Todd Zimmer of RAN introduced the panel by noting that the audience included community members from Charlotte as well as student leaders of the campus fossil fuel divestment movement from Western Washington, Brown, Harvard, and Davidson. Todd remarked that although Bank of America has stated its intention to be a leader on climate and clean energy, its track record as the number one funder of the coal industry is in direct conflict with this ambition. The bank’s lending and financing decisions involving the coal industry that are made at the bank’s headquarters in Uptown Charlotte impose immense costs for communities in the U.S. and around the world.

The first guest speaker, Ashish Fernandes of Greenpeace spoke about the dangers of India’s coal industry to rural communities, the environment, and to investors exposed to risky energy infrastructure in the country. Contrary to the myth that a coal boom in India is inevitable due to the country’s energy needs, most new coal plants and mines face huge community opposition across India. In the last three years alone, courts have sent back at least four different power plants to drawing board. India produces 65 percent of its electricity from coal, and produces 90% of its coal from open pit mines, which endanger over a million hectares of forest, and threaten the livelihoods of forest-dependent communities in the country’s coal belt. Fortunately, wind is now cheaper than new coal plants in India and solar will reach grid parity with coal in under four years. However, the enduring influence of India’s coal lobby risks locking the country into coal dependence.

Next, Barbara Gottlieb, the director of health and advocacy for Physicians for Social Responsibility spoke to the global impacts of climate change on health. She began by highlighting that climate change is no longer a theoretical problem: It is happening now, and it is happening to us. Furthermore, she emphasized that climate change is not just an environmental issue. The British medical journal The Lancet called climate change “the health challenge of the 21^st Century.” Barbara noted that climate change is associated with more frequent and more intense storms, extreme heat waves, and drought, all of which pose acute risks to human health. She concluded by stressing that there is a way forward for Bank of America and the financial sector: Shifting their financing to clean, renewable energy.

Next, Bonnie McKinley from Portland, Oregon spoke to her experiences working with Power Past Coal and Rising Tide North America to fight plans to export coal from Wyoming and Montana’s Powder River Basin through ports on the Pacific Northwest. Currently, Arch Coal, Peabody Energy, Kinder Morgan, and other companies have introduced plans to build export infrastructure to ship Powder River Basin coal to be burned in India, China, and elsewhere in Asia. These proposed coal export terminals would bring up to 70 coal trains per day (each up to a mile-and-a-half long) through residential neighborhoods, leaving a trail of heavy metal-laden coal dust and putting communities at risk for derailments. Bonnie concluded on a hopeful note, remarking that a proposed railway for coal exports would never be built because, in the words of activist Vanessa Braided Hair, “Arch Coal understands money. What Arch Coal doesn’t understand is community. They don’t understand history. They don’t understand the Cheyenne people whose ancestors fought and died for the land that they are proposing to destroy. They don’t understand the fierceness with which the people, both Indian and non-Indian, in southeastern Montana love the land.” Bonnie also had a message for her baby boomer peers, urging them to take action to protect their communities and the climate: “Please get out and work for our special planet.”

Finally, Kathy Selvage from Wise County, West Virgina spoke about her decade-long experience fighting the impacts of mountaintop removal mining in her community and throughout Appalachia. She began by calling for the bank to “return to the integrity I knew decades ago” as an employee of a predecessor bank, Wise County National. Kathy spoke of her mother, who “would go outside and read the bible on front porch, then raise eyes to ponder what she had just read. When she raised her eyes, she saw a beautiful mountain across from her.” But after Glen Morgan Properties destroyed the mountain as part of one of their mountaintop removal mines, when her mother raised her eyes, “she saw the devastation of god’s creation.” The devastation wrought by the coal company that destroyed her community inspired Kathy to become active in the fight against mountaintop removal.

Kathy concluded by urging the audience to think about the interconnections between climate change, mountaintop removal, and other environmental issues. Faced with growing evidence of environmental threats hurting our communities and the environment, she reminded us that “we can no longer afford to stand still like we’re not a part of this planet.”

As our title indicates, coal has become an extreme investment. Long touted as a cheap and abundant fuel, coal’s environmental and public health costs are becoming increasingly acute: A 2011 Harvard School of Public Health study found that coal mining and combustion in the U.S. imposes between a third to over one half of a trillion dollars in externalized environmental and health costs each year.

Despite mounting evidence of the extreme impacts of the coal industry on the climate and human health, in 2012, US bank financing practices have failed to address the acute risks and impacts of the financing the “worst of the worst” companies in the coal industry. Even as U.S. coal consumption for power generation fell 11 percent in 2012, the top three U.S. financiers of the coal industry (Bank of America, Citigroup, and JPMorgan Chase) collectively financed an estimated $9 billion for mountaintop removal mining companies and the most coal-intensive power utilities last year. The report card also finds that the broader banking sector remains deeply exposed to the coal industry, providing $20.8 billion in financing for these companies in 2012.

With few exceptions, bank lending and financing policies for the coal sector for this year’s report card received disappointingly low grades. Although Wells Fargo improved to a “C” for taking steps to improve its mountaintop removal mining lending practices and HSBC North America received a “C-“ for policies covering its lending to coal-fired power, grades for the rest of the U.S. banking sector showed almost no improvement from last year.

The long-term financial outlook for companies involved with coal mining, transportation, and combustion remains highly uncertain. As we note in one of our report’s case studies, Patriot Coal, a coal mining company with major MTR operations filed for bankruptcy last year and agreed to phase out its MTR operations. Of the 12 other MTR companies profiled in the report, only one had an S&P credit rating above ‘junk.’ Last month, investors scrapped a controversial plan to export coal through Coos Bay, Oregon. And on April 16^th, the Texas power company Energy Future Holdings (formerly TXU) announced plans to file for bankruptcy due in part to the deteriorating financial picture for the company’s fleet of coal-fired power plants.

Last year, even with the coal industry’s bankruptcies, risky proposals for coal plant upgrades, and coal export terminals, Wall Street doubled down on its exposure to the industry, despite its incredibly uncertain future. Unfortunately, they’re not just gambling with their own money. Bad investments can be written off, but coal’s impacts on human health and the environment are severe, permanent, and irreversible.

Rev. Billy and The Church of Stop Shopping are in the Bay Area this week! Click here for tour dates.

Mike Roselle’s smack-down of “Big Green” and Sandra Steingraber’s letter from jail–serving time for her fracking resistance in upstate New York–show us the sea-change that must take place in green activist culture.

I met Randy Hayes, RAN founder, in the late 80′s and came to know the Earth First and Redwood Summer activism while a Bay Area resident. Now these years later, we’ve worked with RAN campaigners Amanda Starbuck, Scott Parkin, and Annie Sartor in Mountaintop Removal activism.  During our partnership with RAN we began blasphemous performers in lobbies of big banks:  JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, PNC, UBS, Deutsche Bank and HSBC–are among the banks whose gods we have transgressed against–with BankTrack’s latest study as our Bible, supplied by RAN.

I moved from the Bay Area to New York in the early 90′s and gathered the singing activists after Reverend Billy’s sidewalk preaching began in front of the Disney Store in Times Square. Our activist group, legally constructed like a small theater company, was soon defending community gardens in the city. We took turns responding to hesitant overtures by such Big Green orgs as NRDC and Sierra Club, but we proved too wild and woolly. Meanwhile, since 2005′s Katrina and Rita storms–our “Devil” turned from big retail toward the CO2 emitting (think Dirty Coal) investments by big banks.

Most of our partners are local veterans of the MTR, fracking or pipeline wars. Time and time again, after a collaboration with a big green org, after a concert or a videotape or leading a parade before a rally–our relationship would end. A harsh example:  in 2007, when the Stop Shopping activists were hotly pursuing Starbucks for their suppression of licensing opportunities for the makers of Ethiopia’s Sidamo and Harrar coffees–we were told by Oxfam America that “We cannot state publically that we are working with you.” By that time we had gone to jail several times, and were involved in a YouTube duel with a Starbucks’ marketing VP.  Although the campaign was a success for Ethiopian coffee families, Oxfam didn’t want to be identified with activists who were sitting in the Tombs. They had that disease called “Fear of the what the imaginary middle class might think.”

