Reverend Billy protesting outside the BoA building in Chicago.

Last week, RAN teamed up with Pilsen Environmental Rights and Reform Organization, Occupy Chicago, and Reverend Billy for a week of action against B of A highlighting the bank’s $4.3 billion dollars invested in the coal industry and its impacts on local communities in Chicago.

The week started out with a visit to Bank of America’s regional office in downtown Chicago with Reverend Billy. At 5 p.m., just as BoA employees were leaving for the day, protesters held a special sermon led by the good Reverend while informing employees and passersby of the bank’s investments in dirty coal.

On Saturday, a number BoA customers entered a bank branch in the heart of Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood and closed their bank accounts. This particular branch was very symbolic for the account closings since it is located only a few blocks from the highly controversial Fisk coal-fired power plant. After their money was withdrawn, a press conference was held outside of the bank, where Pilsen residents and RAN activists further explained the bank’s ties to the coal pollution poisoning the community.

To top the day off, activists and community members marched 3 miles in 15 degree weather from Pilsen to the downtown offices of Midwest Generation, the owner of the Fisk coal plant.

After a week of direct action in Chicago, BoA heard our voices loud and clear, but it is going to take a lot more than just Chicago to win this fight. We need all of you involved in this. Please take the pledge to close your account or boycott BoA ATM’s.

Check out this video highlighting our work in Chicago:

RAN Banner at Occupy Oakland, Nov. 2, 2011

The mainstream coverage of the Occupy Oakland demonstrations has been, by and large, so shallow and narrowly focused it is outrageous. Last night’s shut down of the Port of Oakland left many of us with a deep sense of optimism and inspiration from participating in a collective action with tens of thousands of people from all walks of life — young and old, black and white, Teamsters and Longshoreman, anarchists and hipsters — people from across all divisions of class and identity, gathering peacefully to express a deep dissatisfaction of the status quo with a firm and remarkably unified voice.

It was an amazing experience. It was electric and it was vast — the numbers being reported by the press are wildly low. I saw it with my own eyes.

That a couple dozen yahoos got excited and burned some trash cans after the day of marching was over is annoying, and their actions are counterproductive and devoid of strategy, but the fact that the national media across the board fetishized this minor property destruction to the point where it eclipsed the historic nature of what happened yesterday has many of us incensed. Not surprised, though, because this kind of rote sensationalism is Big Media’s standard MO, and it makes me mad as hell.

It also makes me want to call on this new movement to begin to target these corporate media giants alongside the other corporations undermining our democracy. The editors of these outlets are far more dangerous than the few amped-up kids in the streets who threw some water bottles at cops after midnight.

RAN's Robin Averbeck and Hillary Lehr at Occupy Oakland March

When the media systematically makes its headlines of our mass gatherings out of side stories about the antics of a few, they irresponsibly elevate the actions of a tiny percentage into the public perception of the whole. Every time they parrot the same predictable bullshit about “protestors turning violent” while failing to meaningfully communicate the larger context or the momentous nature of the moment, they are doing a disservice to us all.

Eventually, we are going to need to start calling them out for it in a big way.

“We all know, or at least sense, that the world is upside down: we act as if there is no end to what is actually finite — fossil fuels and the atmospheric space to absorb their emissions. And we act as if there are strict and immovable limits to what is actually bountiful — the financial resources to build the kind of society we need. The task of our time is to turn this around: to challenge this false scarcity. To insist that we can afford to build a decent, inclusive society — while at the same time, respect the real limits to what the earth can take.” – Naomi Klein, Author/Activist, REVEL Awardee

Tomorrow, many of the RAN staff will be out of the office. We will be shutting off our computers, leaving our desks, and joining hands in the streets of Oakland. We will be standing shoulder-to-shoulder with hundreds who identify with the Occupy movement and Occupy Oakland’s call for a ‘General Strike.’

We’ve been getting questions about why an environmental organization concerned with protecting forests, their inhabitants, and our climate would be supportive of a movement calling out the systems and institutions that maintain our country’s wealth and power inequality?

Here’s why.

Rainforest Action Network believes the social, economic, and environmental crises sweeping the planet are inter-related symptoms born of the same root causes.

Put simply, unchecked corporate power is dangerous and destructive to both people and the planet. Mother Earth is as much a member of the 99% as any one of us.

Central to RAN’s mission is the analysis that in order to protect the environment we must strike a balance between economy and ecology. Since our start in 1985, we’ve found that the same institutions and the same logic that is destroying our economy is also destroying our environment, and that the most effective way to protect the world’s natural resources is by challenging those corporations whose business models rely on this environmental destruction.

So long as corporations are granted free reign to pursue short-term profits at the expense of the long-term health of our environment, our economy and our communities, there will continue to be a race to the bottom where environmental and social costs are externalized and benefits are concentrated into the hands of fewer and fewer.

But what if that business model did not exist? What if corporations valued our environment, our health, and our well-being? What if our government worked not for the highest bidder but for the highest interests of its people and the planet? What if people from all walks of life joined together to say we’re ready for a new system because the one we have is not working? That is the promise and potential that Rainforest Action Network sees in the Occupy movement.

