ExxonMobil to Humanity: “Drop Dead (but keep your motors running)” | Dave Hawkins’s Blog

Dave Hawkins’s Blog

Posted April 3, 2014

Running a major oil company means not having to say you’re sorry. Or at least that’s what ExxonMobil’s managers seem to believe. Earlier this week the oil giant posted a report on

how it plans to reconcile the need to sharply limit fossil fuel emissions to protect the climate with its continuing gargantuan investments in additional oil and gas reserves. Its answer? We aren’t changing course. We’re going to keep drilling and spilling (carbon pollution at least); the world will just have to live with it.

People are used to chutzpah from ExxonMobil but even hardened oil baron watchers are wide-eyed at the brazenness of the company’s stance this time out. It is telling its investors no matter what happens to the climate, the world is in thrall to our products and no governments will dare to adopt policies that will provide alternatives in meaningful amounts. So we plan to keep spending billions every year amassing more oil and gas properties and we assure you dear shareholders, there will be willing buyers for every last barrel we decide to sell.

Exxon’s rationale for its position is that the world’s largest economies have not taken serious steps yet to curb carbon pollution so the company can assume they won’t act in the future in a way that will reduce dependence on oil and gas. From a risk-management standpoint, the company’s position is as irresponsible as the father who tells his children, “don’t bother with the seat belts, kids. We haven’t had an accident yet and I don’t see any cops around. Chill and enjoy the ride!”

…(read more).

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Thom Hartmann on the Science & Green News – May 5, 2014

thomhartmann

Published on May 5, 2014

Thom Hartmann comments on the Science & Green News for the week of May 5, 2014

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America doesn’t give a RAT’s A$$ about the Poor!

thomhartmann

Published on May 5, 2014

Thom rants on the EPA investigation of the WV chemical spill and how it shows what our nation thinks about poor people.

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Divest Harvard Update

Epic Day of Action Recap

On Wednesday and Thursday last week, Divest Harvard members

Check out this video summary of the action!

Check out media coverage from the action:

• The Crimson, “Day After Arrest, Divest Protesters Renew Calls for Open Meeting with Corporation“

• The Crimson, “Undergraduate Protester Arrested for Blocking Entrance to Mass. Hall“

• Common Dreams, “Harvard Students Barricade President’s Office in Call to ‘Divest’“

• Daily Kos, Divest Harvard Blogathon

• Huffington Post, “Why We Are Blocking the Office of Harvard’s President”

• The Atlantic, “What’s at Stake in Harvard’s Fossil-Fuel Divestment Debate”

• The Crimson, “Divest Harvard Members Block Mass. Hall Entrance, Demand Open Meeting with Corporation”

• Boston.com, “Harvard Divestment Group Blockades Entrance to Building of University   President”

• Financial Times, “Fossil Fuel Protesters Blockade Offices at Harvard University”

• Boston Herald, “Harvard students protest, call for fossil fuel divestment”

• Boston Herald, “Harvard’s investments fuel protest”

• Bloomberg News, “Harvard Arrests Student, Ending Fossil-Fuel Holdings Protest”
• Cambridge Community Television, “Why is Dialogue So Difficult at Harvard? The Voices and the Silences Behind the Fossil Fuel Protests”

 

Divest Harvard Blockade Summary

Divest Harvard Published on May 2, 2014 Beginning the morning of April 30th, Divest Harvard members — including undergrads, grad students, staff, and alumni — blockaded Mass Hall asking for an open dialogue on divestment and Harvard’s response to climate change. Yet rather than allowing space for discussion, the administration sent police to arrest students and rough them up. This video depicts events from the start of the blockade to the morning of May 1st where Harvard police moved in to arrest student Brett Roche and break up the blockade.

Since then, over 60,000 petition signatures have been gathered in support of Divest Harvard.

For more information, check out www.divestharvard.com

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The Harvard Crimson | Divest Harvard News

Divestment

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Day After Arrest, Divest Protesters Renew Calls for Open Meeting with Corporation

By Matthew Q. Clarida, CRIMSON STAFF WRITER4 days ago
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UPDATED: May 2, 2014, at 7:11p.m.

Robert F Worley
Members of Divest Harvard, including Brett A. Roche ’15, far right, who was arrested during a protest Wednesday morning, returned to Massachusetts Hall Friday afternoon to renew their call for an open meeting with the Harvard Corporation.