Oxfam may have objected to our manipulation of fundamentalist religious memes, of the use of humor, dance and music in our activism, or just our lack of money. Who knows?  In 2013 –would Oxfam personnel feel differently about us, as eco-activism increasingly resembles the dramas (and arrests and police violence) of the Civil Rights Movement? We believe that the orgs of Big Green, and the foundations and donors that often side with them–are ready for a change. Everyone everywhere that loves Earth is becoming radicalized. There is more of a connection now with cultural change in American history, which has always involved bodily risk, music and general brazenness. Amen?

Rainforest Action Network staff–thank you for your hosting of our REVOLT OF THE GOLDEN TOAD Bay Area Tour. Our connection to your founders, and to your ambitious activism against the climate-change financing by big banks–feels like a natural home.

Earthalujah!

Uttuh’s treetop protest is just the latest appearance in a month long ‘invasion’ of forlorn orangutans in Cargill’s hometown outside Minneapolis. Multiple homeless orangutans have already been arrested protesting Cargill’s refusal to implement adequate environmental and social safeguards for the palm oil they trade across the globe.

To make matters worse for the Sumatran Orangutan, Cargill has also recently announced its plan to expand their Indonesian palm oil plantations — meaning that many more Critically Endangered forest species on some of Southeast Asia’s last natural rainforests will fall to Uttuh’s same fate. Target sites include Sulawesi, Central Kalimantan and South Sumatra, homes to thousands of unique species and Indigenous Peoples who rely on the lowland jungles of the rainforest for their survival.

While Cargill claims that it’s simply trying to feed the world and bring economic benefits to local communities in Southeast Asia, as the largest privately held multinational corporation in the US, it can’t hide from its most genuine motivation. Profit. Anthony Yeow, President Director of PT Hindoli, a Cargill oil palm plantation in South Sumatra is quoted as saying, “We are aggressively looking for new areas in Sulawesi, Central Kalimantan and South Sumatra that are environmentally safe to expand our oil-palm footprint.” Aggressively looking to expand our oil palm footprint? Environmentally-safe? Are these not oxymorons?

The truth of the matter is that the demand for palm oil is at an all time high. It’s found in over half the products sold in American grocery stores and has quickly emerged as ‘the’ cheap source of vegetable oil on the market. Its high profitability drives suppliers like Cargill to buy and sell more and more irresponsibly produced palm oil which is contributing to the unchecked expansion of palm oil production in Southeast Asia.

The facts are clear. Indonesia’s forests continue to be destroyed for new palm oil plantations. Endangered species like the Sumatran orangutan continue to be pushed closer to extinction. And, companies like Cargill continue to trade irresponsibly produced palm oil while unaccountable certification systems, including the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), attempt to legitimize the practices of the same companies who are continuing this deforestation!

Cargill needs to play its part in transforming the way palm oil is produced in Indonesia. They need to immediately establish environmental and social safeguards for their supply chain to ensure that the palm oil it produces and trades does not result in the destruction of rainforests, or lead to adversely impacts on Critically Endangered species, like Uttuh, and forest communities.

Let’s make Cargill accountable for their profit-driven assaults on Sumatran Orangutans, like Uttuh, by pushing them to change their palm oil safeguards right now. Sign up to be part of our National Palm Oil Action Team today!

Click here to stand with RAN in calling on the US snack food industry to cut rainforest destruction from its products.

In Cargill’s Hands from Rainforest Action Network on Vimeo

This apology consisting of less than 140 characters does not seem to cover the immeasurable scope of how the oil spill has impacted—and will continue to impact—this Arkansas community. Even Exxon’s own Cleanup Operations Progress page on their website has almost two dozen bullet points detailing the devastating range of this disaster.

And it appears Exxon is getting a little defensive. After other environmental organizations and activists jumped in to add their reaction to the mess, Exxon wrote a series of seemingly over-reactive tweets.

The real kicker? They all seem to center around this notion of “telling the truth”:

The list goes on and on. Check it out for yourself at Exxon’s Twitter account: @exxonmobil

We all know the real truth: our people and planet are the ones who are paying for these oil spills, and no amount of PR spin can change this gravely sad, undeniable fact.

Really, the Arkansas oil spill is an enormous wake-up call we cannot ignore—foreshadowing a huge battle in our midst. As pressure ramps up in the Keystone XL debate, we cannot stand silently on the sidelines. Whether it’s getting in on the social media conversation on Facebook or Twitter, educating your friends and family about what these pipelines really mean for America, and/or getting out there in the streets and resisting—we need you to be heard. The short and long-term future depend on it.

And that’s the honest truth. Without the spin machine.

Over the past few months, Bostonians have demonstrated their concern about the impacts coal has on our communities, health, and economy. BofA treats customers poorly, charges higher fees more often, and likes to foreclose on American families while it repeatedly gets bailed out. In turn, it helps big coal companies like Alpha Natural Resources bail out negligent corporations like Massey Energy, which faced bankruptcy in 2011 after the worst U.S. mining disaster since 1970.

BofA gives the coal industry as a whole several billion dollars in financing each year–while championing 10 billion dollars over a 20 year investment period in largely undisclosed “green initiatives.” It continues to fund the mountaintop removal coal mining that destroys communities and ecosystems, the coal-fired power plants making families sick, and the coal export terminal development that would condemn already overburdened communities to another century of dirty energy infrastructure. Nobody is surprised.

In January activists, organizers, researchers, students, and scholars gathered to discuss Banks, Climate Justice and the Green Economy and BofA’s leading role in the extraction, transport, and burning of coal. In February we came together again in greater numbers and featured local musicians, justice activists, financial advisors, and film makers to dig deeper into BofA’s dirty truth: disregard for our clean energy, green jobs, affordable housing, and quality of life needs. Then last Wednesday, a small but mighty delegation delivered a demand letter to the bank that has been circulating all the while.

In a clear show of respect for RAN and our allies, a notable representative of distinct influence in the bank received our delivery, listened to statements from the two asset managers, the rabbi and the philanthropist in our group, and promised to pass the letter on to its intended recipient, CEO Brian Moynihan. Fifty people from a wide range of distinguished backgrounds had signed on to the letter asking BofA to phase out its funding of coal energy and redirect financing into cleaner, greener energy infrastructure. The icing on the cake was walking out to a larger group of justice allies protesting outside, calling the bank out and putting Boston on the NoCoalBofA map with Charlotte and the Bay Area.

Some of the people who signed may be familiar to you already: Noam Chomsky, Sut Jhally, and Bill McKibben. But who knew that we would receive such support from investment firms, 19 in all? All those who backed this letter understand that the true cost of coal comes on the backs of people who live near the plants, near the mines, and near the railroads that deliver toxic dust clouds over school yards. When these industry leaders come together with community activists to urge the bank to shift its financing, we CAN cut the cash that fuels the industry killing communities and infuse the renewable energy market with increased cash flow.

RAN is part of a growing culture of fossil fuel resistance taking shape in Boston, one that complements and connects with existing resistance power bases here. From campus divestment and keystone pipeline action, to faith community summits and the working groups of 350 Massachusetts, people are rising up and teaming up. They’re linking the dominant energy infrastructure to the struggles of low-income communities and communities of color. Add to this the collaborative progress of the Coal Free Mass coalition in coal plant host communities, the creative persistence of national housing justice leaders at City Life/Vida Urbana and very much alive and networked Occupy affinity groups, and you get a sense of the concurrent activity on the ground to kick our dirty energy habit and manifest climate justice.

A friend recently noted we should thank BofA for being the bank everyone loves to hate, uniting too often divergent movements around a common target. It’s a testament to our movement that people apply their unique experience and knowledge to win these shared fights. This is the network that defines the heart—and muscle—of everything we do at RAN. Whether its people protesting on the street, taking an online action, supporting groups we believe in or signing onto a letter, we are ensuring that our chorus does more than preach—it sings.

UPenn students sit-in at Dow Chemical campus recruitment, 1967

I had the great privilege of representing Rainforest Action Network at the student-led Power Up! Divest Fossil Fuels Convergence. Hosted by Swarthmore Mountain Justice, students from around the country gathered for conversations about movement culture and strategy. I was thrilled to find myself amidst a dynamic and emergent group that asked all the right questions: what does student autonomy look like? How can students use their privilege to act in solidarity with extraction communities and people on the front lines of climate impacts? How can students create the signifiers of a resistance culture, the songs and images that can sustain a movement for justice over the long term?