At RAN, we are fighting for a world where corporate accountability matters. Where our food system does not include ingredients derived from the destruction of rainforests and Indigenous communities. Where our financial system is just and does not unjustly bankroll industries, like the coal industry, that are poisoning communities and our climate. If we are going to win, if we are going to achieve these goals, we cannot do it one commodity at a time, one bad act at a time, or even one company at time. We need a broad movement willing to ask for what the world needs, and unwilling to settle for anything less.

A few weeks ago, author and activist Naomi Klein told RAN staff and supporters that what she sees with the Occupy movement is a moment that proves we are “more popular than we could have ever imagined.” It is a moment to dream big and feel what is possible. It is a moment to realize that our demands for ecological and economic sanity are not unreasonable, they are essential, they are popular, and they are one and the same.

And it is not only that the problems of economic inequality and environmental destruction are inextricably connected; the solutions to these problems are intertwined as well. The key to protecting our environment and protecting each other is the same. The key is us.

We are the people who can redefine the underlying values that govern our society and rebuild our economy based on long-term needs, not short-term greed. We are the innovative people willing to take risks and to do what’s needed. We are all part of the same movement.

So whether your primary concern is rainforest destruction, climate change, home foreclosures, the concentration of wealth, or corporate power, this is your fight. You are invited. You are needed.

BTD is a highly popular Facebook event (over 70,000 are attending) initiated by Kristen Christian, a young woman from California who decided she’d had enough of corporate greed. Her feelings resonated with tens of thousands of others, and the big banks will be taking a whopping hit this week as people rush to close their Big Bank accounts in favor of local community banks and credit unions.

One anecdote from a friend of mine who works in a small California-based credit union: “In an average month we hope for 400 new accounts, this past month we’ve gained 1100 new customers.”

People’s motivations for choosing to close their accounts do vary: bank fee hikes, predatory lending, failure to support small businesses, environmentally destructive lending. And much like the reasons that have brought so many people into the streets for #OccupyWallStreet, these are all symptoms of banks that are too big to care, that prioritize profits over people and the environment. And we’ve had enough of that mentality.

Some of our friends and allies, like us, are coordinating Move Your Money pushes this week. Here’s a selection:

• Rainforest Action Network (our own): “Bank of America: Not One More Dollar“
• New Bottom Line: “Move Our Money“
• MoveOn / Rebuild The Dream: “Move Your Money“
• The Huffington Post: (The original) “Move Your Money“
• Progressive Change Campaign Committee: “Hold Bank of America Accountable: Move Your Money“

And if moving your money isn’t quite enough for you, how about this idea for a creative, easy — and free — method of directly communicating with the big banks?

I’ve been having some wonderful conversations and plotting sessions with a new crew of allies here on Wall Street. RAN has been focused on banks, demanding social and environmental justice, for many years. But now it finally feels like we’re part of a large and growing movement. It’s very exciting. I could say so much more, but Adrienne Maree Brown already said it so well in her blog post, “from liberty plaza.”

I had the honor of addressing Occupy Wall Street last night. Just thought I’d share the video with you so you could see the communal spirit and passion that is keeping this occupation going strong:

(If you’re ready to stop doing business with Bank of America, sign the Not One More Dollar pledge now.)

I was particularly struck by the creativity in all the handmade signs. Here are three that spoke to me.

“#Occupy Earth” – Makes a link between taking back our own communities, wherever we may live, and taking back our natural resources from corporate control.

“Obama Stop Milking the Bull” – A reference to the famous Bull sculpture that lives on Wall Street. Right now, none of us can get anywhere close to this bull, as it stands surrounded by an army of NYPD and their barricades. These public servants appear to be deployed to protect the private interests, rather than the taxpayers.

“Too Big to Fail is Too Big to Allow” – A heartfelt cry for a serious overhaul of the financial system that has allowed such a small number of oversized banks to seize control of our economy — and trash it.

Senator Carter Glass (D—Va.) and Congressman Henry B. Steagall (D—Ala.). Image via Wikipedia.

A great article from Forbes appeared in my Google alerts last week and I had to share.

The article begins as yet another article describing the sad state of affairs at big US banks, namely Bank of America and Citi. The article goes on, however, to give a refreshingly short and simple explanation of how the banks got to the terrible position we find them in today:

Should either Bank of America or Citigroup fail, there will no doubt be much finger pointing. But, rather than ask who caused it, we should be asking what caused it. In 2001, the great complaint from US banks was that the European and Asia banks had competitive advantages over US banks in that they could engage in retail banking, commercial banking, investment banking, brokerage, insurance, hedge funds, private equity, and the like. Whereas, the Glass-Steagall Act unfairly limited them to retail and commercial banking.

Mama always said to be careful of what you ask for because you just might get it. The lack of a Glass-Steagall Act in Europe has led European banks to wobble under the weight of their underwriting of European government debt and other investment banking challenges. US banks got just what they asked for.

And, as we all know all to well, less regulation for the banks has meant a much less stable industry that almost took down the entire global economy. In this recession-weary country, we are all still feeling the consequences of big bank wobbles, stumbles and crashes.

