Global Oil Demand Is Soaring and Refiners Are Reaping the Profit

Rachel Graham, Elizabeth Low and Devika Krishna Kumar, Bloomberg News

The U.S. gasoline crack is the highest it's been for this time of year since 2017 Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Fuel consumption is soaring around the globe, and with millions of barrels of daily refining capacity offline, refiners still in the game are reaping some of their fattest margins in years.

Globally, about 2.3 million barrels a day of refining capacity was shut during the pandemic and another 1 million barrels are likely to be shut in the next year, Facts Global Energy analyst Steve Sawyer said. That’s just as demand is returning to pre-pandemic levels. Fuel demand is soaring, with cars jamming roads again and gas-to-oil switching gaining speed ahead of winter.

As a result, refiners are enjoying hefty margins — a welcome change after a challenging 2020. In the U.S., the Nymex gasoline crack, a rough gauge of the margin refiners can capture with a barrel of crude based on futures prices in New York, was trading above $16 a barrel on Thursday, the highest since 2017, seasonally. Margins are also rising in Asia and Europe, where shortages of coal and natural gas are boosting the demand outlook for diesel, kerosene and propane ahead of winter.

The rising margins signal that crude oil demand will remain strong as refiners continue to process more to meet consumption needs. That could mean that global oil stockpiles will continue to fall in the coming months. Gasoline balances worldwide are set to tighten significantly over November and December, according to Energy Aspects.

U.S. margins are also being supported by seasonal refinery maintenance and a flurry of weather-related outages, most recently the flooding that ensued after the San Francisco-area experienced torrential rain earlier this week. That flooding pushed retail gasoline prices in San Francisco to an all-time high of $4.75 per gallon on Thursday, according to GasBuddy.

In Europe refiners have been making better profits on gasoline, partly as demand in transport has exceeded pre-pandemic levels. Italy’s demand for gasoline in September was above 2019 levels while French consumption of gasoline is improving faster than diesel.

Rotterdam gasoline’s premium to Brent crude, or crack, has risen in October to the highest seasonally in data going back to 2018.

Asian refiners’ profits reached pre-pandemic levels as fuels processing powerhouse China slashed oil product exports in the midst of its own energy shortage, boosting transport fuel margins across the region ahead of a winter that could require more heating fuels.

Additionally, road fuels demand is rebounding with traffic roaring back from Vietnam to Malaysia and Australia over the first half of October as virus-led restrictions on mobility eased, according to figures compiled by Apple Inc. Refining margins in Singapore are the highest seasonally since 2018.

“China’s energy crunch is reducing exports of gasoline and diesel both into and out of the region just when nations are coming out of Covid lockdowns and demand for both are rebounding,” Sawyer said.

To be sure, the power crisis is curbing profits for refiners that rely heavily on diesel production because of the surging cost of natural gas.

Diesel margins in Europe are not as high seasonally. And most margin estimates don’t include energy and hydrogen costs, which are soaring as the region’s natural gas prices have spiked. Hydrogen is particularly important in units known as hydrocrackers, the big diesel-making machines that have traditionally been the profit centers for the region’s refineries.

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

EXPROPRIATE BIG OIL
Canadian oil producer Suncor sees dividend doubling as sustainable

Petrochemical storage tanks are seen at the Suncor Energy chemical plant near Edmonton

By Rod Nickel

WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) -Suncor Energy Inc's strategy of returning cash to shareholders and repaying debt with its soaring profits is sustainable even if surging crude prices pull back, the company's chief executive said on Thursday.

The stock of Canada’s second-biggest oil producer climbed as much as 10% after it said late on Wednesday that it would double its dividend, reversing a cut made last year when lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic hammered fuel demand.

Suncor also said it would buy back more shares than it previously planned and repay debt faster, just a year and a half after the pandemic's spread reduced travel and generated losses for oil producers. The company reported a net profit of C$877 million ($710.58 million)for the third quarter after losing money a year earlier.

Suncor's strategy is sustainable even if West Texas Intermediate oil prices fall to $55 per barrel, from the current price around $82, CEO Mark Little said on a quarterly call with analysts.

"The business is looking really strong," Little said. "And when you look at consumer demand, although it's off a bit, you're seeing (refineries) recover and providing significant and stable cash flows."

Other Canadian oil companies will likely follow Suncor and return more cash to investors, TD Energy analyst Menno Hulshof said in a note.

But while higher oil prices have swelled profits, soaring natural gas prices have raised Suncor's costs. Like other oil sands producers, Suncor uses steam from burning natural gas to extract oil, and the gas price spike has raised production costs, the company said.

Suncor shares have risen 45% this year, but have lagged the TSX energy index, which has gained 73%, as the company wrestled with operational problems at its Fort Hills mine. The mine now looks to fully ramp up production by year-end.

Suncor returns dividend to 2019 levels, hikes buyback plan

Michelle Zadikian, BNN Bloomberg

Suncor Energy Inc. is sharing the wealth with its shareholders as it benefits from surging oil prices and progress on its plan to increase its annual free funds flow.