Compared with the campus climate activists of the past, the students of the divestment campaign have a certain edge. Currently united by a tactic consciously culled from the anti-apartheid movement of the 1960s, 70s and 80s, the campus divestment movement possesses an awareness of movement theory and history, past and present. The orange felt squares pinned to the divestistas’ chests are a riff from the Quebecois student uprisings, and demonstrate an intentionality and commitment to long-haul organizing that should inspire great hope for this movement. Divestment activists are aware that they stand on the shoulders of preceding justice movements, and look to history to inform their tactics.

All this to say, students and their opposition should prepare for escalation. Time and time again, campus-based movements for justice have embraced tactics that evolved from symbolic, polite appeals to the power structure to direct intervention in the same, especially when those structures are found to be unyielding in the face of student power through “legitimate channels” (say, campus-wide student referendums). In the past, appeals to campus based authorities have tended to broaden and extend to direct confrontation with offending industry itself, in the present case, the fossil fuel industry and its abettors. The potential for such an escalatory evolution in the current divestment milieu is good news for the climate justice movement, and bad news for the fossil fuel industry and their allies.

Already, student divestment organizers are realizing that the pernicious influence of the fossil fuel industry in the university extends far beyond the direct holdings of endowments. In fact, the university system serves the fossil fuel industry in a number of direct ways: by providing legitimacy and greenwashing credentials through corporate partnerships, by offering up university land and research capacity for “innovations” in extraction processes, and, perhaps most insidiously, by churning out an educated and corporate-trained labor force to ride the desks and populate the labs of the fossil fuel machine. In their process of uncovering past movement history, the divestment organizers will surely learn how past movements have intervened in this nexus between university and corporation. Let this post present a partial uncovering of campus recruitment interventions, past and present.

Vietnam-Era Recruitment Disruptions

Notre Dame students block Dow Chemical recruitment, 1969

While there are surely antecedents, the first accounts of student-led campus recruitment interventions as a widespread tactic appear in the late 1960s, several years into the evolution of the campus anti-war movement. Across the country, student resistors coordinated sit-ins and shut downs of both military and corporate recruiters, including Dow Chemical, which developed napalm and profited from its deployment in the villages of Vietnam. In February, 1967, 75 Oberlin students sat in to block US Navy recruiters; by May, the Oberlin sit-ins expanded to over 200 students blocking military recruitment. In the fall of that year, students from California to Maine sat in to block Dow Chemical and General Motors recruitment sessions on the grounds that profiting from war is immoral. In many cases, these protests were successful at completely denying military and corporate recruiters from gaining access to students, sometimes on a semi-permanent basis. On some campuses, including University of Pennsylvania, students expanded their activities to opposition in corporate-university partnerships that produced chemical and biological weapons.

Anti-Apartheid Recruitment Disruptions

Twenty years later, a surging student opposition to South African apartheid and CIA interventions in Central America picked up the recruitment intervention tactic. In 1985, 450 University of Colorado-Boulder students were arrested as they disrupted CIA recruitment interviews. In 1986, 250 anti-apartheid divestment organizers at UCLA occupied the University Placement Center, “where corporations hold recruitment meetings.” As the linked dispatch from the antiapartheid student movement demonstrates, this action was part of a widespread and coordinated (yet autonomous) escalation that expanded beyond university investment boards and extended to direct anti-corporate action. At the UCLA recruitment center, students passed out literature explaining  “they had selected the career-placement office as the focus of their protest because it…represents the University of California’s complicity with apartheid South Africa. It is in this office that companies like IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Bank of America and Shell, companies which help continue the oppression of apartheid, recruit students to work for corporate irresponsibility.” Sound familiar to our context?

Millennial Derecruitment

Yale students Stop the Brain Drain, 2011

More recent times have provided examples of coordinated student interference in unjust corporate recruitment. In 2005, the huge Campus Anti-war Network (CAN) marked the second anniversary of the war in Iraq with disruptions and shut-downs of campus military recruitment, spawning actions from coast to coast. CAN organizers incorporated an economic justice analysis into their disruptions, pointing to the disparity between military recruitment on private and public campuses, and presenting students with alternatives to enlistment. Rutgers student organizer Ian Chinich wrote, “We hope that the public and the anti-war movement realize that counter-recruitment is one of the most effective strategies for fighting against the war and is also a moral imperative.” Seven years later, students members of the Occupy movement launched “Stop the Brain Drain,” disrupting and shutting down the recruitment sessions of Wall Street banks defrauding the public. At campuses including Yale, Princeton, Harvard, University of Illinois, Dartmouth, Cornell, Brown, and UPenn, students organized to kick recruiters off campus and save their peers from joining the ranks of Wall Street’s calculating drones.

Divestment Disruptions

What of the current fossil fuel divestment movement? This semester, I’ve had the pleasure of coordinating with students on ten campuses in five states to disrupt Bank of America’s campus recruitment sessions. As the number one underwriter of the U.S. coal industry, Bank of America profits from and makes possible mountaintop removal mining and coal burning infrastructure. More than any other U.S. financial institution, Bank of America is responsible for coal’s contributions to the climate crisis, having pumped more than $6.4 billion into the industry over the last two years. Thankfully, student divestment organizers are pushing back at campuses like Harvard, UNC-Charlotte, UC Berkeley, NC State University, UNC-Chapel Hill, Boston College, MIT, Florida International University, and New York University. After an initial round of disruptions on five campuses, including a 30-student deluge in the UC Berkeley career center, student disruptors at MIT and UNC-Charlotte found Bank of America recruiters hiding behind police guard to prevent further disruption (see a video here). At Florida International University, students discovered that campus administrators had been warned by the bank to watch out for “coal protestors.” Last week, at New York University, divestment organizers and their Occupy allies were successful at completely shutting down a Bank of America recruitment session: the bank canceled the entire session just hours before it was set to begin. The takeaway? Disruption of campus recruitment events has a direct impact on the operations of the fossil fuel industrial complex.

Where to from here?

What’s next? The fossil fuel industry and their financial abettors are using your campuses for their greenwashing purposes, and are recruiting our generation for jobs that, in an era of rapidly changing climate, are meaningless.  Bank of America’s recruitment sessions are finished for this semester, but next fall they will be back on your campus, recruiting your peers to work for their profits and at the expense of our planet. I have a vision of the campus divestment network standing up to shut down Bank of America’s recruitment activities, a threat too big for the bank to ignore. This will only be possible if students are willing to embrace their own autonomy, and figure out what degree of interference is possible and appropriate for their context. With our combined power, our movement has the potential to shut down the operations of climate change’s worst villains. Our responsibility to extraction and climate impacted communities demands that we use our position as members of a university community to confront and inhibit bad actors like Bank of America. To do that, our movements must move beyond symbolic protest to directly confront and disrupt the operations of the corporations that are destroying our future. There are many tactics, justice is the goal. For now, you can sign here to tell Bank of America’s CEO to expect resistance on your campus.

A Bank of America recruiter flees divestistas, UC-Berkeley, 2013

This mine cannot be built without the support of the banks that finance Arch. Of particular concern, nine major banks (Bank of America, Bank of Montreal, BBVA, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley, PNC Financial, Royal Bank of Scotland, and Union Bank) loaned $250 million dollars to Arch Coal last November, providing a financial lifeline to the coal company.

For these banks, this loan to Arch Coal is just a routine transaction. But for residents of Blair, the stakes are a lot higher. The town used to be a thriving community of 700 people and now has less than 50 residents because of the extreme dangers posed by existing mountaintop removal mines near the town. The people who stayed behind live with dynamite blasts, dust from mine sites, and water that is no longer safe to drink. Arch’s proposed mine would further harm Blair’s residents, while obliterating an irreplaceable piece of history. (See this video from the Blair Mountain Heritage Alliance for interviews with residents of Blair on the impacts of mountaintop removal on the community.)

Six of the banks on the Arch loan have policies that prohibit financing companies that violate human rights. If these policy commitments were working as they should have been, the Arch loan should have raised several red flags due to several human rights concerns, including as the following:

• The potential water, noise, and air pollution impacts from the mine will threaten the human rights to water and health of Blair’s residents.
• Arch’s past mining operations near Blair that, according to testimony of Arch officials, “would make life so miserable for many Blair residents that they would want to sell their homes and move” raise concerns about the human right to housing.
• Human rights norms also proscribe the intentional destruction of cultural heritage sites such as the Blair Mountain battlefield.

