United ArcelorMittal workers in Canada vote for strike



12 May, 2021   With a near 100 per cent majority, ArcelorMittal workers in Canada’s Quebec region have rejected the last offer from company management and called for an indefinite strike over wages, pensions and broken promises.

2,500 workers of ArcelorMittal Mining Canada in Port-Cartier, Fermont and Fire Lake participated in the vote, which returned between 97 to 99.8 per cent support to reject the company’s offer and in support of an indefinite strike.

"Taking the hard way out, our members decided to strike so that ArcelorMittal would share its staggering profits with the workers, for the benefit of their region, rather than just the shareholders,”

says Dominic Lemieux, Metallos (USW) Quebec director.

Workers had organized permanent picket lines in front of the company's facilities in Port-Cartier and Fermont.

The union is demanding better wages and pensions, improved working conditions as well as premiums for living in the North. As the price of iron is at a record high, workers argue it is high time that ArcelorMittal respect and acknowledge their immense contribution.

In addition, promises made during the 2017 negotiations have not been fulfilled, for example with regards to the hygiene of certain sites and the quality of some food served to workers.

Valter Sanches, IndustriALL Global Union general secretary, expresses solidarity with the workers and demand that ArcelorMittal returns to the bargaining table:

“The high level of support from the workers is a very direct indication of the trust between the members and their union. This is a clear signal to ArcelorMittal management to immediately return to the bargaining table and negotiate in good faith to find a solution."

IndustriALL informed ArcelorMittal global union network members and asked to extend solidarity to their sisters and brothers in Quebec, Canada.

http://www.industriall-union.org/united-arcelormittal-workers-in-canada-vote-for-strike

IndustriALL and Anglo American set framework for global dialogue





Read this article in:
English
Русский
Français
Español

10 May, 2021

In a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed today with the support of the global union network, IndustriALL and Anglo American commit to sound industrial relations across Anglo American’s global operations.

Anglo American recognizes IndustriALL as global counterpart and pledges its commitments for ILO fundamental rights at work and puts in place mechanisms to ensure a permanent monitoring of workers’ effective access to these fundamental rights.

The global dialogue mechanism will take place at least twice a year.

Among other things, the global dialogue mechanism provides for:

identifying collaboration opportunities on health and safety issues at the workplace, including gender-based violence

an opportunity for discussing Anglo American’s code of conduct and an environment to work on policy matters of shared interest, like how to manage the introduction to new technologies

 
continuous dialogue and joint action on Covid-19 responses to mitigate the impact on workers and communities

a dialogue on how to achieve a Just Transition for coal industry workers

a joint commitment to the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA)

Says Anglo American CEO, Mark Cutifiani:

“The last year has again reminded us of the value of collaboration across the mining industry. As economies reopen and we transition towards a lower carbon future, dialogue with our employees and their representatives has never been more important. I therefore very much welcome the chance to continue the dialogue we have with IndustriALL and look forward to further productive cooperation.”

Today’s signature is the culmination of a process that began at the height of the commodities crises when workers across the mining industry were losing their jobs. and protests and strikes characterized industrial relations. Covid-19 brought another testing period for the mining industry but also proved an opportunity for further dialogue and collaboration between the two parties.

Says IndustriALL general secretary, Valter Sanches:

“This memorandum of understanding is ground-breaking for the mining industry and provides open channels between us and Anglo American in order to improve conflict resolution processes. The commitment goes beyond effective access to fundamental rights at work and extends to health and safety, managing the introduction of new technologies and a Just transition for coal miners and the communities around Anglo American’s operations.”

Anglo American is the world's largest producer of platinum, with around 40 per cent of world output, as well as a major producer of diamonds, copper, nickel, iron ore, and metallurgical and thermal coal with 90,000 employees.

http://www.industriall-union.org/industriall-and-anglo-american-set-framework-for-global-dialogue

 Global unions to withdraw from unenforceable garment factory safety scheme in Bangladesh


12 May, 2021IndustriALL Global Union and UNI Global Union, the labour signatories of the Bangladesh Accord, have today given notice to withdraw from the RMG Sustainability Council (RSC) in Bangladesh on 1 June.

The withdrawal means that IndustriALL, UNI and local unions in Bangladesh will no longer be part of the RSC and its Board of Directors—stripping away any credibility of the RSC as an effective worker safety organization.