The oil producer announced Wednesday that its board of directors has approved a quarterly dividend hike of 100 per cent to $0.42 per common share, from $0.21 per share – marking a return to 2019 levels.

Suncor is also increasing its share buyback plan by an additional two per cent to roughly seven per cent of its float, or 107 million shares.

“Operational initiatives and higher commodity prices than expected have accelerated the achievement of two key objectives, namely increasing return of capital to shareholders and reducing net debt,” the company wrote in an after-hours press release.

Oil prices have rallied in recent months as rising demand has outstripped supply.

Suncor said as of Sept. 30, it had paid down $3.1 billion in debt so far this year, which will continue to be a focus for the company.

In a separate release late Wednesday, Suncor said it swung to an operating profit of $1.04 billion in the third quarter, compared to an operating loss of $338 million a year earlier. Meanwhile, its quarterly funds from operations more than doubled to $2.64 billion, from $1.17 billion in the prior year.

ABOLISH BANKRUPTCY LAW
L.A. Mega Mansion Once Floated for $500 Million Put in Bankruptcy

CHAPTER 11 US BANKRUPTCY ACT 

Steven Church and John Gittelsohn
Wed, October 27, 2021

(Bloomberg) -- The developer of one of the biggest homes ever built in the U.S. -- featuring a moat and 30-car garage -- filed for bankruptcy to keep lenders from foreclosing on the Los Angeles property.

Dubbed “The One,” the mansion was being developed by Crestlloyd LLC when a fight broke out with lenders, including Hankey Capital. The lenders went to court in Los Angeles claiming they weren’t being paid, according to court papers. Eventually a receiver was appointed to handle the project.

Crestlloyd “believes that the receiver has hampered efforts to complete the property, as well as to market, show, and sell the property in its current state,” the company said in bankruptcy court papers.

Ted Lanes, the court-appointed receiver, declined to comment Wednesday.

“I’m disappointed,” Don Hankey, whose specialty is subprime auto financing, said about the bankruptcy filing. “All we want is to get our capital returned.”

Hankey, who loaned more than $82.5 million for the project, had a foreclosure sale of the property set for Wednesday.

Property developers sometimes use bankruptcy as a way to block lenders from foreclosing. Under Chapter 11 rules, lawsuits, including state foreclosure actions, are halted to give a company the chance to reorganize and clear its debts.

“The One” is worth about $325 million, but only has $176 million worth of secured loans attached to the property, Crestlloyd claimed in court papers. Even if the property sells for half its original $500 million price, there’s still plenty of value to pay all the debts, Crestlloyd said.

Lanes planned to list the home for $225 million. The 105,000-square-foot (9,750-square-meter) main house - almost twice the size of the White House - features four swimming pools, a two-story waterfall, a nightclub, movie theater, four-lane bowling alley, beauty salon, spa, gym and cigar lounge.

The case is Crestlloyd LLC, 21-bk-18205, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Central District of California (Los Angeles).

Wall Street Journal Under Fire For Publishing Lie-Filled Letter From Trump

WELL AT LEAST IT WASN'T USA TODAY A MORE POPULIST PAPER

Josephine Harvey
Wed, October 27, 2021

The Wall Street Journal faced backlash Wednesday for publishing a letter to the editor from former President Donald Trump filled with demonstrably false claims about the 2020 election.

Responding to a Sunday Wall Street Journal editorial titled “The Election for Pennsylvania’s High Court,” the former president wrote, “Well actually, the election was rigged, which you, unfortunately, still haven’t figured out.”

He then provided a bulleted list of “examples” of voter fraud in Pennsylvania to support his claims, relying repeatedly on data from Audit the Vote PA, an organization that has no real experience in assessing elections and has promoted unsubstantiated claims of fraud.

Multiple audits into the state’s 2020 election results affirmed the vote count, and numerous lawsuits challenging the results failed in court. There is no evidence of widespread fraud in Pennsylvania or any other state’s election.

The Wall Street Journal published Trump’s letter without noting these facts. The former president was deplatformed from Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites earlier this year after spreading disinformation about the election for months and inciting a mob of his supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol to try and overturn the results.

Since then, Trump has resorted to campaign-style rallies and tweet-like statements released through his spokesperson to spread his lies.

Media critics, journalists and political commentators slammed the Journal Wednesday for giving Trump another platform for disinformation and for passing off his false claims as “opinion.”

“Trump couldn’t post this on Facebook but the editors at the WSJ collectively decided to put it on their platform. Think about that. And they think they can distance themselves from it by doing it as an LTE. As of that magically absolves them from pushing the lies,” tweeted Amanda Carpenter, political columnist for The Bulwark.

Jordan Fischer, an investigative reporter for Washington, D.C., channel WUSA9, called it a “new low” for the Journal’s opinion section.

“Today they printed a litany of election falsehoods from former President Trump – without even a single mention of the fact that their own editorial side has thoroughly debunked these claims,” he tweeted.