So will Arch’s planned mine violate human rights, even though it is in the United States? Due to systemic regulatory failure on the part of state and federal environmental protection agencies, the risk of human rights violations from mountaintop removal mining remains acute. And Arch’s environmental and community relations track record at its existing mines in Blair, combined with sworn statements by Arch employees such as “It is easier to mine coal without people around” cast doubt on Arch’s willingness or capacity to respect human rights norms.

For Arch’s lenders, Arch’s planned mine raises serious concerns: these banks failed to flag a transaction that was deeply flawed on environmental and human rights grounds. Arch’s lenders should, at a minimum, overhaul or establish lending policies and due diligence processes that are robust, verifiable, and capable of screening out similarly egregious transactions in the future. For unless they are implemented effectively, lending policy commitments are merely paper promises.

As we conclude in the update, this transaction should serve as a warning that respect for international human rights norms is no longer “optional” for banks: The U.N. Human Rights Council’s adoption of the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights in 2011 established a global baseline for the corporate responsibility to respect human rights, which Arch and its lenders have failed to meet.

“Now that we have seen what the Tar Sands in Alberta looks like, this is not about the pipeline going through our farm. This is about Alberta, about the world. ”

This week tens of thousands of people have arrived in Washington D.C. to defend the climate and demonstrate their opposition to the Keystone XL (KXL) pipeline in what has become the largest rally on climate change in U.S. history.

What’s the issue?

The pipeline is a 1700-mile, $7-billion project that would bring 700,000 barrels of carbon-heavy tar sands oil every day from the Athabasca Tar Sands in Canada to the Gulf Coast for global export. Far from bringing America energy security, as its proponents claim, the KXL pipeline undermines action on climate change and keeps America hooked on dirty oil.

Why protest now?

In 2012 extreme weather pushed climate change back onto the U.S. political agenda. In his inauguration speech, President Obama promised to “respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations”. He repeated this sentiment again last week in the State of the Union address. It’s good to hear strong language on climate from the President, but it’s strong action that will make a differecet for our children and future generations. And the KXL pipeline is the first test for Obama’s new climate strategy.

The pipeline is not only a climate issue. Its proposed route slices right through Middle America, from the Canadian border down to the Texas coast. This raises many concerns about pipeline safety and land-use. Among the crowds in DC are contingents from the states that are most directly impacted, including land-owners who are opposed to the pipeline coming through their properties.

I asked several of these folks why they had traveled all the way to D.C. to speak out. Each had their own powerful answer, and all made the clear connection between the issues in their own backyards and the urgency of stopping the pipeline for all of our futures.

“I’m here today because my family farm lies on the proposed route of the Keystone XL pipeline. It was homesteaded in 1864, we have huge pride in that farm. But now that we have seen what the Tar Sands in Alberta looks like, this is not about the pipeline going through our farm. This is about Alberta, about the world. I have kids and if I don’t stand up for this, their lives will be hugely affected. That’s why I’m doing everything I can, rattling every chain.” – Jenni Harrington, Nebraska

“Tar Sands mining is the most ecologically destructive project on this continent. Stopping KXL is a necessary condition, not only for life in my region, but for life on this planet itself.” – Grace Cagle, Texas

“I’m here to support communities who will be impacted by this toxic pipeline and to challenge the President to take definitive action in protection of our future.” – Cherri Foyntlin, Louisiana

Not everyone could make it to a climate protest today, but we can all speak out on this critical issue. Please stand with these brave communities and take action by adding your voice to the masses who are urging President Obama to reject the Keystone pipeline.

As both popular and political discussions in the U.S. finally move away from whether or not climate change is happening to which climate policies to adopt, the economics of climate change must remain front and central. Anyone claiming to be a responsible public servant will need to do just that. By working across the public and private sector, lawmakers and financial institutions can speed up the transition.

We have no time to waste. When it comes to taking to bold actions to shift our economy away from fossil fuels, we need leaders who can support solutions to keep the largest banks in check and end the legacy of propping up old energy infrastructure that poses threats to our communities. We need leaders who are willing to commit to the most difficult tasks, deliver truth and invite solidarity.

Constituents are certainly giving their blessing. Americans across generations are volunteering for campaigns, speaking out at rallies and sitting-in, all to demand climate accountability from our elected-leaders and corporate executives. With the prospect of shiny new Massachusetts leadership and an urgent need to move climate action forward in Washington, we all may be in luck.

What if US Senators would lead? Imagine what can happen if Senator Warren (big bank watchdog) teams up with both an interim Senator Barney Frank (big bank insider) and a Senator-elect Ed Markey (climate champion), particularly around holding banks accountable for their climate-forcing role. And imagine what you can do to back them up.

Bostonians at large have a role to play in the green economy expansion too. Over the next couple months in Boston, we are bringing together various local voices concerned about Bank of America’s failure to act responsibly with respect to its direct climate and community impacts. A united Boston voice can accelerate the shift from fossil fuel-based energy to renewable alternatives.

With Bank of America’s customer satisfaction at an 11-year low, and 36 new coal-fired power plants in the national pipeline (and 1,200 proposed worldwide), the time is right for Bank of America to take the lead on financing America’s clean energy transition.

Members of an Indigenous farmers group from Siabu, Riau Province meet to make plans for reclaiming their traditional lands currently being used by a pulp plantation supplying APP.

While Asia Pulp and Paper’s (APP) questionable financial dealings and destructive impact on rainforests and the climate have been widely reported, the human rights violations and social conflict associated with the company’s expropriation of community lands are less well known. Last week, RAN proudly joined with several Indonesian and international human rights and environmental organizations to send a letter to APP outlining the steps the company must take to address its human rights record and prevent further land grabs and rights violations.

Along with CAPPA, HuMa, WBH, Scale Up and Forest Peoples Programme, we sent the letter to outline the shortcomings in APP’s operations and to emphasize that the company must take responsibility for the social and environmental footprint associated with all the wood coming into its mills to make pulp and paper. While the company has recently taken some tentative steps in the right direction, they must make urgent and far-reaching changes to the way they do business in order to remedy previous and prevent further disastrous environmental and human rights impacts. To quote the letter:

At a general level, we urge that APP inform its direct (“owned”) and indirect (“independent”) suppliers that it will stop purchasing from any suppliers that:

• Do not respect the rights of affected communities to the ownership and control of their titled and customary lands and to give or withhold their Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) to proposed developments on their lands as expressed through their own freely chosen representatives;

• Have failed to resolve social conflict and human rights violations with affected communities to the mutual satisfaction of affected parties;

• Evict communities with land claims in concessions and consider CSR activities as adequate and final resolution of conflicts
• Do not place a moratorium on logging and natural forest clearance until High Conservation Values have been identified and maintained, and;

• Continue to clear and drain areas of peat soil or convert High Carbon Stock Forest

RAN has been working with leading businesses, civil society and local communities to get APP—which is one of the two biggest pulp and paper companies operating in Indonesia, along with Asia Pacific Resources International (APRIL)—to own up to and change how it does business, and it must do so before going forward with its expansion plans. APP could use its position in the industry to effect real and positive change, which is exactly what we’re urging the company to do:

We ask that APP inform its suppliers that it will only be able to purchase wood from them if they follow the same human rights and environmental commitments that we suggest APP take on itself.

You can download the letter as as PDF, or read it here:

Blair Mountain, West Virginia

A Guest Blog by Brandon Nida, Organizer—Blair Mountain Heritage Alliance

Many people have not heard of the Battle of Blair Mountain, let alone a place called Adkins Fork in Logan County, West Virginia. But in 1921, the Adkins Fork area was the scene of an intense battle between miners attempting to organize and a private army trying to stop them. It is part of the larger Blair Mountain battlefield that stretches 14-miles along Spruce Fork Ridge, the site of the largest labor battle in US history. Ten thousand miners fought for five days against the private army entrenched on the ridgeline, with both sides having high-powered rifles and machine guns. Three regiments of federal troops sent by President Harding were finally able to halt the conflict.