What this article doesn’t address, though, is how the banks can take on a MUCH more responsible role in the world economy. Hopefully questions like the one that RAN asked BoA’s CEO Brian Moynihan on Monday can help lead the banks toward more responsible investing that will be better for the economy, and the planet.

While I welcome Bank of America’s continued acknowledgment that reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions is critical for combating the climate crisis, Bank of America must move quickly beyond commitments to reduce the carbon footprint of direct energy consumption by their offices and set ambitious targets to address the much larger carbon footprint of Bank of America’s financing of coal and other dirty energy.  The climate footprint of Bank of America’s financing activities is estimated to be one hundred times larger than the size of its operational carbon footprint.

By profiling efforts to address  the GHG emissions from their internal operations while quietly  ignoring the GHG impacts of the billions of dollars that the bank provides each year for the extraction and burning of dirty fossil fuels like coal, Bank of America is at risk of misleading the public as to the  true climate impacts of the company’s business.

As just one example, since 2009 Bank of America has provided financing for ten of the largest utilities operating coal-fired power plants, the biggest source of domestic GHG emissions, including participating in a $750 million bond issue for Duke Energy which is building the controversial Cliffside coal power plant. The 800 MW plant will emit over 240 million tons of CO₂ over its expected “useful” lifetime, equivalent to the emissions from adding one million new cars to the road each year. Bank of America financing relationships in the U.S. power sector alone contribute to the release of more than 10% of total US emissions.

Bank of America should immediately commit to developing a more robust climate policy that includes: shifting the balance of financing in its utilities portfolio from dirty power sources, like coal, to cleaner, renewable energy.

Those bankers have been busy. All told, RBS has raised more than $9.2 billion for companies operating in the tar sands since it was bailed out by British taxpayers in 2008. More than $2 billion of that total was raised just in the last six months since the bank produced it’s glossy report.

Let’s look into the deals RBS brokered in the last six months:

• Enbridge: $ 100 Million

A proposed massive new pipeline from the tar sands through the heart of the Great Bear Rainforest to a tanker port on the coast of British Columbia. RBS ran the books together with RBC, HSBC and Deutsche Bank on a $400 million bond issued by Enbridge last Septemeber. Each bank earned an estimated $87.5 million on the deal.

• Kinder Morgan: $275 Million

A proposed a competing West-Coast pipeline through the Great Bear Rainforest. This one from the tar sands to a tanker port near Vancouver, BC. RBS led the bond deal in February.

• BP: $950 million

Partnered with Husky to build a $2 billion tar sands strip mine forced-steam drilling project. And don’t forget the Gulf Spill. RBS managed two giant bond deals for BP in October and March.

• Statoil: $150 Million

RBS issued a revolving credit facility (think credit card) to Norway’s state-owned oil company last December. Last month Norway’s government paved the way for increasing Statoil’s already substantial tar sands stake.

• Total: $400 Million

French Oil company building a massive new tar sands strip mine. CEO says tar sands are the future: ‘”To justify our massive investments in the oil sands, we’re looking at what the world will look like in 2020, 2025 or 2030,” he told a reporter in 2009. RBS led the bond deal in January.

• Marathon: $600 Million

The midwest oil refiner spent $2.2 billion to retool it’s Detroit refinery to take more tar sands. Meanwhile, its neighbors are worried about more asthma and cancer. RBS led the bond deal in January.

Was RBS alone in supporting these businesses? No. Many banks were involved.

Do these companies do more than develop the tar sands? Yes they do.

But is RBS any less culpable for using taxpayer money to finance tar sands? No it is not. Follow the Indigenous activists making that case at the Bank’s shareholder meeting this week.

*A note on numbers. All the numbers quoted here are pulled from Bloomberg, which ranks banks according to the value of deals they lead in a particular sector.  These numbers are the value of those deals, not the value of RBS ownership or interest in those securities.

We regret to inform you that this bank is being put on Notice. Effective immediately you must begin to cease all financing of coal-fired power-plants and related infrastructure.

The Rainforest Action Network, our supporters and allies, being inhabitants of this planet, do hereby give you notice to cease and desist all coal financing.

Furthermore, you are hereby required to protect public health, economic security and the climate. First and foremost by limiting your exposure to coal financing and, thereby, limiting our exposure to air, water and climate pollution.

Furthermore, you must cease and desist financial relations with the nation’s leading coal companies until they end their addiction to coal, including but not limited to: AES Corporation; Alcoa Inc; Allegheny Energy; ALLETE Inc; Alliant Energy; Ambre Energy; Ameren Corporation; American Electric Power (AEP); Arch Coal; Atlantic Power Corporation; Berkshire Hathaway; Black Hills; Corporation; CMS Energy; Constellation Energy Group; Dominion Resources; DTE Energy Company; Duke Energy Coporation; Dynegy Inc; Edison International; Empire District Electric Co; Entergy Power; Generation Corp; FirstEnergy Generation Corp; Great Plains Energy; MDU Resources Group; MGE Energy; NiSource Inc; NRG Energy Inc; NV Energy; Peabody Energy; PNM Resources; PPL Corporation; Progress Energy; RRI Energy; SCANA Corporation; Southern Company; SSA Marine; TECO Energy; Transalta Corporation; UGI Corporation; Unisource Energy Development Company; Waste Management Inc; Westar Energy Inc; Westmoreland Coal Company; and Xcel Energy Inc.