Washington Post national correspondent Philip Bump made 14 observations about the letter’s veracity and observed that “the Journal would have been better served had it explained why it chose to run the letter without contextualizing it, since that might have at least offered some clarity on the otherwise inexplicable decision.” He noted that the paper had so far declined to comment on its rationale.

The Wall Street Journal did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.

The real reason the Pentagon is sounding the alarm over China's hypersonic missile


Ryan Cooper, National correspondent

THE WEEK 
Wed, October 27, 2021,


Mark Milley. Illustrated | Getty Images, iStock

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, the top-ranking U.S. military officer, warned Wednesday about a scary-sounding new "hypersonic" missile. "I don't know if it's quite a Sputnik moment, but I think it's very close to that," he said in an interview, referencing the famous Soviet satellite. Supposedly these weapons are faster, more accurate, and harder to detect than any previous nuclear weapon.

Milley is wildly exaggerating. As Cameron Tracy from the Union of Concerned Scientists explains in detail, a hypersonic missile is essentially little different from the intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that have been around for decades. They are not much faster, or stealthier, or immune to detection. And while a hypersonic missile would be nearly impossible to shoot down, that is already true of ICBMs which themselves can travel at 20 times the speed of sound. Tests of anti-ballistic missile technology under ideal conditions have worked sometimes and failed sometimes, but a realistic massed attack of multiple-warhead missiles would be impossible to defend against.

Even if all the most Elon Musk-esque hype about this hyper-missile were correct, it would change nothing whatsoever about the logic of nuclear competition. Even if China actually could destroy every single American city and nuclear installation in one swift strike with 100 percent certainty, they would still face the existential threat of retaliation from nuclear submarines — not to mention nuclear winter, plus the fact that the Chinese economy would collapse instantly without America buying its exports. The logic of mutually-assured destruction which kept the USSR and America out of war for 40 years holds.

The real reason Milley is whipping up panic can be found later in the interview: "We're going to have to adjust our military going forward," he said. That is code for spending trillions and trillions of dollars on our own fancy hyper-weapons that also serve no strategic purpose (and in all probability won't even work).

With the decline in worries about terrorism, the military-industrial complex needs a new bogeyman to justify the preposterously bloated and wasteful Pentagon budget. A new cold war against China would fit that bill. So there is a danger of hypersonic missiles — that they will be used to whip up fear in both China and the U.S., and lead those countries to waste ludicrous sums on pointless murder gizmos that would be better spent helping their own citizenry.

SEE

 LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for PERMANENT ARMS ECONOMY 

FRACKQUAKES

Two earthquakes rock Odessa Tuesday

Odessa American, Texas
Tue, October 26, 2021,

Oct. 27—Two earthquakes shook most of Odessa shortly after 5 p.m. Tuesday at 3.4 and 3.6, the USGS reported.

This comes following reports that most, if not all, of a half-dozen oil companies will comply with the Texas Railroad Commission's request to reduce their saltwater injections into disposal wells and thereby mitigate the increasing problem of earthquakes around the Permian Basin.

Last week the Odessa American reported It may be a year before the quakes subside, that is if the reductions work.

Fasken Oil & Ranch, Rattler Midstream Operating, COG Operating, Occidental Permian, Pioneer Natural Resources and Wasser Operating were asked Sept. 23 to decrease their daily pumping to fewer than 10,000 barrels and spokesmen say they'll do it.

Fasken Oil Director Tommy Taylor said his company's five wells were only injecting 5,000 to 8,000 barrels per day anyway in the Gardendale Seismic Response Area, so the RRC's initiative won't impede business.

Taylor, chairman-elect of the Permian Basin Petroleum Association, said he "had been watching this for several years as it progressed.

"Part of those earthquakes were off to the east of Fasken's property, but most of them were south," he said.

Taylor said it "is a very complex problem to solve" because the source or sources of the tremors are hard to pinpoint in the San Andres and Ellenburger formations and the Midland and Delaware basins underground.

However, referring to similar actions taken by the RRC in the Azle area west of Fort Worth and by the Oklahoma Corporation Commission in Oklahoma, he said, "Reducing the injection volumes at Azle and in Oklahoma helped in those areas and I suspect it will help here."

The RRC said it had stopped issuing permits for saltwater disposal wells in the Gardendale Seismic Response Area and that its notice to operators "was an administrative action by RRC staff to move toward mitigating earthquakes near Midland and Odessa and better protect public safety and the environment, which is critical to the mission of the agency."

Asked why the notice was a request rather than an order, RRC spokesman Andrew Keese said, "We have already had a good response from some operators in the response area and we are confident we will have cooperation from the other operators as the agency works to address this issue."

The U.S. Geological Survey reported a 3.7-magnitude quake eight miles northwest of Midland Sept. 7 and it said six of greater than 3.5 magnitude had occurred in that area among a total of 81 of 1.5 magnitude and above during the past 18 months.

