More from today’s Dynegy shareholder’s meeting in Houston today. CEO Bruce Williamson, a finalist for Fossil Fool of the Year, told his company’s shareholders “that only a few of the proposed coal-fired power plants in the United States will be built due to soaring costs and financing hurdles.”

He said that only plants that have “already started construction, have an EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) contract or equipment committed to them,”"

Pretty big news. That sounds like we’re winning. Does mean that King Coal is going to pack up and call it a day?

Not bloody likely. Sooner or later they will initiate the backlash.

Keep up the pressure.

Environmental activists from six states -Michigan, Nevada, Georgia, Texas, Iowa, and Illinois - converged today to urge the Houston-based Dynegy corporation to halt construction on its six proposed coal plants.

Outside the meeting 100 activists rallied to speak truth to Dynegy’s power.

40 activists from Georgia, Texas and Alabama staged a “die-in” inside the Westin where the meeting was being held. They held space until police and security got them out of the building.

Video here
More pix here

From their press release:

“Coal is a ticking time bomb for investors and the climate. From the destruction of Appalachian mountaintops to the millions of tons of carbon dioxide, mercury and other toxic pollutants emitted from power plants, coal plants are the country’s top source of global warming and mercury pollution. Yet Houston-based Dynegy plans to build six new coal-fired plants—more than any other company in the country.”

So this morning at the Carbon Capture and Sequestration conference I had the opportunity to hear the infamous Fred Palmer, Sr. Vice President of Peabody coal do his ‘I love coal’ rap. And jeez louise does that old boy know how to lay it on thick. I had been promised that he was likely to actually rub his hands together with glee when talking about his favorite black rock, but today he opted for the more measured ‘all the other fuels are going to run out except coal and that’s good because coal doesn’t just keep the lights on it also grows trees, teaches our children, gives us healthcare, makes the sky blue and the grass green’ approach. Not terribly convincing, but certainly amusing so long as you don’t think too hard about Peabody’s severe climate impacts and human rights violations.

Oh yes and Fred thinks we need to burn more coal, not less. He’s very excited about new coal-fired power plants, as you can probably imagine. I think his exact words were: “We’ve got 250 billion tonnes of coal that we’re gonna gasify, liquify and burn. When I get an anxiety attack about our growing energy needs I wrap myself in the security blanket of our coal reserves”.

At question-time I challenged Fred on Peabody’s treatment of coal-field communities and asked him how in the world he thought that any new coal-fired power plants were going to be built when coal and construction costs are rising exponentially (even without CCS), 60 plants have been canceled in the last year alone and 75% of the American public supports a moratorium on new coal development.

Fred almost sputtered with indignation at my assertion that Peabody doesn’t have a squeaky clean human rights record - but then he started rambling on about public coal-fired power plants and completely lost me in what seemed to be an effort to argue that the fact that he’d worked in civil service for a couple of years nullified the devastating impacts of Peabody’s mining operations.

But what really amazed me was this choice line:
“We’re going to put SNG in the pipelines, send it to California and they won’t even know they’re USING coal”.

I kid you not, he actually said that. He then followed up with another doozy: “If you go to the Powder River Basin you don’t see any scars - the land is better than it was before”.

Apparently so is Appalachia.

My sense listening to Fred’s reply to my question was that here is a man who is fighting for his industry’s life. Just like Ken Lewis at Bank of America when I questioned him about his coal investments - Fred Palmer knows that the writing is on the wall, that coal is over. That’s why he and the entire coal industry is clinging so desperately to the CCS life-raft. Trouble is, the thing doesn’t float.

I think the first time I ever heard the word ‘greenwashing’ was in the late ’80s or maybe early ’90s after I saw a flier from McDonald’s about how they didn’t use beef from the Amazon. I brought the flier home to show my mother, an environmentalist, because I was so proud to show her that even big giant companies were doing good things and that her work was really making a difference.

She looked at it for about three seconds and told me “that’s greenwashing.” She explained the word to me and although I was sad to see my evidence of the mainstream adoption of environmentalism debunked, I realized for the first time that in a lot of ways claiming to “go green” when you’re not can be worse than just doing bad stuff in the first place.

Well, I’ve obviously come a long way since then and you may have already seen one of our “Greenwash of the Week” posts.

You’d think I would be pretty aware of the scope and quantity of greenwashing out there. I thought I was too.

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In conjunction with the international release of a report by Greenpeace today – that identifies the ridiculous risk, uncertainty and cost associated with industry-driven plans for carbon capture and sequestration (CCS),

Public interest groups (from across the country) sent the following letter to Congress, demanding that taxpayer subsidies be disallowed CCS, and that safe, affordable and market-ready energy technologies such as wind and solar be funded instead.

Dear Members of Congress

On behalf of our members and supporters we are writing to express our opposition to any policies that promote or provide taxpayer subsidies for carbon capture and storage (CCS), the practice of trapping carbon dioxide from fossil fuel combustion and storing it below the sea or beneath the surface of the earth.