The RSC was created by the Accord through negotiations with the Bangladeshi garment industry in order to include factory owners as stakeholders, with the understanding of a new legally-binding agreement between unions and brands to succeed the Accord.

The global unions cannot accept replacing the extremely effective Accord model with an alternative proposal from brands derived from the failed approaches of the decades prior to the Rana Plaza industrial homicide.

In recent months, global apparel brands have insisted upon a new framework for the future which discards the key elements that have led to the Accord’s success in making garment factories in Bangladesh safe for workers, for example individual brand accountability and independent monitoring of the brands.

The brands’ empty promises to renew the Accord and derogatory counter proposals have led to a critical point in Bangladesh garment factory safety and risk the lives of millions of garment workers in Bangladesh.

IndustriALL Global Union General Secretary Valter Sanches said:

“The Accord and the independent secretariat empowered to report on brand performance, and more recently through the cooperation agreement with the RSC, have successfully prevented the loss of lives during the last eight years. The brands’ proposal of self-monitoring is a dangerous step backwards and undermines the credibility of the programme. It will have immediate consequences for the safety of millions of workers in the brands’ supply chains.”

UNI Global Union General Secretary Christy Hoffman said:

“Instead of bargaining over the next phase of our joint safety work in Bangladesh, the brands have pursued an ‘Accord Exit’ strategy designed to write away any meaningful role for unions in the future. We can’t be a rubber stamp for an industry-brand partnership without real accountability and robust oversight. This is a time when we should be moving forward and building on progress, not going in reverse.”

The Accord model has been widely cited as unparalleled in its success and in its consistency with UN Guiding Principles, OECD guidelines, and the tenets of credible supply chain responsibility and business and human rights obligations.

Union busting at Novartis in India

12 May, 2021In the last few years, workers at Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis’ operations in India have been subjected to rights violations, where the local management refuses to engage with the long-established union.

IndustriALL Global Union, Swiss affiliate Unia, and Swiss campaigning organisation MultiWatch are joining forces to support the Indian union colleagues.

Since it was formed in 1984, the Novartis Employees Union (NEU) in India has enjoyed a constructive relationship with management.

In January 2017, the union and management agreed on a Memorandum of Settlement (MoS), whereby both parties commit to meet three times a year to solve grievances. Not only was this not followed; management unilaterally tried to change employment conditions instead of using the established collective bargaining process.

The MoS expired in December 2018 and the NEU submitted a new charter of demands in March 2019. But so far, management has refused to meet with the union to continue collective bargaining.

In their quest to bust the union, management manipulated the appraisal system to be used in a punitive way against union members and even as base for unfair dismissals. Management also informed newspapers about planned dismissals before informing workers and the union. Against the public position of the Novartis’ chairman of the board, management in India used the Covid-19 pandemic to enact mass dismissals.

The union says that they have tried all possible avenues to rebuild relations and trust, but that management continues to disregard agreed protocols and honour the written agreements and understandings.

In a joint letter with Swiss union Unia and human rights organization Multiwatch, IndustriALL calls on the CEO of Novartis, based in Switzerland to intervene and

“to work with the management in India and remind them of the global social commitments of the Novartis group. These violations are a serious black mark on the image of Novartis. However, with your commitment, the damage can be healed, and our organizations are ready to assist that process.”

http://www.industriall-union.org/union-busting-at-novartis-in-india

AOC criticizes Biden statement of support for Israel as siding with 'occupation'

The president said Israel has the right to defend itself against Hamas' attacks

By Brie Stimson | Fox News

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., criticized President Biden over his Wednesday statement of support for Israel amid escalating violence with Hamas, claiming he gave little context for what stoked the tensions and was consequently "siding with occupation."

Biden told reporters Israel has a right to defend itself "when you have thousands of rockets flying into your territory."

Ocasio-Cortez tweeted that Biden had failed to mention the pending evictions of dozens of Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem in favor of Israelis and the Israeli police raid of the Al-Aqsa mosque that left hundreds of worshippers hurt as an instigator to Hamas’ rocket attacks.

She said statements that don’t recognize Israel’s role in the violence "dehumanize Palestinians & imply the US will look the other way at human rights violations. It’s wrong."