We hereby demand that you adopt firm policies to include the following criteria:

• No financing for companies pursuing new coal-fired power plants and life-extending retrofits of existing coal-fired power plants.
• No financing, for companies engaged in mountaintop removal coal mining.
• No financing for companies pursuing coal export infrastructure.
• Shift the balance of your energy financing to support power generation that is less threatening to our health and environment.

Consider this your first warning. You are on notice to shift the focus of your energy portfolio to support clean, renewable power generation in the United States.

Rainforest Action Network will be monitoring you. You have three months. After which, we are prepared to apply public pressure to evict your coal portfolio and move clean energy into its place.

You can tell the country’s biggest banks to stop funding dirty coal and start investing in clean energy alternatives!

First off, we have to commend UBS and other banks for choosing to make environmental and social commitments public. Transparency is a critically necessary component of responsible banking, and UBS’ move to define certain “no go” activities also merits praise. By making these exclusions and its broader commitments public, UBS sets a good example for its industry peers.

That said, transparency doesn’t turn wrong into right. UBS still finances some of the most environmentally and socially irresponsible industries around, and we don’t expect these relatively weak commitments to change that fact.

Frankly, many of the commitments ring hollow. One wonders why it has taken so long for UBS to disavow financing illegal logging, for example. At the same time, illegal logging is so prevalent in the tropics, with more than half of tropical timber in international trade estimated to come from illegal sources, that UBS is going to have to greatly strengthen its due diligence procedures if civil society is going to have any confidence in this commitment. And that will require continuing to work closely with the civil society groups that have been raising these issues to make implementation credible.

UBS totally misses the mark on palm oil. Practically speaking, limiting financing to companies that are members “in good standing” with the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil won’t limit financing at all. “Good standing” has more to do with paying membership fees than changing practices (more on that from Ashley’s November post). A proper palm oil policy would suspend financing of palm oil plantations linked to social conflict and environmental destruction.

UBS’ forest commitments also need to go farther. Avoiding clients severely damaging High Conservation Value Forests is, of course, a good thing. But I suspect we’d differ on which clients fall within that description. The commitment also needs to include high carbon value forests and peatlands, the destruction of which is a major contributor to climate change

On energy, the new UBS policy doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. On mountaintop removal coal mining (MTR), the bank says “we need to be satisfied that the client is committed to reduce over time its exposure to this form of mining.” Back in November we called this commitment “a step in the right direction.” Then came Saturday’s announcement that industry heavyweight Alpha Natural Resources would acquire the notorious Massey Energy. And just one day after the policy announcement at UBS, guess who advised Massey on the deal? That’s right, UBS helped to create the largest single mountain top remover in the country, responsible for fully 25% of coal production from MTR mines. How’s that for due diligence!

So far, no word from UBS on what kind of linguistic gymnastics it took to squeeze that deal through its apparently worthless MTR policy. Prove us wrong!

Bill Barclay also contributed to this post.

UBS is the eighth bank to do this! Significantly, UBS has been the biggest funder of MTR coal mining, including the worst of the worst, Massey Energy (rumored to be in such terrible difficulty that its up for sale).

UBS says that “regulations around MTR mining are becoming increasingly stringent, also reflecting public unease about this mining practice.”

They go on to say “As part of this review, UBS assesses to what extent companies rely on MTR mining for their revenue generation, and UBS needs to be satisfied that the client is committed to reduce over time its exposure to this form of mining.”

While a statement like this is a step in the right direction, there is still no clear commitment from UBS to stop funding any of the MTR coal companies. This is a stark contrast to the position recently announced by another Swiss banking giant, Credit Suisse.

Thanks to everyone who contacted UBS to get them to take this step. Clearly, we must keep up the pressure and urge them to go all the way and stop financing the destruction of the Appalachian Mountains.

Two years ago no bank had a policy on coal mining, and Wall Street was providing finance and credit indiscriminately to the most destructive form of mining in the country. Bank of America, Citi, Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo have successively passed public policies limiting their financial relationships with coal operators that practice mountaintop removal (MTR) coal mining.

The move comes as a response to more than three years of national pressure. In 2007, we began with a campaign focused on Bank of America, the lead financier of MTR coal mining companies at the time. We have gone on to work with all of the largest banks in the country to encourage the entire industry to shift its policies. These policies signal a sector-wide shift away from a mining practice that has become increasingly controversial and a move toward more environmentally conscious fossil fuels financing.

One of the major impacts of these mountaintop mining policies is that the banks are no longer financing Massey Energy. In particular, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo, all of which have had substantial financing relationships with Massey Energy since January 2005, no longer finance the notorious company.

