The Democratic National Committee voted over the weekend to ban donations from fossil fuel companies, HuffPost has learned.
The resolution....bars the organization from accepting contributions from corporate political action committees tied to the oil, gas and coal industries....
“We talk about how climate change is real and climate change is a planetary emergency, what we need to do is stop taking money from the institutions that have created this crisis,” said RL Miller, president of the super PAC Climate Hawks Vote Political Action and a co-author of the resolution.
The DNC may consider a second resolution at a full board meeting in Chicago in August to ban contributions over $200 from individuals who work for the fossil fuel industry. Miller said the proposal ― which has not yet been submitted to the DNC ― will hopefully lead candidates to adopt similar policies....
The energy and natural resource sectors, including fossil fuel producers and mining firms, gave $2.6 million to the DNC in 2016, according to data collected by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. That’s a pittance compared to the $56.1 million that came from the finance and real estate sectors, the DNC’s largest corporate donors that year. This year, the energy and natural resource sectors’ donations totaled $186,100 by the middle of May....
The coal mining industry gave 97 percent of its donations to Republicans in 2016 ― a figure that has dipped to 95 percent this year.
While it's not a huge change in how the money is currently distributed, it will have a cascading effect as Democratic politicians find it increasingly hard to accept fossil fuel contributions, and then be influenced by those donations. I think it will be even more important at the state and local level, where we'll be seeing most of the climate action for the time being.
And at some point the Ds will have the same control in Washington that they had for six months of Obama's first term, and this will give them more freedom to act.
I wonder just how far down the social scale the fossil fuel industry is going to plummet over the coming decades.
ReplyDeleteI take it democrats WILL continue to take "contributions" from ethanol, biodiesel, solar, wind and battery commercial interests?
ReplyDeleteAndy, around 1979 I was visiting Chicago, went to one of those high end pizza parlors where they seat you with others around a large table. As it runs out they sat me at a table with three rather upper class couples from California, who proceeded to ostracize me when they found out I was an engineer in the oil industry. What I've found over the years is that humanity includes a fair share of idiots who will take out on others for the dumbest of reasons, and that's never going to change. I have family in Texas, and own property there, and I don't sense any hostility. But that's possibly because the state is close to making more oil than Iran and the industry helps a booming economy.
ReplyDeleteI do assure you, however, that we in the oil industry will be quite happy to stick it to the consumer by charging the highest prices the market will bear, just like Microsoft and Starbucks do. We want to make you stare when you see what it costs at the pump, provided it's not due to state and federal taxes. Eventually, seeing that oil is running out, we want you to go and buy an electric vehicle and never again use anything with plastic, artificial fibers derived from hydrocarbons, or eat anything grown usng fertilizers manufactured using natural gas. You see, we want demand for our products to drop in a manageable fashion.
Taking money from the people who made sure your home was going to be underwater will probably not work well in Florida at some point in the future. None of the interests you name have that issue.
ReplyDeleteI don't see why I would buy an electric vehicle: I have legs.
ReplyDeleteAndy we "don't make sure your house will be underwater". If we decided to shut in all of the USA's gas wells for a week we would probably be arrested under Patriot Act clauses and given the death penalty. You guys are kinda funny demanding we freeze you to death.
ReplyDelete"don't make sure your house will be underwater". Yes the oil industry did: and in the states where its going to happen they have their Republican puppets trying to ban talk about sea level rise. They are so embarrassed by that they are resorting to Orwellian Newspeak tactics.
ReplyDelete"You guys are kinda funny demanding we freeze you to death". Do you get off on talking complete bollocks? That's so moronic its amazing people let you use a keyboard. But then I guess no rational person would be defending what you defend.
Yes Fernando, the oil and nat gas is going to run out eventually, but long before production goes to zero, the downward slope will set off a mad scramble for what's left. By then, the Population Bomb will be "exploding" in those nations which still experience high rates of reproduction due to old cultural and religious influences. The Green Revolution food production depends on that fertilizer you mention, as well as the other agricultural chemicals also from nat gas. There have already been reports of poor farmers in India who are unable to pay for those chemicals, men who then kill themselves because they can't support their families.