"By only stepping in to name Hamas’ actions - which are condemnable - & refusing to acknowledge the rights of Palestinians, Biden reinforces the false idea that Palestinians instigated this cycle of violence," she wrote. "This is not neutral language. It takes a side - the side of occupation."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi put out a similar statement Tuesday saying Israel has the right to defend itself against Hamas’ "indiscriminate" attacks.

State Department spokesman Ned Price responded to a tweet U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar sent Wednesday, in which she claimed the deputy mayor of Jerusalem was supporting "ethnic cleansing" in his defense of the evictions, according to The New York Times.

"This deputy mayor is describing ethnic cleansing here, yet everyone is the West is pretending that’s not what’s happening to Palestinians," Omar tweeted.

Prince told reporters Omar's claim was "not something that our analysis supports."



At least 67 people have been killed in Gaza and seven people in Israel since the violence started, including some women and children on both sides, Reuters reported.

The current eruption of violence began a month ago in Jerusalem, where heavy-handed Israeli police tactics during Ramadan and the threatened eviction of dozens of Palestinian families by Jewish settlers ignited protests and clashes with police. A focal point was the Al-Aqsa Mosque, built on a hilltop compound that is revered by Jews and Muslims, where police fired tear gas and stun grenades at protesters who threw chairs and stones at them.

Hamas, claiming to be defending Jerusalem, launched a barrage of rockets at the city late Monday, setting off days of fighting.

A representative for Ocasio-Cortez did not immediately respond to Fox News' request for comment.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

California governor proposes public school ‘transformation’


BY ADAM BEAM AND JOCELYN GECKER ASSOCIATED PRESS
MAY 13, 2021

FILE - In this April 13, 2021, file photo, kindergarten students participate in a classroom activity on the first day of in-person learning at Maurice Sendak Elementary School in Los Angeles. All 4-year-olds in California could go to kindergarten for free under a new proposal Wednesday, May 12, 2021, from Gov. Gavin Newsom's administration, part of a broad new education spending package made possible by the state's surprise budget surplus. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File) JAE C. HONG AP

SACRAMENTO, CALIF.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed a “total transformation” of public schools in America’s largest state Wednesday by offering pre-kindergarten to all 4-year-olds, opening up college savings accounts for low-income students and offering universal after-school care in disadvantaged communities.

Newsom announced the measures as part of a broad new education spending package made possible by the state’s surprise budget surplus. The surplus means California has about $93.7 billion for public education this year, based on a voter-approved law. That’s $36 billion more than last year and $17.7 billion more than the governor’s initial estimate in January.

Newsom’s plan aims to address many of the inequities that the coronavirus pandemic exposed, he said, including the need for robust mental health services to address childhood depression and trauma, more teachers and higher teacher-student ratios.

“People don’t start behind, they are left behind,” Newsom said during a news conference at a Monterey elementary school. “We are looking to transform — not go back to where we were — but transform our education system.”

Anticipating a massive budget deficit this year because of the pandemic, Newsom and the state's legislative leaders agreed on a budget last year that raised taxes and cut spending, including delaying more than $12.5 billion in payments to public school districts.

But the pandemic mostly affected lower-wage workers, while those with higher salaries kept their jobs and kept paying taxes. Combined with a surging stock market and the state’s progressive tax structure, Newsom announced Monday that the state would have a $76 billion surplus.

The surplus is good timing for Newsom, who will face a recall election later this year fueled by anger over his handling of the pandemic. Newsom has announced a bonanza of new spending proposals, including returning $8.1 billion to taxpayers in the form of tax rebates and spending $12 billion to tackle the state’s homelessness problem.

Newsom’s K-12 education plan would eventually open California’s two-year transitional kindergarten program to all students starting at age 4. The proposal fulfills a promise by Newsom and legislative leaders to pay for universal 4-year-old kindergarten in California.

About 91,000 students are enrolled in transitional kindergarten right now, which would increase to about 250,000 by the 2024-2025 if Newsom's plan is approved.

Previous proposals have concerned some local school officials who worried they would run out of teachers. Teacher retirements increased 26% during the second half of 2020, according to the California State Teachers’ Retirement System. A state survey found that 56% of those who retired cited the difficulty of teaching during the coronavirus pandemic.

Newsom’s plan would address that problem by giving $1.1 billion to some school districts to hire more staff. To be eligible for the money, at least 55% of a district’s enrollment would have to be either low-income students, children learning English as a second language or kids in foster care.