Nikole Hannah-Jones urges NC educators to fight against ‘anti-history laws’



T. Keung Hui, Kate Murphy
Tue, October 26, 2021

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones urged supporters of public education in North Carolina on Tuesday to organize to fight “anti-history laws” being promoted by Republican lawmakers.

Hannah-Jones said the left hasn’t gotten “mad enough” in opposing the “culture war that has been contrived by the right wing” that has led to laws banning schools from teaching things such as her 1619 Project.

She said at an online forum of North Carolina educators that people are living in “dark and scary times” where teachers are ”afraid to even teach and talk about the experiences that their children are having.”

“We’re being outgunned right now and I think that’s because this is not an issue that’s getting enough of the people on the left angry,” Hannah-Jones said. “People on the right are very angry and anger is often what inspires you to organize and to push for laws and to push for these changes.”

Hannah-Jones was the keynote speaker Tuesday at The Color of Education Summit, a two-day virtual event drawing 1,600 people “to engage in critical conversations centered on addressing issues of racial equity and education.

The summit is sponsored by the Public School Forum of North Carolina’s Dudley Flood Center for Educational Equity and Opportunity, the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity and the Center for Child and Family Policy at Duke University,
Leader of 1619 Project

Hannah-Jones is a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine focused on racial injustice best known for her work on The 1619 Project. The project reframes the legacy of slavery and places the contributions of Black Americans at the forefront of the country’s history and is often cited in the local, state and national debate over teaching Critical Race Theory.

Hannah-Jones was named the Knight Chair in Race and Journalism at Howard University this summer after turning down a similar position at UNC-Chapel Hill that sparked national controversy. She was set to join the UNC-CH faculty this fall, but wasn’t initially granted tenure by the UNC-CH Board of Trustees. Some argued that decision, or lack thereof, was rooted in conservative politics and The 1619 Project.

She is a MacArthur “Genius” grant winner and was recently recognized as one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people.

1619 Project under attack

The 1619 Project has been cited by Republicans at the federal and state level to introduce legislation prohibiting Critical Race Theory from being taught in schools.

U.S. Senator Thom Tillis is among the sponsors of federal legislation to defund any school system that uses the 1619 Project as teaching materials, The News & Observer previously reported.

“The 1619 Project is a racially divisive and revisionist account of history that threatens the integrity of the Union by denying the true principles on which it was founded,” the federal legislation says.

Republican lawmakers passed legislation that they say would prevent North Carolina public schools from promoting Critical Race Theory. The legislation was vetoed by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, who said the bill “pushes calculated, conspiracy-laden politics into public education,” the N&O reported.

Opponents of Critical Race Theory have charged that it presents an overly negative view of the nation’s history in which teachers say that white people unfairly get privileges due to their race.

Hannah-Jones said Critical Race Theory is only being taught in colleges. But she said “bad-faith actors” have redefined Critical Race Theory to target the American history, Black history and anti-racism texts being taught in K-12 public schools.

“You’re teaching in a school district that was segregated by law,” Hannah-Jones said. “To talk about that is to not teach about Critical Race Theory. That is to teach the history of our country and to help our students.”

If these “anti-history laws” stand, Hannah-Jones said the nation is in danger of teaching students to support inequity in society.

Nation in ‘dark and scary times’

Valerie Bridges, the superintendent of Edgecombe County Public Schools, asked Hannah-Jones how educators can empower parents who support mask mandates and support learning about all races. Critics of mask mandates and Critical Race Theory have shown up at school board meetings across the country.

Hannah-Jones said educators need to show parents what’s being taught as opposed to what the right says students are learning. She said parents and other education supporters need to organize to speak out at meetings and to write letters to the editors like the opposition.

“We pay attention to those who are the loudest when we need to pay attention to those who are the most rational and acting in good faith,” Hannah-Jones said.

Hannah-Jones said the situation in North Carolina has gotten worse since she was a reporter at The News & Observer.

“We have to stop being so passive in believing that things are going to work out in the end,” she said. “They are not. Trust me, as a student of history, we are actually in a very dangerous period.”

Ritzy Prep School Head on Leave After ‘1619 Project’ Debacle

Noah Kirsch
Thu, October 28, 2021

Arturo Holmes/Getty

The head of a ritzy New England boarding school is taking a leave of absence, following backlash over a decision to block The New York Times writer Nikole Hannah-Jones from speaking on campus.

Hannah-Jones, founder of the Times’ 1619 Project, had been invited to speak to students during a planned diversity symposium next winter. But the head of school, David Beare, allegedly intervened, fearing her presence would create too much “noise,” according to the excerpt of an email Hannah-Jones posted to her Twitter account.

The decision sparked outcry from alumni, while current students staged a walkout. Close to 100 faculty members reportedly wrote a letter of protest as well.

In a note addressed to the Middlesex community on Thursday, which The Daily Beast obtained, Beare wrote that he believed a leave of absence “serves the best interest of the students and the School. Thank you to everyone in the School community who has reached out to me and my family during this challenging time.”

