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What happened with Dominion Power in South Carolina

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On Friday, December 14, the South Carolina Public Service Commission (SC-PSC) held a hearing to approve Dominion Power’s proposal to buy our largest utility, SCE&G and its parent company SCANA. As we wrote just before, it was a bad deal for the people of South Carolina, and for the environment and climate we all share. The SC-PSC and Dominion thought South Carolina was whipped. After years of fighting the VC Summer plant, paying the highest electricity bills in the country, and living with corporate polluters — they  didn’t imagine anyone would show up to oppose them as they stole a little more, wrecked a few more communities, and continued to ignore the climate crisis. We proved them wrong – we showed up with a team of half-a-dozen activists from South Carolina and North Carolina and took the hearing by storm. We stood up and shouted until they had to adjourn. When a PSC commissioner came out and asked us to be quiet — because he said he was undecided, and wanted to vote on a plan to add solar power …

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What really happened at the Global Climate Action Summit

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Our final day in San Francisco was for the #CommunitiesNotCorporations action at the Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS/ #GCAS2018). We’d already attended the Rise for Climate Jobs and Justice on Saturday, and an occupation of Gov. Jerry Brown’s forest advisory board before the summit. At this last event, I was embedded with a group of frontline fighters during a tense stand off with police where we blocked the doors to the summit, and I had a front-row seat to the indigenous, frontline, and communities of color who were locked out of a summit where billionaires and mayors rubbed shoulders to congratulate each other on their elevated climate consciousness. Before you celebrate the commitments made by Mayors of New York and London, or by corporations with billions in profits, check out our wrap up video – filmed live on the streets outside the Global Climate Action Summit, and edited in South Carolina as hurricane Florence makes landfall. And if you’re moved by our argument about what works, and doesn’t work about Jerry Brown’s market-based approach to climate change. Then chip in to …

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Been a minute

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Hey friends, been a minute since my last post. Just want to assure that 1) we’re not done fighting; 2) we’ve been busy, even if we haven’t posted; and 3) There’s more coming soon. Lightening round recap: We blocked the doors to the EPA to demand climate justice with the poor people’s campaign on June  18 I stalked the halls of Congress to demand Republican members #FirePruitt – and then they did! Two weeks later Pruitt Resigned What the what!?! I locked myself to a 20 foot tall bamboo tower for 7 hours to #CrackFERCopen and demand reforms at the Federal Energy regulatory Commission (thanks to the more than 10,000 of you who signed in support!) Later that same week, one of the Republican Commissioners Robert Powelson, announced he is resigning in August – setting up a deadlocked FERC over climate and gas pipelines, exactly what we were trying to accomplish with our action. There’s been a ton of other news, most of it bad: Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court,Brett Kavanaugh, is a radical, anti- woman, anti-LGBTQ, racist and  …

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198 methods to [do what exactly?]

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Last week I told you about why I think it’s important to start 198 methods as another non-profit, environmental advocacy group (Missed it? Click here for the refresher, 5 charts and 2 maps). This week, I’m all about how we win. I lay out some specific examples, strategies, and ideas below. But the TL;DR is this: It costs about $100 a week to keep all this going, and we want to scale UP the project in 2018. So I’m looking for about 50 people to donate $1.98 a week for the next 6 months. Can you help​?

Equator Banks Acted

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First of all, thanks so much for taking action with us and our partners as part of the Equator Banks Act campaign. Over 110,000 people (including many of you) signed a petition calling on the biggest banks in the world to stop financing climate disasters and respect Indigenous rights. Even better, hundreds of you showed up at more than 50 #DivestTheGlobe actions in cities and towns around the world. Some of the highlights: Seattle activists visited or shut down over 100 branches of the big banks in 3 days of action. Nearly 100 faith and ethics groups joined the call to action, demanding that Bank of America, TD Bank, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo and other big banks stop funding fossil fuel projects. There were amazing, beautiful actions in cities all over the world including Columbia, South Carolina; Lausanne, Switzerland; New Haven, CT; Oakland, California; and many many more. Check out the feed below from Mazaska Talks which was made live on the first day of action. Even, better (and worth waiting for) — I’ve got breaking news to share from the actual Equator …

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Big French Bank Defunds Pipelines – Sign now to #DivestTheGlobe