The day after one of its undergraduate members was arrested during a protest in front of Massachusetts Hall, the environmental activist group Divest Harvard held another rally in front of the home of the University’s central administration and continued to demand an open meeting with its top leadership.

Since its founding in 2012, Divest Harvard has urged the University to unload its holdings in fossil fuel companies and demanded an open audience with University President Drew G. Faust and the Harvard Corporation, the University’s highest governing body. Though Faust and members of the Corporation have met with members of Divest Harvard, the organization has criticized the meetings for taking place behind closed doors and for not leading to discernible progress.

At Friday’s rally, which was attended by a crowd which swelled to nearly 75, members of Divest Harvard continued to clamor for an open meeting with University leadership, but much of the event focused on the University’s response to protesters the previous day.

Among the first to speak was Brett A. Roche ’15, the student who was arrested by Harvard University Police Thursday morning and quickly released after all charges against him were dropped. As Roche recounted the story of his arrest, murmurs in the crowd ceased and gave way to a loud applause. Roche said that the adversity has been formative for the group.

“This has been an experience of incredible growth for many members of Divest,” Roche said. Afterwards, he added that he thought that his arrest, and the group’s organized protests this week, would together “draw a lot of attention to the administration on this issue.”

For background on this issue see: “Why is Dialogue So Difficult at Harvard? The Voices and the Silences Behind the Fossil Fuel Protests”

and The Harvard Crimson | Divestment Tag

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Chris Hedges: The Post-Constitutional Era – Truthdig

Posted on May 4, 2014   By Chris Hedges

Activist Lauren DiGioia is arrested Jan. 3, 2012, during a demonstration in New York City’s Grand Central Station held to call attention to the National Defense Authorization Act, signed by President Barack Obama on the previous New Year’s Eve. (AP/Mary Altaffer)

The U.S. Supreme Court decision to refuse to hear our case concerning Section 1021(b)(2) of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which permits the military to seize U.S. citizens and hold them indefinitely in military detention centers without due process, means that this provision will continue to be law. It means the nation has entered a post-constitutional era. It means that extraordinary rendition of U.S. citizens on U.S. soil by our government is legal. It means that the courts, like the legislative and executive branches of government, exclusively serve corporate power—one of the core definitions of fascism. It means that the internal mechanisms of state are so corrupted and subservient to corporate power that there is no hope of reform or protection for citizens under our most basic constitutional rights. It means that the consent of the governed—a poll by OpenCongress.com showed that this provision had a 98 percent disapproval rating—is a cruel joke. And it means that if we do not rapidly build militant mass movements to overthrow corporate tyranny, including breaking the back of the two-party duopoly that is the mask of corporate power, we will lose our liberty.

“In declining to hear the case Hedges v. Obama and declining to review the NDAA, the Supreme Court has turned its back on precedent dating back to the Civil War era that holds that the military cannot police the streets of America,” said attorney Carl Mayer, who along with Bruce Afran devoted countless unpaid hours to the suit. “This is a major blow to civil liberties. It gives the green light to the military to detain people without trial or counsel in military installations, including secret installations abroad. There is little left of judicial review of presidential action during wartime.”

Afran, Mayer and I brought the case to the U.S. Southern District Court of New York in January 2012. I was later joined by co-plaintiffs Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg, journalist Alexa O’Brien, RevolutionTruth founder Tangerine Bolen, Icelandic parliamentarian Birgitta Jonsdottir and Occupy London activist Kai Wargalla.

Later in 2012 U.S. District Judge Katherine B. Forrest declared Section 1021(b)(2) unconstitutional. The Obama administration not only appealed—we expected it to appeal—but demanded that the law be immediately put back into effect until the appeal was heard. Forrest, displaying the same judicial courage she showed with her ruling, refused to do this.

…(read more).

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Years of Living Dangerously Season 1: Episode 5 Clip – The Delta Commission

Years of Living Dangerously

Published on May 4, 2014

Mark Bittman interviews members of the Delta Commission.

Subscribe to the Years of Living Dangerously channel for more clips:
http://s.sho.com/YearsYouTube

Official site: http://www.sho.com/yearsoflivingdange…
The Years Project: http://yearsoflivingdangerously.com/
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It’s the biggest story of our time. Hollywood’s brightest stars and today’s most respected journalists explore the issues of climate change and bring you intimate accounts of triumph and tragedy. YEARS OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY takes you directly to the heart of the matter in this awe-inspiring and cinematic documentary series event from Executive Producers James Cameron, Jerry Weintraub and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

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