The Crime of Corporate Catastrophe

PRESENTED BY RESERVOIR DUCKS

Seventy years ago this Sunday, on March 8, 1956, scientist Roger Revelle testified before the U.S. House Committee on Appropriations that humanity was conducting “the greatest geophysical experiment in history” by “burning, as you know, quite a bit of coal and oil and natural gas” and “producing tremendous quantities of carbon dioxide in the air” which may “cause a remarkable change in climate.”

In 1958, U.S. scientists organized the University Committee on Atmospheric Research and called for the formation of a national atmospheric research institute. The National Science Foundation immediately began developing plans, and in 1960 Dr. Walter Orr Roberts was announced as the founding Director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). Sixty years ago, in September 1966, NCAR moved into its permanent headquarters in Boulder, Colo., the I.M. Pei-designed Mesa Laboratory.

The final days are now here for NCAR. The Trump National Science Foundation, following Russ Vought’s directives to kill NCAR’s “climate alarmism,” is illegally dismantling this jewel of civilization right now. They have set a deadline of Friday the 13th to submit comments on their deadly scheme. Many of the world’s top climate scientists, including Max Boykoff and Kevin Trenberth, have warned against the demolition, but they need our help. The American Geophysical Union has established a website to make commenting to NSF a simple matter.

Do it.

In 1958, the U.S. established the National Aeronautics and Space Administration after the Soviet Union was the first nation to launch a weather satellite. In 1984, Congress formally added “knowledge of the Earth” to NASA’s core mission.

Now, climate-denier Musk-fanboy space billionaire Jared Isaacman is overseeing the rapid demolition and privatization of NASA's earth science mission as NASA Administrator, which position he gained with the backing of 16 Democratic senators. On Monday, he affirmed to Science journalist Paul Voosen that his secret plans to eliminate NASA’s earth scientists and privatize its satellites are now his public plans, because how is it “useful to anyone” for “NASA to assemble scientists and put out papers on politically charged issues”?

Did I mention this Moncheechee Yahoo was supported by 16 Democratic senators? I did? Oh, well, nevertheless.

A consistent feature of scientific evaluations of the effects of anthropogenic climate change with significant socio-economic implications is the intensification of, and geographic shifts in, the hydrological cycle.

More bluntly, God’s judgment for poisoning the climate oft arrives as biblical flood and drought.

To wit: Kenya floods have killed at least 45 people. The death toll from January’s Mozambique floods has reached 270. Juneau is moving forward on a $25 million buyout of the 18 households on a street regularly overwhelmed by glacial outburst floods. Vermont is on flood watch as summer-like heat threatens rapid melting and ice jams. The Chicago region was hit by flooding rains last night from thunderstorms that spawned tornadoes that killed two people in Indiana, less than a week after different rounds of storms that flooded the Chicago region and spawned tornadoes that killed four people in Michigan and floodwaters that swept two Indiana motorists to their deaths.

Meanwhile: Corpus Christi, Texas is careening towards the other water catastrophe—running completely dry. Corpus Christi is at the center of Cancer Alley, the hyperconcentration of insanely toxic petrochemical and hydrocarbon facilities at the receiving end of the Permian Basin fracking boom. These refineries, plants, and LNG facilities require ungodly amounts of water to run. Even though Texas is running dry from fossil-fueled droughts, Corpus Christi officials welcomed their construction. Now the bill is coming due. This Inside Climate News-Texas Tribune piece by Dylan Baddour is one bone-chilling sentence of corporate catastrophe after another:

I can only say:

More than a decade after Inside Climate News (them again!) broke the story that ExxonMobil (them again!) knew for decades that they were profiting from climate destruction, there has still not been a single criminal case against Big Oil bosses.

Part of the reason is that they’re protected by corrupt politicians like New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who is now trying yet again to dismantle New York’s climate laws.

However, the Empire State is not a pure plutocracy yet.

Last month, New York State Senator Michelle Hinchey (D-Poughkeepsie) and Assembly Member Emily Gallagher (D-Greenpoint) introduced companion bills establishing “the crime of corporate catastrophe” (S9519 and A10210). The purpose of the law is to “to make it a crime to cause a catastrophe when acting as a member, manager, director, or officer of a corporation in furtherance of one's corporate duties or interests.” 

Public Citizen notes there are similar laws on the books in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Maine, Utah, and Missouri. Time to enforce them!

Read Food & Water Watch’s new report, The Urgent Case Against Data Centers. 

Or, if you prefer, hire the Heatmap journalists to help you build more data centers.

LNG giant Cheniere just scored a highly suspicious $370 million pay-day from the IRS. 

The Trump EPA climate rollback may, ironically, give new life to state-level climate laws.

Hearings on the Hill:

• 10 AM: Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
  S.3135, to require the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to authorize manufacturers of certain vehicles to suspend engine derate or shutdown functions in prolonged cold weather conditions

• 10:30 AM: Senate Foreign Relations Committee
  Vote on Nominations of Wesley Brooks to be Asst. Secy. of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, Billy Long to be Ambassador to Iceland, Robert Sweeney to be U.S. Director of the Asian Development Bank, and others

• 2:30 PM: Senate Indian Affairs Committee
  Examining Federal Policies Governing Indian Water Rights Settlements

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