Currently Adkins Fork and the larger Blair Mountain battlefield is threatened by an extremely destructive form of coal mining called mountaintop removal (MTR). This is a process where mountains are blasted and a huge amount of leftover material is pushed into valleys, filling them up and creating a flat moonscape where rolling hills and hardwood forest once were. MTR is a process that in recent years has increasingly been tied to health problems such as rare forms of cancer, respiratory illnesses, and birth defects.

At the foot of Blair Mountain is the town of Blair, where I live and work. In the late 1990s, Blair was a community of about 700 people, and currently there are only about 70 residents left. Aggressive buyouts preceded plans to MTR mine around the town and led to the systematic depopulation of the area. The people who remained had to live with constant blasting behind the town, carcinogenic dust rolling off the site, and the contamination of drinking water with heavy metals. But people from Blair were some of the first coalfield residents to speak out against MTR, something that is hard to do in central Appalachia where the coal industry dominates the social and political landscape.

Currently we are fending off six different permits that would impact the battlefield and the communities around it. Our biggest struggle is with the Adkins Fork permit, which is situated in the heart of the battlefield and right above the headwaters of the town of Blair. The Adkins Fork permit is currently up for renewal, and we have mounted a major campaign to block this permit. This campaign will be a tough one and will continue over the next few months.

The Adkins Fork permit, which is being sought by Arch Coal, is symbolic of the increasing risk that investors and banks are taking by investing in companies (like Arch Coal) that have MTR operations. It is a permit that has multiple deficiencies, and is being contested by a wide range of concerned citizens, including: community members, retired coal miners, archaeologists, labor groups, environmentalists, and others across central Appalachia and the rest of the nation.

If Arch Coal is able to proceed with the Adkins Fork permit, they would destroy one of the only areas we know for certain was occupied by the miners during the Battle. Along with this permit, there are currently 17,000 acres permitted or under review for the Spruce Fork watershed. It is comprised of geological strata high in selenium. Selenium is a bio-accumulative compound that is highly detrimental to the nervous system of animals and humans, and is extremely expensive to contain or remove from the ecosystems once it is released. This small compound is one of the reasons Patriot Coal, a major operator of MTR mining in Central Appalachia, was forced to publicly halt all MTR operations just last month. Streams in the Spruce Fork watershed have already been shown to have higher amounts of selenium than regulation allows.

MTR on Blair Mountain

In addition to Arch Coal seeking a permit that has a wide coalition of people opposing it and which has high levels of selenium, the risk investors take when putting their money into companies like Arch continues to increase. The West Virginia State Historic Preservation Office refuses to sign off on this permit due to the destruction of major archaeological resources. Valley fills, of which the Adkins Fork permit has three, have been coming under increasing scrutiny by federal regulators. With the stripping of thousands of acres of vegetation and topsoil, the risk of flooding becomes more prevalent.  As more peer-reviewed science shows the link between MTR and severe health problems, companies such as Arch are finding it harder to externalize these risks onto communities such as the town of Blair.

For these reasons and more, those who continue to invest in companies like Arch that conduct strip mining operations such as the Adkins Fork permit take on increasing risk. Right now, Arch Coal’s stock is down to around seven dollars per share from a high of around 73 per share in 2008. Arch Coal’s credit rating is Ba3 sub-prime, just one level above where Patriot Coal (NYSE: PCX) was before going bankrupt.

The Adkins Fork permit is just one permit by Arch Coal that would impact the town of Blair and the Blair Mountain battlefield. Companies such as Arch are attempting to destroy not just the environment, but whole communities, heritage, and people’s health. Citizen groups and environmental organizations have become more proficient in being able to challenge and block these permits. In fact, one of the only operations to have been halted in mid-operation was in Blair – the Daltex surface mine operated by Arch Coal. In addition, the Spruce No. 1 surface mine, which is the largest MTR mine ever permitted in central Appalachia and which sits on another ridge above Blair, has been the subject of intense litigation for over a decade.

For those of you who would like to take part in stopping companies like Arch Coal and Alpha Natural Resources (ANR) from destroying the Blair Mountain battlefield and other mountains in central Appalachia, there are definite ways you can help and join in our efforts. Even if you live far away, we need you to take a stand and join in our Adkins Fork campaign and the larger efforts to preserve Blair Mountain and stop MTR.

The first step is working in solidarity with a group of community members, organizers, retired coal miners, archaeologists, historians, environmentalists, and others who will be taking part in a public conference with the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection this Thursday. While we attempt to show the WV DEP why this permit renewal should be denied, we need as many people as possible to circulate and sign our petition directed at the banks and investors who enable companies like Arch Coal to engage in these destructive operations.

This is not just about one permit, or one mountain, or one community, but is symbolic of the larger problem of destructive practices such as MTR, and the increasingly reckless investment and financing of these types of operations.
Take a stand today, and join our team. Tell banks and investors to stop financing the destruction of our homes and health. Stand with us and stay connected as we move through this national campaign. Only together can we stop destructive extractive processes such as MTR.

Brandon Nida is a native West Virginian who currently lives in Blair, WV. He is an organizer with the Blair Mountain Heritage Alliance, a board member of the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, and a member of the United Auto Workers. He is currently finishing the doctorate program in Anthropology/Archaeology at UC Berkeley.

Given all the talking Mr. Holliday does about sustainable business, it is a crushing irony that his “walking” includes presiding over Bank of America, the single largest funder of mountaintop removal coal companies.

Students at the University of Tennessee have noticed this significant inconsistency, and they are organizing a response. Mr. Holliday has been invited to a teach-in that will feature Coal River Mountain Watch president Bob Kincaid on the devastating impacts of mountaintop removal and what Bank of America, and Mr. Holliday, can do to stop it.

The following editorial was written by University of Tennessee Student David Hayes, and appeared in the UT Daily Beacon on December 4th, 2012.

Sustainability deserves bank chair’s attention

Upon looking back through their emails to Nov. 9, students will find an email from Chancellor Jimmy Cheek, informing them of UT’s decision to award an honorary doctorate in engineering to the leader in business sustainability and current chairman of Bank of America, Charles O. “Chad” Holliday. This is no small feat, and only three people before him can boast of this achievement. Holliday has a well-deserving résumé, highlighted with his past position of CEO of DuPont and his experience of providing leadership in national and international committees, summits and organizations centered on sustainability.

As a result of Holliday’s honorary degree, he will speak to the graduates during commencement and probably offer a few inspirational and optimistic words to the newest editions of the workforce. For me, this begs a question: is Chad Holliday doing his part to contribute to the glowing future he will speak of?

Most would say yes; however, I would have to disagree. Holliday has an extraordinary opportunity to inject his obvious belief of environmental sustainability into a situation that desperately needs it. Among many controversies, Bank of America is the nation’s largest financer of the coal industry and has funded destructive business practices, such as mountaintop removal (MTR). MTR is a particularly deadly form of coal mining which blasts the tops off mountains and fills the valleys with the toxic, displaced rubble. Hundreds of mountains in the Appalachians have been destroyed and hundreds of streams erased due to this destructive practice. If that weren’t enough to cause Holliday to act, communities across Appalachia have suffered due to the activities of Bank of America-funded coal companies. Studies have shown that MTR sites have life-threatening health impacts, such as contaminated drinking water and poor air quality, and a multitude of deaths can be contributed to this dangerous form of mining.

All this, and Holliday still will not stand up for the devastated communities, which is strange for someone who is known for being a champion in business sustainability.

As scientists keep reminding us, the impact of humans on climate change is real and already impacting the lives of people across the globe. This summer’s drought and Hurricane Sandy have taught many Americans about the cost of unsustainable practices, not unlike what Bank of America funds. Furthermore, the coal industry is suffering an increasing amount of criticism for being America’s largest source of climate emissions and devastating so many communities nationwide. The pressure is building and the internationally renowned expert on business sustainability has an excellent opportunity to lead Bank of America to a brighter and greener future.

Coincidentally, Holliday wrote a groundbreaking book called “Walking the Talk: The Business Case for Sustainable Development.” The book stresses that sustainable growth, which inherently has strong commitments to environmental and social justice, is necessary to add value to businesses. Funding businesses that overtly destroy Appalachian ecosystems and lowers the quality, and sometimes length, of lives for so many would seem to contradict his message.

