free-market American Enterprise Institute?  Nice work WUSTL students....  who has more moral authority? Dalai Lama or Wall Street and the coal industry?

From the WUSTL Record...Students from WUSTL in DC Programs get rare chance to visit with Dalai Lama

Dalai Lama discussed moral free enterprise, ethics at private forum

February 24, 2014

By Diane Toroian Keaggy

Emily Kent, a junior who is studying environmental policy, asked the Dalai Lama if he believes market-based solutions can solve climate change. The short answer was no, that as a Marxist, he has no faith in capitalism, she recalled. But he does believe in the next generation of leaders.

READ MORE

UTILITY DEREGULATION & LABOR RIGHTS & EXTREME WEATHER: CONNECT THE DOTS

577 Billion Ways Extreme Weather and Extreme Energy Are Connected

Sean Sweeney, Trade Unions for Energy Democracy

http://energydemocracyinitiative.org/577-billion-ways-extreme-weather-and-extreme-energy-are-connected/

Can we really expect to emit 577 billion tons of CO2 and not cause major problems for the earth’s climate? That is the amount of CO2 humans have put into the earth’s delicately balanced atmosphere since the dawn of the industrial age. It has warmed the earth in ways that has increased moisture in the air and raised sea levels. The connection between CO2 emissions and extreme weather is today indisputable.

READ MORE 

Three Signs of Retreat in the Global War on Climate Change | The Nation

Three Signs of Retreat in the Global War on Climate Change | The Nation

Michael Klare



not good news --

HOW JUDICIALIZATION OF POLITICS UNDERMINES DEMOCRACY

St. Louis Judge Cites Citizens United to Protect Tax Breaks for Peabody Energy (via Desmogblog)

With the quick stroke of a pen, a circuit court judge in St. Louis has singlehandedly silenced more than 22,000 city residents, who had sought to bring a ballot initiative to end tax breaks to fossil fuel companies to a citywide vote in April. Last…

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COAL: REASON #350 OR SO TO DISASSOCIATE FROM BIG COAL NOW....

"Shipping this subsidized coal to Asian countries to help them power their factories, which undercut American manufacturers, makes little sense." 

Among lots of other reasons, read on:
Don’t Sell Cheap U.S. Coal to Asia  Op-Ed by Michael Riordan, NYT Feb. 12, 2014