Alums Pissed After Ritzy Prep School Disinvites 1619 Writer

In a separate note sent late last week, and jointly signed by Beare and the president of the board of trustees, Stephen Lari, the pair apologized for what they called a “profoundly wrong” decision.

“We deeply regret it and have had many gut-wrenching conversations within our community regarding the decision, how it was made, and the disrespect we showed Professor Hannah-Jones,” they added.

The board of trustees stated that the entire group had not been consulted on the matter in advance.

In yet another letter sent on Thursday, the board announced that Middlesex’ assistant head of school, Karlyn McNall, would assume Beare’s role on an interim basis.

They also announced an independent review “to determine the facts and draw the necessary lessons” from last week’s debacle.

During the fallout, Middlesex had been criticized for its apparent hypocrisy. Less than two weeks ago, it had published an open letter espousing its commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and citing the importance of the “open exchange of viewpoints.”

The board sought to address that dissonance on Thursday, writing that “this experience has only reinforced the need for thoughtful discussions… With the help of students, faculty, staff, alumni, parents and the school’s leadership, we can emerge from this moment as a stronger, more unified, and more thoughtful and sensitive community.”

FAUX POLYESTER
A Polyester Alternative Launches to Market — Can It Transform the Textile Industry?

Natalie Theodosi
Tue, October 26, 2021


LONDON — Even as climate change conversations reach the mainstream, there are 111 million metric tons of fabrics being produced on a yearly basis — an alarming 18 million of which is made up of oil-based nylon and polyester, which take over 1,000 years to biodegrade.

“Actually we don’t know how these fibers will break down, our ancestors will tell us,” said Carlo Centoze, cofounder and chief executive officer of HeiQ, a textile innovation company.

Since “no one wants to start walking around naked,” the world is in dire need of a scalable alternative to these fibers, according to Centoze — who after many years of research, might have the solution.

It’s called AeoniQ, a cellulose yarn spun from algae, bacteria or recycled fibers.

“Bacteria were the first organisms to produce this biopolymer more than 3 billion years ago. The solution has always been there, we just had to rediscover it and use technology to come up with a product. Over many years we built processes which allow us to spin cellulose in a way that it reaches the performance of polyester independent of the sources we are using, be it algae, bacteria, or recycled sources,” explained Centoze.

“Our tech allows us to use all sources, so we finally have a possibility to produce at scale. The problem with the world is this concept of ‘at scale’ as we need to replace 18 million tonnes of polyester and nylon per year. This technology is versatile enough to use many raw material sources, allowing us to have a big available base of biopolymer, meaning we are actually becoming serious about replacing polyester and nylon.”

There’s robust demand for such a fiber in the market, as conventional recycling of polyester and nylon fabrics isn’t a viable solution — whether you are washing virgin or recycled nylon, micro-plastics still end up in the ocean, in fish and in food chains.

“They go into every organism, not just fish but also algae. They are in the food chain, they create inflammations and health issues and break down the ecosystems. Polyester is the worst, because the density is such that it stays suspended between 3 to 10 meters in the ocean where there’s life. So we’re killing more and more life every day,” contended Centoze. “We need something we can wash, that goes into the ocean but degrades quickly, not over thousands of years. It should take months or a year at most to biodegrade. That’s where we need to get as a society, to make materials that can do that and brands need to design products that are built for those materials.”

Even organic fibers like cotton, which can easily biodegrade, have other harmful environmental effects — in the case of cotton, it takes 25,000 liters of water to make a single T-shirt and extensive cotton production uses up enormous amounts of land, leading once again to the breakdown of ecosystems.

Carlo Centonze, cofounder and CEO of HeiQ Group. -

 Credit: Courtesy of HeiQ, Lucia Hunziker

So, innovative new materials are the “best available solution today” and HeiQ is on a mission to scale its solution as quickly as possible.

A production plant is currently being set up in Austria, with a pilot run of the first commercial samples slated for March 2022 for a limited number of partners — Lycra being among the first. From there the aim is to scale as quickly as possible and recruit as many partners as possible to allow the company to maximize production and be in a position to replace the 18 million tonnes of nylon and polyester being produced every year. By next year, its capacity will be at 300,000 tonnes.

“By 2050, there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish. It’s 2021 now, so we need to hurry. That’s why we will really try to maximize the adoption of our technology on a global scale,” said Centoze, adding that industry stakeholders can no longer deny climate change, so market response is expected to be immediate. “The times of oil lobbyists paying the scientists to deny the issue are over. Everybody knows it’s a problem and we have to solve it.”

HeiQ is also ensuring that it offers competitive price points to further drive its mission of replacing oil-based fibers with the new AeoniQ textile. It currently retails for $5 a square meter, which adheres to market standards for conventional textiles, and aims to drop prices further once scale is achieved.

“Cost is always a big aspect. I’m a strong believer that a green technology must come at the same price points as non-green technology, but prices of polyester and nylon are driven by scale,” said Centoze.