As you know, global warming is one of the greatest challenges facing the planet today. To avoid the worst impacts of global warming scientists have warned that we need to reduce global warming pollution by at least 80 percent by 2050. Climate stabilization, national security and economic prosperity depend on substantially reducing our use of fossil fuels. That means no new investments in major infrastructure that increases fossil fuel dependence. Every dollar invested in CCS is a dollar unavailable for investment in renewable energy, efficient vehicles and energy efficiency.

CCS raises a number of serious financial, environmental and safety concerns:

· CCS cannot deliver in time. The best-case scenario is that the technology would be ready by 2030. Every decision made about new power plants today influences the energy mix for the next 30-40 years. We need to make the smartest choices to address the global warming crisis and invest in proven solutions as soon as possible.

· CCS is cost intensive. It increases the cost of power generation by 40 to 80 percent compared with conventional coal plants. Current research shows electricity generated from coal equipped with CCS will be more expensive than other less polluting sources, such as, wind power.

· CCS technology reduces the efficiency of power plants. Up to 30 percent more fossil fuel must be burned when CCS is used to achieve the same power output.

· CCS poses a risk of carbon dioxide leakage. Continuous leakage, even at very low rates, could undermine the climate benefit of CCS and large releases of carbon can also pose significant risk to human health.

As evidenced by mountain-top removal and dangerous emissions, CCS cannot make coal clean. Renewable energy sources are already available without the negative environmental impacts that are associated with fossil fuel exploitation, transport and processing. It is renewable energy together with energy efficiency and energy conservation that has to increase so that the primary cause of climate change – the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas – is stopped.

We strongly urge you to oppose any policies that provide mandates or taxpayer funded incentives for CCS. We should instead fund clean, renewable, domestic sources of energy, energy efficiency and conservation. Congress must prevent the construction of new coal-fired power plants that are inconsistent with an energy future that is good for the economy, the environment, national security, and safe for communities.

Sincerely,

ActionPA • Alliance for Appalachia • Appalachian Voices • Black Mesa Water Coalition • California Communities Against Toxics • Canary Coalition • Cape & Islands Self-Reliance Corporation • Center for Coalfield Justice • Co-op America • Chesapeake Climate Action Network • Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana • Clean Power Now • Coal River Mountain Watch • Cook Inletkeeper • Energy Justice Network • Environmental Alliance of North Florida • Environmental Research Foundation • Friends of the Earth • Global Exchange • The Grand Canyon Trust • Green Delaware • Greenpeace • Heartwood • Help Our Polluted Environment • Indigenous Environmental Network • Jefferson Action Group • Kentuckians for the Commonwealth • Meigs Citizen Action Now • Mountain Watershed Association • North Carolina Waste Awareness & Reduction Network • Nuclear Information and Resource Service • Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition • Palm Beach County Environmental Coalition • Protect Biodiversity in Public Forests • Rainforest Action Network • Residents Against the Power Plant • Rising Tide North America • Save It Now, Glades! • Save Our Cumberland Mountains • Southern Energy Network • Valley Watch

Today’s Bank of America shareholder meeting was a packed house and CEO Ken Lewis was not having a very good day. Poor guy, first he had to deal with the crazy shareholder lady who launched into a monologue about how much she loved him, then with shareholder annoyance over the impending Countrywide deal and THEN there was coal. By the end of the meeting, I was quite sure that all that jaw clenching would have ground his teeth to nubs. By far the strongest showing at the event came from the eight people who spoke out against Bank of America’s financing of coal-fired power plants and Mountaintop Removal. Two coal-field residents (one of whom is a third-generation coal-miner) had this to say:

“I came all the way from Kentucky because I am trying to save my homeland from the total destruction caused by Mountaintop Removal (MTR) Coal Mining, which Bank of America is a leading financier of. The southern Appalachian Mountains have some of the most biodiverse forests in the world; MTR coal producers, funded by Bank of America, are exploding the tops off these mountains, and off our culture. This is not just about saving the climate, but also about the survival of our culture for our grandchildren and future generations.”
Carl Shoupe, Third generation Kentucky coal miner, city Council Member of Benham, Kentucky, and member of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth.

“While Bank of America’s Carbon Principles are important, I live with the extraction end of coal mining—Mountaintop Removal coal mining is responsible for the destruction of more than a million acres of the world’s most ancient mountains, and the transformation of healthy mountain woodlands into toxic sludge that has clogged more than 700 miles of rivers and streams. Bank of America must stop funding Mountaintop Removal coal mining, and, instead, start investing in clean, renewable energies.”
Teri Blanton, a survivor of a Superfund toxic waste site near her home in Harlan County, Kentucky, one of the poorest counties in Appalachia.

Then two Charlotte residents spoke eloquently, one about why Bank of America’s coal investments made her concerned for her grandchildrens’ futures and the other about why she had transferred ALL her Bank of America credit cards, accounts and loan agreements to another bank. Coal.