Holliday will be a great speaker at commencement and will undoubtedly provide a memorable experience for all of those in attendance; however, for him to truly live up to all of the praise he will receive, Holliday will need to walk the talk and stand up for what he has said believes in. Holliday must strive to take to the first step toward a cleaner and sustainable future by ceasing loans to coal companies that practice mountaintop removal, and take further responsibility by setting a goal of emission reductions that includes all of its financed businesses.

David Hayes
Sophomore in Logistics

University of Tennessee at Knoxville

July ‘06 Blockade of the English River Road

On December 2, 2002 the Indigenous youth of the Grassy Narrows First Nation lay down in the path of industrial logging machines—blocking access to their tribal homeland in Northern Ontario, Canada. The action, led by women and youth, sparked the longest standing Indigenous logging blockade in North America.

Since 2004, RAN has worked closely with the Grassy Narrows community as well as activists across North America determined to stand up for Indigenous rights and defend their traditional territory from predatory logging. Together, we were able to pressure AbitibiBowater (now Resolute), the largest newsprint manufacturer in the world, to stop clear-cutting on more than 2 million acres of Grassy Narrows’ traditional territory. In 2011, a landmark judgement by the Ontario Superior Court ruled that the Government of Ontario must respect the Treaty rights of Grassy Narrows and cannot authorize an industrial activity without their consent.

And now, as a decade has passed since the historic blockade began, which RAN continues to support through small grants, the Grassy Narrows community remains ever-vigilant in the face of imminent new threats to their territory. While an appeal of the court decision will be heard early next year, the Ontario government has already released a 10-year plan calling for more logging within the heart of Grassy Narrows.

Meanwhile, Grassy Narrows is calling on supporters to show solidarity by helping to commemorate the 10 year anniversary of the blockade and the international support it catalyzed around the world. Please join them in celebrating resistance, sovereignty, and action in defense of their traditional territory and the earth. Visit FreeGrassy.org for more information.

Also, take a look at this great photo retrospective by Jon Schledewitz:

Which brings me back to the lack of controversy. By the final day of the conference, I was tempted to tweet the phrase “Palm oil industry meets in air conditioned building, congratulates itself” as the take-home message from the whole event. But then, a well-spoken man rose during the final plenary and asked a representative of Cargill, who manages one of the companies’ plantations, “How long does Cargill intend to support smallholders?” A hush fell over the room, and the Cargill representative hesitated, and then answered a completely different question, at length. Huh.

Later on that day, Lindsey Allen, RAN’s Forest Program Director, explained to me that there was a world of controversy behind that simple question. Cargill, and other RSPO member companies like it, purchase palm oil from groups of smallholders who essentially hand over the rights to the produce from their land in return for a guaranteed market for their palm fruits. As part of the RSPO certification process, the companies pay the smallholders a premium for their crop, approximately 50% of the premium that the company itself receives in the consumer market. The company then turns around and charges the smallholders a fee for upkeep of the roads to the plantations, to the schools and for chemical inputs like fertilizer and pesticide.

But here’s the catch: when the palm fruit are mature, the farm workers harvest them by using long sticks with curved saws at the end to bring them down from the top of the trees. This works just fine until the palm trees are about 25 years old. At which point, the saws simply can’t be made long enough to reach the fruit. So, instead of building ladders (or creating some other equally high tech solution), the company simply pulls up all the palm trees and replants the plantation with baby trees.  Right away that sounds wasteful to me, but waste isn’t even the biggest issue. The problem is that immature palm trees take about 5 to 7 years to bear fruit. So, all these smallholders have a 5 to 7 year gap in income to contend with. And not only that, but during that time they are still expected to pay the company upkeep of the roads, infrastructure and any other necessary maintenance. Which is tricky, since during that time….they don’t have an income.

The question the eloquent gentleman was asking during the RSPO meeting was essentially “what is Cargill’s plan?” And the reason that the Cargill representative avoided the question is because quite simply, they don’t yet have an answer. And neither do any of the other companies, despite ongoing requests from smallholders and NGO’s. Without alternate plans, smallholders will inevitably go into debt to pay for general maintenance during the ‘fallow’ years when the new plantation is maturing, leaving them with crippling bills that could translate into life-long debt bondage to the company. Cargill would probably protest that this is an inaccurate picture of their business practices, and perhaps it is. But the simple fact that they are not willing or able to make public an alternative scenario puts the burden of proof squarely on them. I learned later that there is a working group at the RSPO struggling to address this issue, and that in and of itself is undoubtedly a step in the right direction. But until there is a result, I take the side of the smallholders. The Secretary General of the RSPO, closed the final plenary saying that there were three key questions:

•  Is the RSPO good for people?
• Is the RSPO good for the planet?
• Is the RSPO good for profits?

After attending the meeting and observing the progress made over the past ten years to develop the RSPO standard, it is my view that the RSPO may be good for profits, but still falls well short of being good for people and the planet.

A mountaintop removal site.

I’d like to introduce my friend, Paul Corbit Brown. Paul is an exceptional individual, a human rights photographer who has spent his lifetime traveling the world documenting injustice. Paul is a native West Virginian, who grew up and lives in the heart of the Appalachian mountains where coal mining companies are systematically destroying mountains, communities and the climate.

Paul is in Germany this week. He traveled there to speak to a meeting of bankers from Germany, Austria and Switzerland, several of whom provide finance for the companies that are threatening his home. The following are the notes from his presentation:

Ladies and gentleman, I would first like to thank you for having me here. I am honored to have the opportunity to speak to you about this incredibly important situation. Indeed, it is so important that I have spent a week of my life to travel thousands of miles, knowing I will have only 15 minutes to speak to you. I hope I am up to the task. I regret that I cannot address you directly, in your mother tongue, for we do not share that. But I do hope to reach you as a fellow human being.

I will not speak of the images behind me directly, but rather, I will let them play silently in the background as a witness to the irreversible devastation of my home in Appalachia, the second most bio-diverse ecosystem in the world, and the poverty, sickness, suffering and death of many people at the hands of the coal industry.

Martin Luther King said, ” We must all learn to live together as brothers and sisters or we will all perish together as fools. We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.”

First, I would like to propose a toast. I ask each of you to raise your glass with me and drink to our shared destiny. I know it isn’t normal to toast with water, but in this case, I think it is highly appropriate because water is one of the few things that all humans, in fact all life on this planet, share. Our planet is 2/3 water and our bodies are more than 3/4 water. And so it is true that whatever any one of us does to the water on this planet, we do to everyone and to all life on earth.

The bottle of water I am holding is water that came from a well in a community near where I live. You would be rightfully disturbed if I told you that you had just shared some of this water, unaware, just like the people in so many communities where coal is mined.

Don’t worry, even if I had shared this water with you, it’s doubtful only one sip of it would harm you very much. But unfortunately, my people have had more than one drink. It is their daily reality. It is the water they use to drink, to cook with, and to bathe themselves and their children.

I will pass this water around so you can see it up close and you can know what it feels like to hold death in your hands. You are even free to smell it, if you dare. I put it in a water bottle from here because it is symbolic of the very real fact that financing this industry anywhere, makes a problem for you here, because it makes your bank complicit in the system that creates this poison water.

The effluents of mining, preparing and burning coal include mercury, chromium, selenium, cadmium, lead and arsenic- just to name a few. Heavy metal poisoning is forever. Once it is ingested into your body, it stays there and, like radiation, it accumulates until it kills you. And even worse, large amounts of this poisoning have begun to cause genetic mutations in aquatic wildlife near my home. These mutations will eventually work their way up the food chain to us, humans, who on our current course of environmental devastation, won’t stay at the top of this chain for long.

The good news is that we really needn’t worry about saving the earth. She has been through several mass extinctions already. We aren’t really destroying the earth, we are simply and rapidly making it unfit for human life. This is proven by the fact that 4,000 additional Appalachians die each year in the areas where coal is mined and burned.

Death to my people doesn’t come quickly from the barrel of a gun. It comes slowly from the simple act of drawing water from the kitchen faucet. There is no difference in killing me slow or killing me fast.

Coal in general, and mountaintop removal mining in particular, is far more than an environmental disaster. The production and use of coal is an egregious human rights violation of epic proportions. It is a living, waking nightmare.

The question in front of us today is, “Why should you not finance mountaintop removal mining?” If, after hearing me talk and seeing the photographs of the way my communities and our ecosystem are being destroyed, isn’t enough, I will give you another reason. You represent the banking industry. Banks exist for one very simply reason: to make a profit.