We took a tour of some local bank branches to say “Thank you!”,

Photo by Rachel Sarah Blanton

Concerned citizens rallied in downtown Lexington today to express their anger at PNC Bank for financing mountaintop removal (MTR) coal mining. PNC is now the biggest US financier of MTR. Local activists were joined by members of the group Mountain Justice and residents from mountaintop communities, who spoke out about the direct impact that this destructive form of mining has on their community, health and environment.

“Several banks have realized that they shouldn’t be involved with companies that are causing the total annihilation of a culture by their use of MTR. It’s unfortunate that PNC, like Massey, is putting profits over people and over God’s creation,” said Mickey McCoy, a Martin County resident whose community was affected by a coal sludge spill in 2000.

Photo by Rachel Sarah Blanton

Also present at the protest were a colorful street-theater troupe of ‘clowns,’ who acted out a performance of a coal company blasting the top off a mountain, then extracting a bag of money and passing it between U.S. Banks like a hot potato, to symbolize PNC Bank doing business with companies that other banks have moved away from.

The protesters paid a visit to the PNC branch at Main and Deweese streets and released a banner inside attached to some helium balloons, which said “PNC + Your Money = Toxic Tap Water.” Activists also passed out literature about the issue to bank customers and employees and delivered a letter to the bank branch manager asking that PNC end their financing of mountaintop removal.

Check out a video of the clowns at PNC

“PNC Bank was a recipient of bailout funds, so their investments in MTR represent my tax dollars. I am vehemently opposed to the destruction of the mountains, forests and communities of Appalachia, and I’m concerned by the impacts of strip mining on water quality in central Kentucky,” said Martin Mudd, a Lexington resident and activist with Kentucky Mountain Justice.

Since January 2008, PNC has become the number one U.S. financier of mountaintop removal coal mining. The bank has provided more than $500 million in loans and bonds to six companies practicing mountaintop removal: Massey Energy, Patriot Coal, Alpha Natural Resources, International Coal Group, Arch Coal and Consol Energy (Source: Bloomberg). These six companies are collectively responsible for almost half of all mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia.

Photo by Rachel Sarah Blanton

“The idea of corporate responsibility has come up repeatedly in recent weeks following the coal mine and oil disasters. That responsibility extends beyond profits to the health and wellbeing of our communities. Some banks, such as Bank of America and Wells Fargo have made commitments to reduce and even end their funding of the dirtiest coal mining practices. By continuing to finance mountaintop removal coal mining PNC is throwing that responsibility aside,” said Amanda Starbuck of Rainforest Action Network, who is campaigning for banks to end their investments in the sector and shift their support to clean, renewable energy and green job creation.

PNC recently ranked bottom in a score-card report on MTR financing by Rainforest Action network and the Sierra Club. The bank earned an “F” for its total failure to take environmental risks into account in its lending practices.

A copy of the report card and supporting data can be found here: www.ran.org/reportcard

Photo by Rachel Sarah Blanton

Mountaintop removal mining is a devastating form of mining where companies blow the tops off mountains to reach a thin seam of coal and then dump the waste rock into valleys below. This destructive practice has buried nearly 2,000 miles of streams and threatens to destroy 1.4 million acres of land by 2020. The mining destroys Appalachian communities, the health of coalfield residents and any hope for positive economic growth.

Here’s a reportback from Lizzy:

“A group of about 25-30 of us from Colorado College (members of EnAct, the Environmental Action Group, and the Outdoor Recreation Club, among others) walked a few blocks down the street to the Chase branch on Tejon Street, in downtown Colorado Springs. Almost everyone was holding a sign, and two people were in the front with a larger banner. Most of us don’t do much direct action, so everyone was pretty excited to participate. This branch is at an intersection on the corner, so we spread out on two sides of it and were very visible from two different streets, and their ATM drive-through. We stayed for about two hours, handing out flyers and talking to customers and random passerbys. We talked to a lot of different people about mountaintop removal, and we had two large photographs of the process to help us out in educating people.

When the Branch Manager returned from lunch, a few of us went inside to go talk to her and deliver the approximately 25 letters we had. Chase employees met us at the door and sort of ushered us into/kept us in the lobby part of the bank where the ATM was, rather than the main part–and the Branch Manager ushered us out the door from there. She was quite curt with us, and seemed pretty unhappy. We had trouble getting a word in, as she was lecturing us on private property and talking to customers…”We’ll see what the police have to say about this,” is what she said. We eventually were able to ask her if she knew what mountaintop removal was, and she said she knew a little bit about it–and then she took the letters, tapped me on the shoulder and said “ok sweetie” and went back inside while I was mid-sentence. We also talked with two other employees outside of the bank, who seemed frustrated by our accusations in light of Chase’s charitable contributions. We explained that our distress stemmed from just that–we didn’t understand why, if Chase had such a charitable mission statement/interest in social justice as they were explaining, that they would not align their financing with it and end their financing of mountaintop removal in the Appalachians. Another Chase employee stopped to talk to several of the students and asked us where the Appalachian mountains were located. She took a picture with her camera phone, telling the students to “look sad.” Several Chase customers approached us to ask for their own letters to deliver, and they delivered them successfully. We heard a lot of “What is Chase doing now?”s…it was evident that people are still pretty unhappy with big banks. Eventually, a police officer came to the scene but told us that we had a right to be there, and that he believed us that we were not harassing customers. My favorite part of the day was when an old man sitting on the street corner exclaimed “ya’ll need a protest song!” and launched into Dylan’s “The Times They Are A Changin.” It was icing on the cake.