When Matt and I spoke up about the the climate, economic and reputational risk of continuing to invest in coal-fired power plant and mountaintop removal, Ken really started to get red in the face, but the turning point came however when Matt Wasson from Appalachian Voices commented that Bank of America was becoming the “face of Mountaintop Removal.”

86% of Bank of America shareholders were represented by the people in that room, and many of them had clearly never heard about mountaintop removal before so this was a fantastic education for them and for the Board of Directors who were also present.

All in all, concerns over coal investments by far dominated the meeting and I’m quite certain that Bank of America got the message.

I’m about to hop on a plane to Charlotte, but I wanted to capture some of the excitement from Citi’s Annual Shareholder Meeting. It was an amazing day – there were over 50 activists outside on the streets making sure that every shareholder that entered the meeting had absolutely NO doubt that Citi is funding coal and why it should stop. The New York crew were amazing – as always, creative and kick-ass every last one.

Appalachia’s own Maria Gunnoe and I went inside the meeting on proxies and spoke in support of shareholder resolution #9, calling on Citi to cease financing of coal-fired power plants and mountaintop removal coal mining. Inside, the scene was just about as raucous as on the streets! There must have been 500 shareholders at the meeting – most of whom were NOT happy. Obviously, Citi’s recent financial woes due to the credit crisis have shareholders antsy, and almost every question revolved around why Citi didn’t recognize the risk inherent in subprime loans. Why indeed? We want to know why Citi is heading directly from the credit crisis to the climate crisis, which is rife with financial risk, human risk, cultural risk and environmental risk.

Maria stood up and spoke movingly about the hypocrisy of releasing ‘Carbon Principles’ while continuing to fund the biggest proponents of mountaintop removal. Speaking directly to Citi CEO Vikram Pandit and Chairman Sir Win Bischoff, she asked: “Where is the principle in that?” No one had an answer for her. When it was my turn to speak, I reiterated our request to Citi to cease financing coal and climate change, and pointed out that it is the people and lands like those of Appalachia that are most impacted by our continued reliance on coal. These are the real victims of climate change.

Then I asked a simple question: Would Vikram Pandit please commit to accompanying me on a flight over Appalachia to witness the effects of mountaintop removal, financed by his bank?

He laughed and looked a little uncomfortable. I assured him that I would be a wonderful flying companion. What followed was a slightly awkward silence. Then, to my surprise, Sir Win Bischoff interjected and said: “I can commit that one of us will accompany you on that flight.”

And with that, I got a date with Citi.

As I left the meeting, several shareholders approached me to say they hoped I would be back next year to report on the flight.

My response? You bet I will.

I spent this past weekend in Charlotte, NC - the headquarters of Bank of America. Their annual shareholder meeting is this Wednesday, and I’ve also been attending a number of Earth Day events around town - helping answer the question: What IS Bank of America doing for Earth Day?

More than a few people came to our table somehow thinking we were actually from Bank of America - before seeing giant posters of mountain-top removal and coal-fired power plants. Sadly - this is the reality of what BoA is using their customer’s money for. I even talked to a lot of employee’s from the bank (it is Charlotte, after all) and many were quite supportive of getting the bank to do the right now.

I’ll give credit where credit is due. Sure, they are donating a few bucks here and there for some mostly-good purposes. They have incentives for their employees to buy hybrid cars. They are building a LEED-certified skyscraper in New York (Though I wouldn’t exactly agree that any skyscraper could ever be considered sustainable in the slightest!). And they spend millions on slick marketing campaigns, public relations firms, and well-crafted speeches to convince the world that they are doing the right thing for our communities, our climate, and our future.

But to quote my friend and dedicated Charlotte activist Beth Henry: “Bank of America is watering the flowerpot while they help burn the whole house down.” What’s more important - the skyscraper, or where the billions of dollars inside that skyscraper go? Earlier this month Bank of America signed the “Carbon Principles” - implying that they might actually stop lending money to dirty coal. But also last month, they helped finance $3.2 billion to Duke Energy - helping them build two new coal plants at Cliffside, NC and in Indiana. The truth is they DO invest in clean energy. It’s just that they invest nearly 100 times more money in dirty energy like coal. More »

For the past year, thousands of activists across the country and organizations including Rainforest Action Network, Rising Tide North America, Coal River Mountain Watch, Appalachian Voices, Mountain Justice Summer, SEAC , Energy Justice Network, Blue Ridge Earth First!, and many more have joined together to pressure Bank of America to stop funding coal. From financing mountain-top removal minining, to investing in new coal-fired power plants, Bank of America is financing the destruction of our climate and communities - and no amount of green PR and marketing will change this fact.

From hundreds of rallies and protests at bank branches; guerilla theater closing ATM’s; shareholder resolutions, confronting bank executives, and direct action at their offices, Bank of America is feeling the pressure to rethink their investment policies! Come join us at Bank of America’s annual shareholder meeting this month - and make sure every one of their executives, board members, and shareholders hear our demands for a just, sustainable future!

Please help promote this call to action, and organize your community to join us in Charlotte April 23rd!

Fore more info, visit www.dirtymoney.org or contact mleonard@ran.org

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