The science has finally arrived to prove what we in Appalachia have always known: coal is killing us. We now have more than 22 peer reviewed scientific studies that show how coal is irreversibly destroying our water and our health. These studies prove that people who live in areas around MTR are far more likely to suffer from heart attacks, cancer, respiratory diseases and are even more likely to have children with birth defects.

The science is here and the lawyers will soon follow. Several large cases have already been heard in the courts, with tens of millions of dollars being rewarded to those who have suffered because of coal. This is only the beginning. The courts may finally force the coal industry to pay the true cost of its profits, the human cost- which until now, had been an externalized and hidden cost.

Many in the coal industry point to the jobs that coal creates. “Look at all we’ve given you,” they say.

And I answer,” Yes. I see all you’ve given me every day. I watch my father gasping for his next breath, just like my grandfathers did. All of them victims of Black Lung disease. I see children dying of brain cancer and my own mother suffering through two fights with cancer. I see the communities left in ravages after you make your profit and leave. I see the five counties in my state that produce the most coal are among the poorest counties in my entire country. And I see you pointing to the food you have laid upon our tables, for a time, as being merely a distraction to the fact that you have poisoned the vessel from which we drink.”

As human beings with a hearts and minds, we should not need to wait for government legislation in order to do the right thing. Financing coal is exactly and simply financing the poisoning of Appalachian people and our planet. Why do you need to wait for the government to tell you it’s wrong?

Coal is a barbaric and outdated method for producing heat and energy. There are ways as yet unimagined to do all that coal has done and more. Rather than mining our mountains and destroying our water, invest your best money and efforts in mining the human imagination and the untapped potential for human creativity. The energy in coal pales in comparison to the unlimited and inexhaustible fire of the human spirit.

A good investment should be one for the future, rather than one of the past.

In hindsight, can you imagine investing in chariots and stagecoaches when the automobile was first introduced?

If you can’t do it for my children, do it for your own. There is only one water and one air on this planet and, ultimately, it is shared by all of us. Would you want your children to drink this water and breath this toxic air? How would you feel to know that someone in another country was actually realizing a profit from the suffering and reduced life spans in your own community? I will not sit idly by, offering my life as a mechanism of sacrifice for anyone’s profits.

Stop financing coal.

In closing, I would like to share this:

Folks often confuse what they do, with who they are. Many people regard bankers as the greedy ones who only care about money and their profit. But I propose a different view, I suggest we look at bankers as those who sit at the right hand of the Architects of the Future. The architect can dream it, but the dream won’t manifest unless you, the bankers, finance it.

From this perspective, the future truly lies in your hands. What will you choose to make of it? You can choose who you are by what you do. My father, for instance, was not merely a coal miner. He was a man who chose to work hard, at any peril to himself, to provide for his family and see to our wellbeing. He and my mother always chose to give of themselves for what was best for us and our community. The world is a better place due to the kindness, devotion and generosity they shared.

Although I don’t know you, I have a great belief in each of you. I know each and every one of you has the capacity to change our world for the better. As I leave you, I will offer you this choice:

At the end of your lives, as you say to your children of the world you are leaving them, “I built this world and I now leave it to you”, will you look back with pride or will you look back in regret?

The quality of our future will be measured in much more important terms than simply a financial return on our investments. It will be measured more by our ability to live peacefully with one another and in harmony with the planet that gives us life.

As bankers, I challenge you to stop financing nightmares and begin financing Dreams.

This morning, in defiance of police and TransCanada’s lawsuits, over 50 people marched onto the easement to resupply the tree blockade with fresh food and water.

Follow tarsandsblockade.org for updates.

Here’s the press release:

Over 50 Enter Tar Sands Blockade Tree Village in Defiance of Police and Legal Repression to Defend Tree-Sitters

Risking arrest, lawsuits protesters rally for massive tree blockade after expansion of TransCanada’s overreaching SLAPP suit

WINNSBORO, TEXAS – MONDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2012 – Following a weekend of nonviolent civil disobedience training in North Texas by Tar Sands Blockade, many dozens of protesters and supporters are rallying today at the site of the largest and longest tree sit in Texas history to stage the largest walk-on site protest and civil disobedience in the history of Keystone XL pipeline construction. Several individuals are defending the tree sitters and the trees by locking themselves to construction equipment being used in proximity to the forest blockade. Solidarity actions are also taking place in Washington DC, Boston, Austin and New York City.

Altogether more than 50 blockaders are risking arrest to stop Keystone XL construction and bring attention to TransCanada’s repression of journalists attempting to cover the blockaders’ side of the story. They are joined by dozens of supporters who are rallying on public property with colorful banners and signs alongside the easement’s closest highway crossing. A massive media team is in tow to document the day of action and any possible police repression.

As the Winnsboro tree blockade enters its fourth week, the blockaders are resupplying their friends in the trees with fresh food, water, and cameras to further document their protest despite the threat of a newly-expanded Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP) by TransCanada and egregious criminal overcharges by local law enforcement. Due to the SLAPP suits’ outrageous claims, the tree sitters have by-and-large felt too threatened to safely reveal their identities, despite their protest being nonviolent. That the defiant walk-on protest is the largest yet attempted in the history of protests surrounding Keystone XL construction sends a clear signal that the blockaders will not be deterred by SLAPP suits and other legal threats to limit their civil liberties.

“Three weeks is a long time to be sitting in a tree. The training I got this weekend has me ready to rise up and join the sitters in defending Texas homes from the toxic tar sands,” shared Glenn Hobbit, 28. “They’re saying we might get sued or worse, but stopping this pipeline is too important.”

Last week, the multinational corporation opened a civil suit in which it named 19 individual defendants, 3 organizations, and 6 anonymous tree sitters for a total of 28 defendants seeking an injunction, declaratory relief, and damages. All the named defendants are former arrestees of Tar Sands Blockade actions with the exception of media spokesperson Ron Seifert, who has yet been arrested in connection with a protest, and area landowner Eleanor Fairchild, who acted independently with activist and actor Daryl Hannah. Hannah was not named in the suit.

Tar Sands Blockade is a coalition of Texas and Oklahoma landowners and climate justice organizers using peaceful and sustained civil disobedience to stop the construction of TransCanada’s Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

“In reality, Tar Sands Blockade is not trespassing on TransCanada’s property. Many of TransCanada’s easement contracts were brokered through fraud and intimidation, and their entire legal foundation is being challenged in the courts for those reasons,” explained Ron Seifert, Tar Sands Blockade spokesperson. “If anything TransCanada is trespassing on the property of landowners who never wanted anything to do with their dangerous tar sands pipeline.”

Three landowner advocates have locked themselves to a massive wood chipper and a skidder, both used in clear cutting trees in the path of the toxic pipeline. Tar Sands Blockade has again delayed construction on a segment of TransCanada’s Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Today’s action marks the third time that blockaders have halted construction in recent weeks.

Tar Sand Blockade again halts construction on the toxic Keystone XL pipeline in its sustained campaign of civil disobedience

Four blockaders total entered a construction yard risking arrest. Texas-born blockaders have united with neighbors from other states to support rural and neighboring communities threatened by the toxic pipeline’s diluted bitumen slurry.

Doug Grant, 65, from San Francisco, CA, says, “Having worked for years for Exxon, I know how enticing it is to want to develop the Alberta Tar Sands, but it’s just wrong; wrong for the folks who live near the surface mines and toxic ponds, wrong for the landowners who are coerced under duress into contracts or taken to court to have their homes stolen from them, and just wrong for the climate.”

“As a mother and step-grandmother, I want to be able to tell my children that I did something when the time came,” explains Amarillo-born R.C. Saldaña-Flores, 36. “I’m willing to take risks today to raise awareness of this horrible situation—even if that means being away from my children in jail for a day.”

Kentucky-based solar installation expert and author of the forthcoming book The Pipeline and the Paradigm: Keystone XL and the Rise of Global Consciousness, Sam Avery, 63, suggests that sometimes you must create an obstruction in order to facilitate necessary discussion. “I don’t believe it’s too late. We have time,” he says. “We simply must continue to stand with landowners who are having their homes and farms ruined. We must continue to press for dialogue amongst all people victimized by TransCanada’s ruthless harm. Civil disobedience allows for that space to develop.”

