After its popularization in the 1990s by oil and gas company BP in a $250 million advertising campaign, the term “carbon footprint” has been heavily discussed, particularly around Earth Day. In 2004, as a response to BP’s campaign, the first carbon footprint calculator was invented. Since then, the Environmental Protection Agency and others have released other carbon footprint calculators, promoting individual responsibility in reducing personal carbon footprints.
A lawsuit filed by the city of Baltimore in 2018 against more than a dozen major oil and gas companies has recently been brought to the Supreme Court. The lawsuit requests the companies pay for climate change damages, as they were aware of their negative impact on the environment and misled the public. The Supreme Court’s decision on whether or not to hear the case could set a precedent for future climate change cases.
October 29, 2020
Indigenous Mayan communities are suing the Mexican government over plans to install more than 1 million solar panels near their homes, a project that would require clearance of 600 hectares of trees from their communities.
Vietnam prepares for Typhoon Molave, the fourth storm to hit the central region of the country in the past few weeks in a series of the most intense tropical storms they have experienced in decades. Currently, 130 people have been reported dead and 18 missing, and about 300,000 homes have been damaged or completely collapsed by the floods.
The Trump administration has rolled back nearly 100 climate policies and rules in regards to clean air, water, wildlife and toxic chemicals. Here is the full list.
Ranchers and activists have taken sides in a proposed plan to cull the Tule Elk Herd in Point Reyes National Seashore, located north of San Francisco, California.
Check out this list of key Senate races which could largely determine the future of U.S. climate policy.
Japan announced ambitious plans to become carbon neutral by 2050.
Fossil fuel companies are losing favor with investors, as many are turning toward the renewable energy sector.
Poor air quality in Asia has been linked to billions of premature deaths, and a new report claims that breathing air in New Delhi can shorten life expectancy by more than nine years.
A new study by NASA will look at how particulate matter in air pollution affects human health.
By Siona Ahuja ’24
Staff Writer
A new wave of investigations by the watchdog network LittleSis has revealed that major fossil fuel corporations are responsible for funding police groups in several cities. Corporate giants like Chevron and Exelon are official sponsors for police foundations — entities that provide grants to local police departments and innovate policing through new technology. The funds provided add to the 20-45 percent of municipal discretionary funding that already exists, ranging from $160 million to $5 billion annually.
Chevron is a corporate sponsor for the New Orleans Police Department and also has a position on the board of the Houston Police Foundation. The energy provider Exelon is a notable backer of police foundations in Baltimore, Chicago and Washington.
Wall Street firms that are the top financiers of fossil fuels are also inextricably linked to police foundations. JPMorgan, Chase, Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs have all collectively donated millions of dollars to the police.
Since police foundations are nonprofit bodies and the money is raised through galas or benefits, the gargantuan donations they receive often avoid public scrutiny. Reports from the New York Police Foundation state that it raised roughly $5.5 million from its 2019 annual benefit, the deep-pocketed donors including Goldman Sachs and Blackrock, among others.
Companies which thrive only through extraction and exploitation are openly weaponizing the police and garnering their support in order to protect their interests in the face of community opposition and environmentalists. Oil and gas companies are disproportionately located in minority communities, which contributes to environmental racism. These areas are often overly policed with little surveillance, creating a dangerous intersection of environmental destruction and racism.
Demographically, Black, brown and low income communities are disproportionately exposed to toxic wastes and pollutants released by petrochemical facilities, smelters, refineries and waste incinerators. Fatemeh Shafiei, director of Environmental Studies at Spelman College, has found evidence to confirm the adverse effects of living in proximity to such facilities.
Joanne Kilgour, director of the Pennsylvania Chapter of the Sierra Club, told Pittsburgh’s radio station WESA that drilling for oil is primarily done in low-income neighborhoods because residents cannot afford the legal counsel paramount to combating drilling plans. Kilgour also called these neighborhoods the “front lines” of environmental justice.
For the smooth operation of their industries and to eliminate opponents, oil and gas companies have joined hands in support of conservative legislation that seeks to criminalize pipeline protests. Since 2017, several bills have been put forward in at least 18 U.S. states. Texas, the largest oil producing state (4,637,000 barrels produced every day), recently passed a pipeline protest law that came into effect on Sept. 1, 2019. According to this, an activist having “intent to damage or destroy” a pipeline facility or even trespass a “critical infrastructure” can face a third-degree felony charge, equivalent to that of attempted murder. Similarly, any organization having similar intentions is liable to be fined up to $500,000.
Enraged activists are pushing for action plans to stop this environmental racism as individuals and in groups. They believe that, to change this situation, a change in white supremacacist ideals in both policing and pollution is required. “The road to solving the climate crisis includes addressing connected predatory systems,” Tamara Toles O’Laughlin, the North America director of the collective 350.org, told the Guardian. Stop The Money Pipeline, a collective of over 130 climate, Indigenous and social justice organizations was launched in January 2020. Their recent campaigns target Wall Street and the fossil fuel corporate giants backed by them, and their demands ring of only one message: to halt investment in climate destruction and racial injustice.