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I’ve got more good news this week: French Mega-bank BNP Paribas announced this that it’s cutting its funding for extreme oil and fracked gas projects in the US and Canada. While we (and our friends in France) will need to monitor the implementation and details, the news is REALLY GOOD. Specifically: BNP Paribas will not fund new exploration, production, transportation and export projects related to Tar sands, fracked gas and the Arctic, nor the companies involved in more than 30% of their activities; The announcement includes a ban on funding Keystone XL and TransCanada, Line 3 and Enbridge, a Texas fracked gas export facility and any future gas export terminals in the Gulf; and more! It’s a really big deal and I hope you’ll share the news in the footnotes to spread the word. But I also noticed that you haven’t signed on to our petition calling on 90+ of the biggest banks in the world to Divest from fossil fuels. Can you sign on now? I need your signature this week because we’re already planning a big, global day of action to …

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What happened at FERC last week

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FERC doesn’t work. but they’re back at work in a big way – clearing the more than $13 billion in back-logged projects sitting on their desk by rubber stamping every pipeline, compressor station, export terminal and bad fossil-fueled idea they can lay their hands on. To those who showed up — online or in person — on September 20th for the rally, action, and lobbying at FERC and Congress, thank you so much for giving your precious time and energy to this important effort! We started the day early – 6:30am early for those of us who stayed at a local church the night before to plan, make signs, and put together the petition signatures for delivery. A short walk later, we met up with dozens more friends, nearly a hundred activists and one VERY LARGE puppet of the FERC commissioners dancing to the tune of big Fracked Gas money. A rally and speakers took turns from 8:30-9:30, including powerful testimony from numerous frontline communities and also Rev. Yearwood of the Hip Hop Caucus. The Rev. as usual, brought the …

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Reportback – day of action on FERC nominees

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This week, as part of our ongoing campaign to stop fracked gas pipelines and export terminals by keeping the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) shut down, we visited the US Senate to deliver thousands of your letters, signatures and messages. Big Props to the Delaware River Keeper Network, who organized a lot of the logistics and set up dozens of meetings for our team on capitol hill. And special thanks (as always) to our besties at Beyond Extreme Energy and Berks Gas Truth who showed up to walk the halls, lobby legislators and work the press with us. Here’s a short video recap from our friends (I’m the one in the grey suit) and a written reportback follows: Our pipeline fighters were on the hill today to talk about FERC, and the #DirtyEnergyBill. I sat in on a meeting with Sen. Sanders staff that was predictably amicable. In fact, within hours of our catching up, Bernie had put out a statement opposed to the energy bill, and re-iterated his opposition to Trump’s extreme FERC nominees. But he is, frustratingly, the …

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Every Branch, Every bank

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Our #NoDAPL movement is celebrating the fact that a federal judge ordered the US Army Corp of Engineers to re-do its environmental review of the Dakota Access Pipeline. But the judge didn’t shut down the pipeline (yet) and we still need to take action to stop DAPL, and all pipelines proposed in North America. More than 150,000 people, representing more than $4.3 billion dollars in assets, have signed on to demand an end to the dig, dump, burn capitalism embodied by these pipelines.1 And now,indigenous leaders are asking for your help to deliver the message to “every bank, every branch” this summer.2 Will you sign up here to host a #DeFundPipelines delivery event in Columbia? It’s been months since President Trump’s reckless executive orders to ram through DAPL and other pipelines. Since then we’ve learned that the company behind DAPL, Energy Transfer Partners used money from bankers and pension funds to hire military contractor TigerSwan to spy on encampments and coordinate brutal responses that included pepper spray, rubber bullets and blasting water protectors with water cannons in freezing weather.3 By the time …

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Check out what you did to DeFundDAPL

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** Update** I was writing you a message about what we did to De-Fund the Dakota Access Pipeline (# DeFundDAPL) is working. And then Trump’s Army Corps of Engineers announced that they were ignoring the law, tribal sovereignty, US treaties, and common decency to ram through the Dakota access pipeline. In response, I’m encouraging everyone to join the massive “last stand” day of action happening today. Dozens of events are already planned around the county – Find yours and show up today. And then stay tuned for more info on how we can stop this pipeline. Here’s what I was going to say: Last week we announced that over 700,000 people, representing over $2.3 billion (with a B), were ready to move their money out of the 17 banks funding the Dakota Access pipeline. Boy, did we get their attention. In the las week, Danish bank DNB has agreed to stop financing DAPL unless they re-route or cancel the pipeline in accordance with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s wishes. Citibank, Wells Fargo, ING and more have all agreed to meet with indigenous …

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