Tar Sands Blockade is a coalition of Texas and Oklahoma landowners and climate organizers using peaceful and sustained civil disobedience to stop the construction of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

“People from all walks of life are banding together to defend their homes in the face of TransCanada’s fraudulent bullying,” suggests Ron Seifert, a spokesperson for the Tar Sands Blockade. “Their Keystone XL pipeline serves no legitimate public interest, and people are waking up to the fact that this multinational corporation is stealing land and poisoning water supplies illegitimately. For that reason, we are proactively defending homes through nonviolent civil disobedience.”

One thing is clear from the recent victories that stopped Keystone XL construction for the entire day in both Saltillo and Livingston, Texas: people power works.

Sign up now to join one of Tar Sands Blockade’s upcoming actions.

You can also stay up to date with TSB on Facebook and Twitter.

Photo: David Gilbert

UPDATE, 9.26.12: 

BREAKING: Within the next 24 hours, Kallista Alam, 1 of the 5 major palm oil companies operating in Tripa, will have their operating permit WITHDRAWN.

This is a highly important precedent-setting case, as this is the first in Aceh’s (Sumatra, Indonesia) entire governmental history.

RAN members like you have helped to keep the pressure on the Indonesian government to hold palm oil companies accountable for their massive deforestation.

This imminent historic decision sends a strong message to the palm oil & pulp industry that the status quo of operating illegally with impunity will no longer be tolerated as business as usual. It is CRUCIAL now to keep the international spotlight on other instances of rainforest destruction and human rights abuses so this milestone case becomes a pattern and not an anomaly.

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In a huge turn of events last week and a massive step in the right direction for the Tripa peat forest of Sumatra, the Administrative High Court of Medan has commanded the Governor of Aceh to withdraw the permit of palm oil company PT Kallista Alam.

This is the very same palm oil company that played a role in the tragic illegal burning of the Tripa rainforest last Spring, which threatened this delicate peat swamp, home to the highest population density of the critically endangered Sumatran orangutan anywhere on Earth.

PT Kallista Alam’s permit was originally issued by former Governor Yusuf in August 2011 to allow 1,605 hectares (just under 4,000 acres) of deep peat in the Tripa forest to be converted into oil palm plantations. The permit was issued despite the fact that the area of Tripa covered by the permit is protected by national laws that prevent any development that causes environmental degradation or destruction. A police report was filed by the local community to the National Police in Jakarta, and Indonesian environmental group WALHI sought legal justice by filing a case against Governor Yusuf and PT Kallista Alam for the illegal expansion into the Tripa forest.

Photo: Carlos Qulies

But the story only thickens from there. This past March, hundreds of fires raged through the Tripa peat swamp as palm oil companies rushed to clear the forest before the verdict was announced—with none other than PT Kallista Alam leading the pack. To the dismay of environmentalists and orangutan lovers alike, the Indonesian court decided to throw out the case and WALHI filed for an appeal. RAN and Tripa supporters from all around the world sent thousands of emails, faxes, letters and petitions to the Indonesian government, and Tripa became the subject of a National Police investigation into the crimes and illegal burning by the expanding oil palm plantations.

That brings us to today. Since the appeal was filed, the world has witnessed continued burning of Tripa— fires so bad that they created a regional air quality crisis and made the extinction of the critically endangered Sumatran orangutan a more imminent reality.

The High Court’s decision to grant the appeal and its order to the Governor of Aceh to withdraw PT Kallista Alam’s permit is not just an achievement for WALHI, but also a victory for the communities of Aceh and the hundreds of national and international groups concerned with the conservation of Tripa. This decision sets a new precedent that law enforcement is key for the protection of Indonesia’s forests. WALHI expects this may be the beginning of “momentum of law enforcement in a broader sense” concering environmental issues in Indonesia.

Photo: Carlos Quiles

But this is not the end of the road for saving the threatened rainforests of Tripa. Rather, it’s only a small step in the right direction. Now it’s up to Governor Zaini Abdullah to follow through with his instructions and cancel PT Kallista Allam’s permit. Beyond revoking the permit, other necessary action is needed by the courts in order to protect Tripa: evaluate the licenses of the other palm oil companies operating illegally and revoke any permits in violation of legal procedure, and punish the guilty parties who issued any illegal permits. Tripa is an important test case to see if Indonesian Police and Government really can uphold the law—the survival of Tripa depends on it.

This small but meaningful win for Tripa was made possible with the help of the thousands of people worldwide who took actions to put a spotlight on Tripa and created international pressure to save this peatland. There’s still a long road ahead, but we will continue to call for support and together we can continue to gain significant victories towards saving Tripa once and for all.

What the hell is the TPP, you may ask? While it is among the largest and potentially most important ‘free trade’ agreements the world has ever seen, one can hardly be blamed for not being familiar with it yet. The corporate cabal behind it, including names like Cargill, Pfizer, Nike and WalMart, has done an exceptional job of maintaining an almost total lack of transparency as they literally design the future we will all inhabit.

While 600 corporate lobbyists have been granted access and input on the draft texts from the beginning, even high-ranking members of Congress have been denied access to the most basic content of what US negotiators are proposing in our names.

Demand transparency now! Write to US trade representative Ron Kirk and lead Cargil trade lobbyist Devry Boughner to demand they make the text public.

Thankfully, draft texts of the proposal have appeared on Wikileaks and the website of Citizen’s Trade Campaign. It is difficult to overstate the potential implications on the lives of people around the world if anything like the agreement in these leaked documents were to be implemented with the force of law.

The TPP is called a ‘trade agreement,’ but in actuality it is a long-dreamed-of template for implementing a binding system of global corporate governance as bold as anything the world’s wealthiest elite has attempted before. Of the 26 chapters under negotiation, only a few have to do directly with trade. The other chapters enshrine new rights and privileges for major corporations while weakening the power of nation states to oppose them. The TPP essentially proposes to establish a parallel system of justice where companies can sue countries in a tribunal of judges composed of unaccountable international trade lawyers with little to no process for appeal.

This wild bastardization of the concept of justice endangers everything from affordable medicines, internet freedoms and intellectual property rights to democratically enacted labor laws and environmental protections. And that’s not to mention the massive outsourcing of middle class jobs from the US to countries like Vietnam and Brunei.

This isn’t just a bad trade agreement, it’s a wish list of the 1%—a worldwide corporate power grab of enormous proportions.

This week, in an empty warehouse on the outskirts of downtown Baltimore, a group of activists from around the US gathered to plan a spirited week of resistance to the TPP. Finally, after three years of secret negotiations, the momentum of an opposition movement is building. On Sunday, a diverse and raucous crowd of a couple hundred people descended on this exclusive golf resort to demand their voices be heard, chanting after each speaker: “Flush the TPP!”

NAFTA was the last straw that sent the Zapatistas into armed rebellion. The WTO negotiations spawned a robust and global anti-globalization movement the likes of which the world had never seen. Even after 9/11, the FTAA elicited a pushback of people power that even a fully militarized Miami police force could not completely suppress.

But near as I can tell, even though the TPP is bigger, bolder and badder than any trade agreement before it, the small group gathered this week on a grassy hillside in rural Virginia is the backbone of resistance to the TPP today.

The elements are there: a diverse coalition of wonky NGOs, social justice and trade policy experts, urban anarchists, Occupiers and suburban activists painting banners and scheming pranks—labor leaders, environmental groups and representatives from Mexico, Peru and beyond, but the scale is so far totally out of proportion to the threat we’re facing.

But this is beginning to change. Speakers at Sunday’s rally included key labor leaders from the Teamsters, and the Communications Workers of America joined with the leaders of environmental groups from the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth and Rainforest Action Network.

The TPP was conceived under the second Bush administration, but it has been embraced and nurtured into maturity under Obama’s watch. The widespread belief among people here opposing it is that the current Administration is in a race to finish much of the negotiations while they can bank on the fact that labor leaders and environmental and human rights advocates will shy away from challenging a democratic president in an election year. Free trade agreements are particularly unpopular in the key swing states Obama needs to win this election—making right now a crucial moment of opportunity to pull the TPP out of the shadows and leverage our combined political power to kill it before it takes root any deeper.

Stay tuned, one way or another history will be made in the coming months and the outcome will forever influence how our communities and countries relate to each other in an ever-shrinking world.

Flush the TPP!

For more background and details on the TPP negotiations and content, click here.