ReplyDeleteThe "explosion" will be a slow motion affair as the rates of migration from the lower latitudes toward the more wealthy Northern areas will accelerate. The migration problems in today's news will seem minor compared to the increasing tsunami of people on the move trying to survive. Sort of like what's happening in Venezuela, as you've pointed to previously, from internal mismanagement and external disruptions of vital materials and financial support. You ain't seen nothing yet.
"There have already been reports of poor farmers in India who" … who were conned by the fossil fuel industry into using unsustainable techniques that ruined their land.
ReplyDeleteE. Swanson, we are in a highly dynamic system, with unpredictable and sometimes irrational actors. For example, the EU just agreed to restrict immigration and return economic migrants. This policy doesn't require legislation because that's actually what the law allows for, and has been violated by Merkel. So now the EU will implement the policy that Victor Orban, the Hungarian leader who has been smeared all over for his "extreme right" position, has applied since 2016.
ReplyDeleteThe point is that it's unlikely the Alt Left advocacy of open borders will allow them to win elections in the future, even if they control universities and can brainwash youngsters to adopt suicidal ideas. Those hordes of starving people will be turned back.
I think it's going to be a very tough world, and we run a huge risk of falling in the hands of highly repressive (left, right, religious) dictatorships. I've been explaining the problem isn't global warming, but the lack of materials to burn. And I definitely don't want to live again in a socialist/communist environment, they are fanatics, and essentially the same as their Nazi counterparts.
"I've been explaining the problem isn't global warming, but the lack of materials to burn."
ReplyDeleteThere are many problems, but global warming caused by fossil carbon is one of the most profound.
You can argue with your cognitive scotomata and ideologies foaming from your mouth until you've burned the last barrel of oil, but it's not going to change the laws of physics, nor the laws of biology. You're a fool, Fernando Leanme, and a menace to the future, and history will note these facts even if there's little cohesive remnant of human society left to perceive and contemplate them.
Fernando, Yeah, the demographics of population growth look to be seriously bad. But, your "Burn Everything" solution will only make things worse. Not to mention your assumption that highly repressive governments of a "socialist/communist" philosophy would be any worse than that from the hard Right of Fascist persuasion. All Totalitarian governments seem willing to employ similar tactics for repression and control of dissent with similar results, the difference being which groups of society get whacked. Sad to say, the twin ecological problems of population and climate change can only be addressed by governments with more intervention into the daily lives of us consumers.
ReplyDeleteAs for migration, Here's a report about the impact of changing climate which mentions Central America.
Swanson, those Central Americans are on the move because they are overpopulated, badly run, and the USA left is encouraging them to move into the USA by the tens of millions. The same applies to the horde crossing the Med. Leftist policies appear to aim to stuffing developed nations with potential clients for welfare. Here in Spain we see them loafing, begging, selling necklaces and useless goods in violation of municipal norms, but they can't speak the language, many are illiterate, and just aren't fit for any job. They are just potential welfare recipients and voters for the socialists/communists.
ReplyDeleteNando, last time I was in Spain the Central and South American immigrants indeed faced many problems. But, umm, the language wasn't one of them.
ReplyDelete"many are illiterate, and just aren't fit for any job"
ReplyDeleteThat's odd because here in the UK its not migrants but people born in the UK to whom this description applies.
FL: I've been explaining the problem isn't global warming, but the lack of materials to burn.
ReplyDeleteBPL: I've been explaining the problem isn't that you're wrong, but more that you're clinically insane.
"...the lack of materials to burn."
ReplyDeleteFossil fuel apologists often accuse environmentalists of trying to send us all back to the stone age. That's ironic given that energy generation by burning stuff is technology associated with Homo Erectus. Fernando really does want to keep us all in the stone age: and the early stone age at that.
That's odd because here in the UK its not migrants but people born in the UK to whom this description applies.
ReplyDeletePerhaps Fernando was referring to all those British refugees in Spain? I hear there are entire colonies in Spain and Portugal.