This may not be news for regular readers of the understory, but there is a significant revelation here. The article includes an interview with Credit Suisse, one of the world’s largest private banks.

“a Credit Suisse official says the bank has a “global mining policy” that ensures “we explicitly do not finance the extraction of coal in a mountaintop removal setting.”

Congratulations to our friends at the Sierra Club, who raised the issue of coal financing with Credit Suisse back in 2008 and worked with the bank on the development of the global mining policy.

Here’s a statement from the Sierra Club’s Mark Kresowic in response to the news:

“We’re pleased to see Credit Suisse take this important step, especially as the situation in Appalachia becomes increasingly intense. Today’s statement, added to the steps Credit Suisse has already taken to ensure enhanced review of coal-fired power plant investments, and set internal greenhouse gas neutrality goals puts Credit Suisse at the front of the fight against global warming in the financial sector.

“We urge other banks, especially JPMorgan Chase to follow the lead of Credit Suisse in practicing responsible investing, and transparently implement policies that end financial support for destructive mountaintop removal coal mining,”

I couldn’t agree more.

RBC’s invitation-only meeting clearly aims to develop begin developing a coordinated response among banks to the growing controversy over tar sands financing. We got a peek at a draft agenda featuring Deputy Ministers from Alberta’s Environment and Energy Ministries, tar sands developers, selected environmental groups and at least one “First Nation representative”.

While we didn’t get an invitation to the meeting, volunteers are planning to make our presence known by distributing a special message to bankers in attendance.

We don’t know for sure which banks will show, but we’re expecting most of the 26 ranked in our earlier post on international banks backing the tar sands.

We’re happy to see RBC starting an important conversation in the banking industry, but actions speak louder than words. These banks should stop bankrolling dirty oil and shift those funds into clean energy.

Progress or PR? You decide! Tell us what you think in the comments.

Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining in West Virginia

1) The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) or a similar regime of reduced emissions projects from developing countries. The CDM is quite controversial, and exists under the Kyoto Protocol, which the U.S. did not sign onto, so these CDM-like projects would theoretically need to emerge from the new agreement now being negotiated in Copenhagen.

2) And the second source would be carbon credits from international forests. This regime is also being negotiated right now in Copenhagen, and its outcome will influence if not determine the future for forest protection in the coming decade. A strong REDD deal with good safeguards would mean forest protection and the rights of forest dependent people respected. A weak REDD deal without strong safeguards would allow the continued logging of the intact natural rainforests in countries like Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Brazil, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Bukit Tigapuluh, Sumatra. Credit: David Gilbert

America’s future appetite for forest carbon credits is just one reason why the U.S. is so keenly interested in REDD. Another, more urgent reason, comes from the allocation of pollution credits under the climate policy. In Waxman Markey, 5% of the total number of CO2 pollution credits will be auctioned to generate a fund for Supplemental Emissions Reductions from Reduced Deforestation. The hope is that this REDD fund would account for 10% the total emissions reduction goal of the United States.

It’s too early to tell how this legislation will play out in the Senate. The Democratic majority is still pushing for a climate bill, and it will not live up to the science-based standard of 40% or more emissions reduction below 1990 levels, in large part due to the entrenched lobbying by the fossil fuels industry. Ironically this may not be bad for non-U.S. forests which are seen by King Coal and Big Oil as a key ‘cost containment mechanism’. RAN supports the Supplemental Fund mechanism as a key means of protecting rainforests, and welcomes the U.S.’ role in the global effort to halt deforestation. But we cannot move forward without reducing our own emissions, and that’s why we oppose the offset mechanism, which uses forest offsets to let big coal and oil off the hook from making necessary emissions reductions.

Now in Copenhagen, we’re seeing the U.S. position vis a vis the Waxman Markey bill playing out. The U.S. opposes binding legal targets for emissions reductions – which we in essence do not have in the U.S. due to all of those offsets. But meanwhile, the U.S. is ready to go on REDD, due to the Supplemental Fund, the silver lining from an otherwise weak and compromised U.S. climate policy.

REDD is intended to help developing countries protect their remaining rainforests and reduce the 15-20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions caused by deforestation, forest degradation and peatland destruction.

Yet without key safeguards, REDD will fail to protect forests. Many countries hoping to benefit from REDD funding suffer from poor legal frameworks, high levels of corruption and illegality, and weak enforcement. Our allies at REDD Monitor summed up the situation with this graphic detailing rates of illegal logging in REDD beneficiary countries.