As this new technology becomes more widely adopted, Centoze added that the remainder of the responsibility lies with the designers, who need to learn to design clothes with fewer material components that aren’t just recyclable but biodegradable, too. “It requires a shift in mind-set. Consumers select for for fit, for comfort, for price and have limited knowledge. It comes down to those who design the products for our industry: They have to step up and join in. We want to share all our know-how and pull the industry together, but they will be ultimately responsible to set the tone with their designs.”

USA

Slavery-era Georgia law is key defense argument in trial over Ahmaud Arbery's killing

Rich McKay and Jonathan Allen

Wed, October 27, 2021

  (Reuters) - A pivotal defense argument of the three white men on trial in Georgia for killing Ahmaud Arbery, a Black jogger, is that they were trying to make a citizen's arrest under a Civil War-era law that was later repealed amid an uproar over the shooting. 

  When the fatal encounter occurred on Feb. 23, 2020, it was legal in Georgia for people to arrest someone where they had "reasonable and probable grounds of suspicion" that the person had just committed a felony. Outcry over the killing led to lawmakers revoking the statute in May. 

  Legal observers say prosecutors will seek to convince the jury that there was no felony over which to arrest Arbery, 25, and that the three men lacked the "reasonable and probable suspicion" required under the old citizen's arrest law. The trial is in the second week of jury selection. 

  Before Arbery's killing, the law had been largely unchanged since it was codified in 1863, when Georgia was part of the slaveholding Southern Confederacy during the U.S. Civil War. 

  Most U.S. states have codified some form of a law allowing citizen's arrests. The American Civil Liberties Union and others that successfully sought to repeal the law said the state's statute was originally passed to enable the capture of escaped slaves. 

  Chris Slobogin, a law professor at Tennessee's Vanderbilt University, said citizen's arrest laws put dangerous powers in untrained hands. 

  "Things can get out of control quickly," he said. 

  Travis McMichael, 35, his father, Gregory McMichael, 65, and their neighbor William "Roddie" Bryan, 52, say they suspected Arbery was a burglar and chased him in two pickup trucks as he ran down a street in mostly white Satilla Shores, a suburb of the small coastal city of Brunswick. 

  Just before he was cornered and shot to death, Arbery had entered an unoccupied property where a house was under construction. The owner of the property has said nothing was taken and that Arbery, who was on a Sunday afternoon jog, probably just stopped there for a drink of water. 

  "Citizen's arrest is a big part of our case, a big part," Kevin Gough, a lawyer for Bryan, said in an interview earlier this month before the judge presiding over the murder trial in Glynn County Superior Court issued a partial gag order. 

  "They changed the law, but changing the law doesn't affect us. It doesn't change what was the law of the land at the time." 

  Arbery's family believes, however, that the three men were suspicious of Arbery simply because he was Black. In a statement made to investigators, Bryan said the younger McMichael cursed Arbery, using a racial slur while standing over the body. 

  'NOBLE IDEA' 

  Ira Robbins, a law professor at American University in Washington, wrote in an academic paper that many states' citizen's arrest laws are broad. In California, for example, someone can make an arrest for a felony if the person has probable cause to believe it was committed. 

  "While recruiting citizens to aid in eradicating crime is a noble idea," Robbins wrote, strict safeguards are needed to prevent the law being abused. 

  New York state has the strictest law, holding residents liable for false arrest if no crime was committed, even if they had reasonable belief, "leaving no room for mistakes," Robbins wrote. 

  In Georgia, the elected county prosecutor who first looked at the Arbery case accepted the citizen's arrest rationale offered by the three white men and concluded they should not be arrested, according to Glynn County police. 

  That decision drew outrage after May 5, when a cellphone video recorded by Bryan showing the men chasing and killing Arbery was published by a local news outlet and quickly spread online. 

  After the Georgia Bureau of Investigation took over the case from the police, the men were quickly arrested and charged with crimes including false imprisonment, aggravated assault and murder, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. 

  In repealing the law, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp said Arbery was "the victim of vigilante-style violence that has no place in Georgia," and that the statute was "ripe for abuse." 

  The ACLU's Georgia chapter said the old law was an example of systemic racism and empowered mobs that lynched Black people in more than 500 recorded cases in Georgia between 1882 and 1968. 

  A new, narrower law still allows for private citizens to detain people in a few limited circumstances, such as a shopkeeper who catches someone shoplifting. 

  (Reporting by Rich McKay and Jonathan Allen; Editing by Ross Colvin and Peter Cooney) 

The dirty dozen: meet America’s top climate villains



Georgia Wright, Liat Olenick and Amy Westervelt

THE GUARDIAN
Wed, October 27, 2021, 


For too long, Americans were fed a false narrative that they should feel individually guilty about the climate crisis. The reality is that only a handful of powerful individuals bear the personal responsibility.

