We have to keep our cool

Climate homicide, disorderly conduct, and certified gaslighting

Author

Brad Johnson
June 27, 2024

PRESENTED BY YELLOW BELLFLOWER APPLES

Long-time federal prosecutor Cindy Cho, in a prosecutorial memorandum, lays out the case for charging oil majors with second-degree murder or reckless manslaughter for the July 2023 Southwest heat wave, with “Maricopa County alone recording 403 heat-related deaths in July 2023—far more than all the murders the county experienced that year.”

These victims were diverse in their backgrounds and circumstances. Some were homeless, like the man who died after breaking both legs jumping over a fence in a desperate attempt to find shade outside an elementary school; others were well off, like the woman who died in her $1 million home in Scottsdale. Some were older and had health conditions, like David Hom, a 73-year-old with diabetes who fell while hanging his laundry and was found with lower body burns and a core body temperature of 107 degrees. Others were young and fit, like Nathan Perkins, a 33-year-old man described as “a bright engineer who talked a lot about his family, fiancée and future of being a husband and dad,” who died from heat stroke while out on a Sunday morning hike.

Cho, now a law professor at Indiana University Bloomington, wrote the memo with law professor Donald Braman and Public Citizen’s Aaron Regunberg and David Arkush. Regunberg, Arkush, and Braman have been building the case for climate homicide, and this new prosecutorial memo continues to strengthen the argument.

Meanwhile, the world of civil climate litigation is growing. As part of London Climate Action Week, Catherine Higham and Joana Setzer will present the Grantham Research Institute’s new report on global trends in climate litigation today (1:30 pm Eastern Standard Time). They identify 230 new cases filed around the globe in 2023, spreading to Panama and Portugal. The United States has become a hotspot for backlash, however, with dozens of suits filed by corporations opposing climate action. The co-authors will discuss the report with climate litigation experts Harro van Asselt, Cynthia Hanawalt, Wandisa Phama, Zaneta Sedilikova, and Carmen Nuzzo.

as a: frog I want to: be boiled so that: I maximize shareholder value

Yesterday, climate protesters led by activists from the Gulf South blockaded the New York City offices of Chubb and AIG, some of the world’s top insurers of oil and gas infrastructure. The Summer of Heat protests are building to major march and civil disobedience action tomorrow.

The daily blockades of Citibank’s headquarters by activists protesting its financing of climate destruction and Israel’s campaign against Gaza have started to fluster the workers.

“I know many of you have been offended by some of the language and actions, as have I,” Citigroup’s Ed Skyler wrote in a memo to employees, “but we have to keep our cool.”

Skyler was making a funny climate joke here, playing on Citigroup’s financing of the heat wave that has been broiling New York City.

“We were arrested for disorderly conduct as we blocked the front doors of their world headquarters,” Rev. Dr. Davida Foy Crabtree wrote on behalf of herself and five other members of Third Act Connecticut. “We believe it is Citibank that is guilty of disorderly conduct.”

In a desperate play for attention from climate activists, Goldman Sachs has appointed oil tycoon John Hess to its board of directors, as it advises his company on its $53 billion takeover by Chevron. Hess will also serve on Chevron's board.

yellow bellflower apples, painted by amanda almira newton, 1918

At 10 am, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission holds its June meeting, with approval of Louisiana’s giant CP2 liquefied natural gas export terminal expected.

LNG is a bridge to nowhere. Fracked natural gas is dangerous climate pollutant, and compressing into a liquid, pumping it onto tankers, and shipping it around the globe guarantees it will leak and pollute even more. Since the LNG industry can’t clean up its product, it’s investing heavily in greenwashing campaigns.

One of the biggest scams is “certified gas,” where third-party companies purport to monitor production for low leakage. But Earthworks and Oil Change International have found (unsurprisingly) the monitoring is a scam. Read all about it in their new report, Certified Gaslighting.

Proponents of LNG exports also like to claim LNG will somehow help the climate by displacing coal-fired power. But as researchers Sam Reynolds, Christopher Doleman, and Ghee Peh find, in countries like China, coal is being displaced by renewable energy, not expensive LNG. The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis report finds that “onshore wind and solar are the country’s cheapest sources of power.”

Speaking of climate homicide, disorderly conduct, and certified gaslighting: The evening sees the first televised debate between President Joe Biden and felon Donald Trump, a tightly controlled 90-minute affair that begins at 9 pm. Will the climate silence that descended on the 2012 presidential debate season continue tonight?

On the Hill, House appropriators began the day early at 8:30 am to mark up the Fiscal Year 2025 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies bill, again with anti-climate riders and drastic cuts to sustainability programs.

At 9:30 am, the Natural Resources oceans subcommittee holds a hearing on four oceans and fisheries bills, including legislation from Rep. Buddy Carter (R-La.) on right whales, and at 10:15 am, the federal lands subcommittee holds a hearing on six federal lands and heritage area bills, on the Hudson River Valley, Fort McHenry, Louisiana’s Lafourche Parish, Florida’s Big Cypress National Preserve, and Lahaina, Hawai’i.

At 10 am, Energy and Commerce is marking up Congressional disapproval resolutions of the Biden administration’s greenhouse pollution rules for power plants and vehicles. These won’t go anywhere but represent a clear indication of what the GOP will roll back if Trump returns to the White House.

Also at 10 am, the Transportation committee reviews the Department of Transportation’s policies and programs and Fiscal Year 2025 budget request with Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and a Financial Services subcommittee investigates the Export-Import Bank with respect to competition with China. The Ex-Im Bank continues to finance fossil-fuel projects around the globe on behalf of the United States.

At 2 pm, a Homeland Security subcommittee holds a hearing on ensuring critical infrastructure resilience, which may touch upon the oil and gas industry’s push to increase criminal penalties against non-violent pipeline protests. and a Foreign Affairs subcommittee holds a hearing on climate-disaster-ravaged Central America and the Caribbean.

Hearings on the Hill:

Climate Action Today:

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