Key text that will prevent REDD from going the way of logging in terms of feeding corruption remains bracketed in the latest REDD text. [Brackets] means that some countries do not support this text, and from our conversations with negotiators it appears that the very same countries that stand to benefit from REDD funds are also working to undermine forest conservation and human rights in REDD. For example, here is the text that RAN and our allies in the Ecosystems Climate Alliance, working to include in the REDD negotiations in order for this forest deal to be a trustworthy alternative to logging and conversion:

• safeguards for transparent forest governance structures and support mechanisms {4(c)};
• safeguards for the rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities {4(e)};
• safeguards on conservation of biological diversity and enhancement of ecosystem services {4(f)}.
• an objective for protecting intact natural forests.
• provisions to monitor compliance with these proposed safeguards should they be incorporated into the agreement;
• safeguards to prevent the conversion of natural forests to forest plantations.

Most worrisome is the likelihood that there is no legally-binding deal as an outcome of the Copenhagen meeting. If the parties still strike a REDD deal without a commitment from rich countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, REDD could end up as an offsetting mechanism rather than a key tool in reducing global emissions.

And without forest protection and enforcement of safeguards as its key priorities, REDD will threaten rather than preserve the world’s remaining natural forests.

Too bad it’s such a disappointing day for climate in the US. Today Senators Boxer and Kerry released their first draft of the Senate climate bill, a companion to the House ACES bill passed this past June. It calls for the US to reduce emissions by 20% of 2005 levels by 2020. By comparison, island nations and the world’s least developed countries are calling for 45% emissions reduction from 1990 levels by 2020.

And it gets worse. The Boxer-Kerry draft bill subsidizes carbon capture and storage, a massive, scientifically uncertain boondoggle for coal fired electricity generators. The draft also repeats the most perverse problem in the House ACES bill by authorizing 2 billion tons of CO2 reductions to be achieved through offsets, instead of real emissions reductions.

Part of those offsets will come from a new, dangerous forest carbon market. The sellers of forest offsets will be tenure holders who are not required to operate with the free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous peoples. In fact, the forest offsets may not even guarantee the protection of the forest from future logging. The bill would create from scratch a new, risky
commodities market for carbon that could quickly become the largest market in the world, yet offers few specifics on how that market would be regulated.

To be fair, there are some safeguards for forests as well, requiring an increase in carbon stocks for forest offsets. And the ‘Supplemental Emissions Reduction Fund’ is also in the billp; this was the bright spot in the House ACES bill. If executed effectively, the fund could create a marketplace firewall between forest carbon and fossil carbon emissions reductions, and help forest countries to overcome their deep governance problems. The Boxer-Kerry draft bill also offers important incentives to plug in vehicles, renewable energy, and energy efficiency – tackling head on some the US’s lowest hanging fruit in addressing climate change.

But unfortunately, that won’t be enough to stop climate change. While the world is waiting for the US to step up to the plate, the US is still at home wrestling with its coal and oil demons.

I didn’t have a clue.

Well, maybe that’s unfair.

I knew what was going on in the mountains of Appalachia, I knew that people were fighting a powerful company that is extracting coal and destroying mountains and communities, and I knew that Climate Ground Zero refers to where the main battle for our global climate is going on – here in the heart of Coal Country, in the US where we produce the lion’s share, per capita, of the world’s greenhouse gases and half of that comes from coal. I knew that this battle is seriously heating up. But I didn’t know how serious.

From Google Earth

Of course it’s serious that a company is mining coal with machines bigger than office buildings and tremendous amounts of explosives, carried daily in tankers that rip along these narrow two lane highways.

And of course it’s serious when people’s families are endangered, their homes destroyed by floods caused by the mining, and the mountains that sustain so much life, so much diversity, are being wiped out for corporate profit. In this area that is stunningly beautiful, terrible things are indeed happening.

Since 1991 Massey Energy has led the pack in the race to take all the coal available from the once-hallowed mountains of Appalachia. They have systematically led the charge and taken the lion’s share of profit in the most efficient form of coal mining available, Mountaintop Removal.

The EPA continues to grant the permits that allow this company to employ far fewer workers than ever before in the history of coal mining. An underground mine used to employ as many as 500 workers. Now these operations can employ as few as 19.

The West Va Department of Environmental Protection, the DEP or “Don’t Expect Protection” as they are known euphamistically, continues to allow this company to clearcut the forests in this incredibly rich biome, an area that has been identified as the oldest deciduous forest in North America and the literal source of the great diversity of forests North America once supported. The EPA continues to grant permits that allow the mountaintops to be pulverized with explosives, the coal seams gouged out and processed, and the remaining rubble to be pushed into the valleys, or “hollers”, which has so far led to the utter annihilation of 2000 miles of streams and waterways and countless plants and animals. Of the estimated 900 mountaintops in Appalachia, over half of them have been “dropped” and destroyed for the “cheap” coal that lies beneath.

Massive MTR Operation - thanks to Southwings for taking us up

It has also led to the deaths of residents through uncontrollable flooding as well as the tragic death of 3-year old Jeremy Davidson when a massive boulder dislodged during operations and crushed him to death when it rolled though his bed while he slept. http://www.ohvec.org/newsletters/woc_2005_02/article_15.html

As a parent this tragedy has extra meaning for me. As a citizen, one would expect greater accountability and protection. Not here and not now at least. Business continues as usual, although there is a case filed by the parents who hope their son’s tragic loss may amount to something more that will provide protection for residents.