The nation’s worst polluters managed to evade accountability and scrutiny for decades as they helped the fossil fuel industry destroy our planet. The actions of these climate supervillains have affected millions of people, disproportionately hurting the vulnerable who have done the least to contribute to global emissions.

Working- and middle-class people must stop blaming themselves for the climate crisis. Instead, it’s time to band together to seek justice and hold these profiteers accountable. Only in calling out their power and culpability is it possible to reclaim the world that belongs to all of us, together.


•••

THE WOKE-WASHER
Mike Wirth

Chairman of the board and CEO of Chevron

Mike Wirth captains Chevron, a notorious corporate polluter responsible for one of the highest total carbon emissions of any private company worldwide.

Under Wirth’s direction, Chevron has pursued several greenwashing tactics to downplay the company’s environmental impact. A coalition of environmental groups filed a Federal Trade Commission complaint against Chevron earlier this year saying it misled the public by claiming responsibility only for carbon emissions associated with refining and transporting oil, not the total emissions created by the product it sells.

Wirth also sits on the board of the American Petroleum Institute, an oil industry trade group with a long track record of spreading climate denial and delaying legislative efforts to curb carbon emissions.

In his own words: “Let them plant trees.”

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THE RINGLEADER
Darren Woods

Chairman of the board and CEO of Exxon

ExxonMobil is publicly known as one of the first oil companies to become aware of climate change, more than 40 years ago. Still, Exxon spent millions of dollars spreading climate denial while simultaneously contributing the fourth largest amount of carbon emissions of any investor-owned company in the world.

Woods, who has been with the company since 1992, makes more than $20m a year. And though he expressed support for the 2015 Paris agreement to substantially reduce global pollution, leaked documents showed his plan for the company to increase its emissions by 17% through 2025.

Earlier this year, Exxon lobbyists were captured on video revealing the company’s efforts to obstruct climate legislation in Congress. Woods later tried to distance himself and the company from the lobbyists, saying they “in no way represent” Exxon’s position.

In his own words: Woods once called carbon reduction standards “a beauty match, a beauty competition”.

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THE ENABLER
Jamie Dimon

CEO of Chase Bank

Billionaire Jamie Dimon is top dog at JP Morgan Chase, which has provided $317bn in fossil fuel financing – 33% more than any other bank – since the Paris agreement was adopted in 2015. Under Dimon, Chase has also funneled more than $2bn into tar sands projects between 2016 and 2019.

When Chase’s managing director, Greg Determann, was asked early this year if the company would still lend to oil and gas companies despite the worsening climate crisis, Determann replied: “‘Mr Dimon is quite focused on the industry. It’s a huge business for us and that’s going to be the case for decades to come.”

In his own words: “The solution is not as simple as walking away from fossil fuels.”

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THE FINANCIER
Larry Fink

CEO of BlackRock

As the chief executive of BlackRock, Fink oversees one of the world’s largest fossil fuel investment portfolios, with $87bn behind the industry.

And though Fink has made sweeping climate promises and even wrote an op-ed about achieving a “net-zero” world, his company has profited off deforestation – a major cause of rising emissions – more than any other company globally.

Fink has also pushed BlackRock to vote against pro-climate action shareholder resolutions – all while angling for money from the federal government that should go to climate projects.

In his own words: “Without global action, every nation will bear enormous costs from a warming planet, including damage from more frequent natural disasters and supply-chain failures.”

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THE KINGPIN
Charles Koch

Chairman and CEO of Koch Industries

Alongside his now-deceased brother David, Charles Koch has a lengthy résumé of climate malfeasance. The multibillionaire is the longtime head of Koch Industries, a refining, petrochemical and pipeline company labeled by Greenpeace as a “kingpin of climate denial”.

The Kochs, and particularly Charles, moved early to politicize climate change. Charles founded and funded the Cato Institute, a libertarian thinktank known to coordinate and distribute climate denial, which became the first organization to stoke the ideological divide on the climate crisis. Koch Industries went on to spend nearly $150m financing climate denial groups between 1997 and 2018 alone.

Since his brother’s death, Charles has attempted to backtrack on his legacy of sowing hyper-partisan division. But according to OpenSecrets, Koch Industries is the top spender ($5.6m) on annual lobbying on oil and gas so far this year.

In his own words: “Boy did we screw up. What a mess!”

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THE OBSTRUCTIONIST
Mitch McConnell

Senate minority leader

Mitch McConnell admitted to believing in human-caused climate change only in 2020. He is also the chief architect of ongoing Republican obstructionism. Under President Obama, whose climate actions he smeared as a “war on coal”, McConnell used the filibuster to block even tepid climate reforms supported by a majority of Americans.

Under Trump, McConnell nuked the judicial filibuster in order to put three anti-science, pro-corporate justices on the supreme court, including Amy Coney-Barrett, who maintains deep family ties to big oil (her father worked at Shell for decades). And now, McConnell is ensuring that 100% of Republicans will vote against all of Biden’s climate agenda.