Why is mining allowed so near residents? Because state and federal laws allow it. Laws prohibit surface mining within 300 feet of an occupied dwelling and within 100 feet of a public road. Otherwise, go for it.

Opposition has been growing, slowly over time, but that’s often how it goes with wars. And make no mistake, there is a war brewing in Appalachia’s mountains, and so far those who are stepping up do so to defend their homes, their families and the mountains that in many cases have been home to many generations of their families. This is a war that has the classic elements of a deeply oppressed people and a powerful overlord that has outright contempt for the people who have every right to continue making their homes here. And that contempt shows itself in many ways.

Clean, carbon neutral coal?

Depopulation, common here, is a practice that promotes an exodus of residents from an area by making life so hard, so dangerous, and so frightening, that they simply have no choice but to accept whatever offers they can manage on their properties, pack up and make way for the fences and the gates that follow them, constantly expanding the area under control of King Coal.

The “mining” operations bear the names of the communities that they displace: Twilight, Lindytown, Marsh Fork and others. Once the people are out of the way there is less threat of opposition, less risk of damage that could lead to lawsuits or other troubles, however unlikely. And once the people are gone there is no one to witness the filling of the “hollers”, the blackening of the streams, the absolute removal of mountains – no one to stand in the way or risk liability.

Climate Ground Zero is a name that has been given to a resistance movement of people who may not be displaced, for many of them aren’t from here, but they don’t have as much to lose as the locals and can operate more freely. People have come from local areas, yes, but also from all over the country in response to the pleas for assistance from some of the locals who have chosen to stay and fight for what is right, what is theirs, and what should be inviolate. Some have just come because they see the injustice and they feel they must do something. And so they come.

And it’s a good thing they have. Those who grow up in this area know that laws that apply in the rest of the country don’t apply here. Justice in the Appalachian sense implies that the company will get what it wants, and that those who resist will be made to suffer, and that eventually fighting will only hurt them and those they love. And when the economies that once supported thriving communities that bore the names of the operations I mentioned above have dried up because of lack of work, poor wages, ill health, and the stress of living with constant explosions and continual heavy machinery traffic, then there really is no reason to stick around.

I wish I could convey how very real this difference is between these beautiful mountains and the rest of the country, but honestly, you need to see it for yourself.

This helps: Check out the reality of MTR with this handy layer in Google Earth.

But there is every reason for those of us with the means and the passion for justice to come from without to help those who remain, and to stand up for the mountains and the voiceless life they support.

Under the direction, however casual but always effective, of RAN co-founder Mike Roselle, a staging area has been created that has seen a series of actions executed against the tyranny of King Coal’s reign. Non-Violent Direct Action has driven tyrants out all over the world; bringing peace and self-determination, gaining women the right to vote, saving species from commercial hunting, and so on. We have great leaders upon whose shoulders we stand; Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Theresa and others.

James McGuinness and Mike Roselle of Climate Ground Zero were arrested on February 25, 2009, at Performance Coal's Edwight Mountaintop Removal site in southern West Virginia. The protesters chose to focus on the active mountaintop removal site above Marsh Fork Elementary School in Sundial, WV on the eve of the 37th year anniversary of the Buffalo Creek Disaster. photograph by Antrim Caskey

And it will save these mountains and these communities. An action in Wise County on September 7th drew attention to the construction of an unnecessary coal-fired power plant with 11 arrests and led to the revocation of that building permit. A subsequent action that stopped work at the Twilight Mine saw 14 activists arrested and made national headlines. Following that a rally – unheard of in this area and bolstered by the participation of celebrities and scientists and saw dozens arrested and gained national attention for an elementary school that lies directly under a massive removal operation.

And most recently a couple of tree-sitters kept a mountain safe from Massey Energy for six days, increasing awareness of this issue. They endured significant abuse by mining company employees – sleep deprivation, threatened with chainsaws, verbally abused, etc. And when they came down, finally, for fear for their safety, they were arrested and held on $25,000 bail – a ludicrous amount for a non-federal charge that amounted to trespassing and littering. Here where the media is 95% controlled by King Coal, as is 98% of the law this is what one begins to expect – though I’ll never get used to it. Fortunately those figures were adjusted down to a rational $1000 each – a small blessing in a sea of darkness.

The treatment of the activists by Massey was so abusive that two security guards walked off the job, unwilling to be a party to such inhuman, criminal behavior. Check out this video of the guards talking about their experience.

And when the actions are over, the activists gather again to share knowledge gained and plan for the next peaceful salvo that will help grow this resistance until finally the mountains are safe, the communities can get back to living again, and King Coal fades into a past that should have been history long ago.

We are witnessing the death of a dinosaur and the birth of a new era, and it’s happening at Climate Ground Zero. Be a part of it – and do so with your support of the folks at CGZ and with your support of RAN. Strength in numbers, creativity and courage.

Activists shut down a dragline at the Twilight Mine, Boone County, West Virginia