McConnell is also heavily funded by the fossil fuel industry, to the tune of more than $3m over the course of his infamous career.

In his own words: “I’m not a scientist.”

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THE SABOTEUR
Joe Manchin

US senator

Today, Joe Manchin is most famous for being a swing vote for important legislation, but the real story is how the fossil fuel industry made him mega-wealthy through two coal companies he founded in the 1980s.

While even coalminers in his home state of West Virginia support a Green New Deal, Manchin uses his position to hold climate legislation hostage on behalf of the fossil fuel industry – which he is doing by threatening to vote against Biden’s Build Back Better climate agenda. The Exxon lobbyists caught on tape earlier this year specifically identified Manchin as “their guy”, and said they meet with him several times a week.

According to OpenSecrets, Manchin takes more money from the fossil fuel industry than any other Democrat.

In his own words: “If you’re sticking your head in the sand, and saying that fossil [fuel] has to be eliminated in America … and thinking that’s going to clean up the global climate, it won’t clean it up at all. If anything, it would be worse.”

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THE PROPAGANDIST
Mark Zuckerberg

Facebook founder and CEO

Zuckerberg, whose net worth is $120bn, shows a consistent willingness to profit off the spread of climate denial on behalf of the fossil fuel industry. In April 2021, Zuckerberg told Congress climate misinformation was “a big issue”, yet Facebook has done little to rein in climate denial or challenge the fossil fuel industry.

Last year, pro-fossil fuel Facebook ads were viewed 431m times. In just the first half of 2020, ​ads on Facebook calling climate change a hoax were viewed at least 8m times in the United States alone.

In 2019, an article falsely attributing climate change to Earth’s solar orbit went viral, accumulating millions of views without intervention by the company. And this year, one report found that in just the first two months of 2021, Facebook spread climate denial to more than 25 million people, including posts about wind turbines being to blame after Texas froze over in February.

Meanwhile, Facebook has muzzled actual climate scientists trying to share peer-reviewed research.

In his own words: “Move fast and break things. Unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough.”

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THE TYCOON
Rupert Murdoch

Founder of News Corp

The father of international media conglomerate News Corp and the CEO of Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, and many other outlets, Australian American tycoon Rupert Murdoch has overseen his companies’ rampant spreading of misinformation and climate denial for decades, netting him over $23bn.

Although Murdoch has claimed his company does not support climate denial, his news outlets have published article after article sowing doubt in climate science. Meanwhile, as of 2019, more than 80% of climate coverage on Fox News was steeped in denial, according to an analysis by the consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen.

In his own words: “Climate change has been going on as long as the planet is here, and there will always be a little bit of it.”

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THE DESTROYER
David MacLennan

CEO of Cargill

Rainforests are the most important climate regulators in the world. But Cargill, a global food corporation helmed by MacLennan, has a profit model based on rainforest destruction caused by soy and beef production, particularly in the Amazon.

MacLennan has been in charge of the company’s global strategy since 2013. He was calling the shots when, in 2019, former congressman Henry Waxman called Cargill the “worst company in the world”, referring to its track record on deforestation.

Thanks to public pressure, Cargill did recently declare a moratorium on buying agricultural products from illegally cleared rainforest, but there is evidence that under MacLennan’s leadership, the company is already ignoring its own commitment.

In his own words: When asked why Cargill wasn’t eliminating deforestation from its supply chain: “The supply chains in Brazil are very complicated.”

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THE FABULIST
Richard Edelman

CEO of Edelman PR

Edelman heads the global communications firm Edelman PR, which made tens of millions of dollars over the years by working with fossil fuel companies. His firm has created multi-pronged PR, advertising and lobbying campaigns with ExxonMobil, TransCanada, the American Petroleum Institute and Shell – prompting high-profile clients and executives to leave over the firm’s work peddling climate denial.

In 2015, Edelman announced that the firm would stop accepting climate denier assignments, but he has since claimed that the firm’s work for Shell, ExxonMobil and more don’t technically qualify as climate denial.

Tax filings show that since that 2015 announcement, the firm has raked in $12m for its work with the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers alone, whose most recent focus has been increasing criminal penalties for pipeline protesters.

In his own words: “I’m proud of what our firm is doing to build a house of trust through our mission, values, and actions.”

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THE SMOOTH TALKER
Ted Boutrous

Partner of Gibson Dunn law firm

As Chevron’s lead attorney and the main spokesman for all the oil companies in some two dozen climate liability cases, Boutrous sets the agenda in answering to the fossil fuel industry’s decades of lies about climate change. His argument before the courts hinges on the idea that every person shares equal blame for the climate crisis, and that it’s “counterproductive” to hold the fossil fuel industry particularly responsible.

Law Students for Climate Accountability rates Gibson Dunn among the worst of the worst on its climate scorecard for having the second-highest amount of fossil fuel litigation work of all 26 firms the group evaluated.

In his own words: “Chevron is a great company and great client with a strong culture of social responsibility.”


Illustrations by Jason Goad