Senior education and health officials who joined Newsom Wednesday praised the plan's emphasis on promoting mental health, dedicating more than $4 billion to help identify and treat mental health needs early in children and adults up to 25 years old.

Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond shared a trauma from his childhood, saying he was raised in Monterey until his mother died when he was six and sent to live 3,000 miles (4,800 kilometers) away to be raised by a cousin.

In the 1970s, when Thurmond was growing up, there wasn’t much discussion about how to address trauma in students, he said. “I can’t think of anything more important than how we address the social emotional needs of our students,” Thurmond said.

The governor's plan requires support from the Democratically controlled state Legislature, which has until June 15 to pass a spending plan for the 2021-2022 fiscal year.

The governor’s plan allocates $3.3 billion to expand incentive programs for teachers, including expanding $20,000 grants for teachers who volunteer to work in high-needs schools.

Newsom also wants to pay for an after-school program and six weeks of summer school for districts with high concentrations of low-income students, children learning to speak English and kids in foster care. The programs would be available for students up to 6th grade.

“For many families, schools are a place where they get food, they get health care, they get social services. It’s acknowledging that schools are no longer a place where we just get educated, they’re really a community hub for many of our neighborhoods,” said Assemblyman Phil Ting, a Democrat from San Francisco and chair of the Assembly Budget Committee.

Those programs would eventually be available to about one in three public school students, or 2.1 million children, for an annual cost of about $5 billion once it's fully implemented, his administration said.

Newsom’s plan to establish universal access to transitional kindergarten would not mean parents have to send their 4-year-olds to school. But school districts would have to offer it, with more children becoming eligible for kindergarten each year until it's fully implemented in the 2024-25 school year. The Newsom administration says it will cost $2.7 billion per year by that time.

California is also scheduled to get billions in coronavirus aid funding from the $1.9 trillion relief package President Joe Biden signed.

Newsom wants to use $2.1 billion of that money to start college savings accounts for students from low-income families and students who are learning to speak English or are in foster care, from $500 to $1,000 per student.

Chicago Police Started Secret Drone Program Using Untraceable Cash: Report

Matt Novak
GIZMONDO

12/5/2021

The Chicago Police Department started a secret drone program using untraceable money seized in drug raids and other criminal investigations, according to a bombshell new report from the Chicago Sun-Times.

The drone program is reportedly used for crime scene photos and terrorism-related issues, among other investigations, according to internal Chicago Police Department emails obtained by activist group Distributed Denial of Secrets and reviewed by the Sun-Times.

The emails, sent by Karen Conway, director of Chicago’s police research and development, indicate roughly $7.7 million was spent on operating expenses for various programs in the city using off-the-books cash, though it’s not clear how much of that money was invested in drones. The money, so-called “1505 funds,” is used on plenty of other shady police stuff like Stingrays for cellphone tracking.

Chicago’s police corruption and abuse of power was infamous in the 20th century, but reached new heights in the past decade after it was revealed the CPD operated a black site in the city where torture and extrajudicial interrogations were conducted. And revelations about how Chicago is funding a secret drone program through unaccountable funds is almost predictable, given the history of Chicago politics.

When asked about the drone program, Chicago Police told the Sun-Times that they investigate “every tool available” as well as any “innovative opportunities” for maintaining “public safety.”

“CPD has strict guidelines for all tools and programs to ensure individual privacy, civil rights, civil liberties and other interests are protected,” a CPD spokesperson told the Sun-Times. “We also meet with community partners to make certain that all enforcement efforts meet the highest standards and have support among the individuals Chicago police officers are sworn to serve and protect.”

The entire report is available at the Chicago Sun-Times.

FORMER LIBERAL MP MARTHA HALL FINDLAY

UK Government Gives ‘Climate Champion’ Award to Executive at Massive Canadian Oil Company

Molly Taft
GIZMONDO

12/5/2021


The stuff of champions. Photo: Mark Ralston (Getty Images)

“Climate champion” and producing more than 10 million barrels of tar sands oil a year are not exactly synonymous in most people’s minds. But that’s the exact title the British government decided to bestow on an executive at one of the most powerful oil companies in Canada.

To mark six months until the major climate conference in Glasgow, the UK government honored 26 “climate champions” working in Canada, a commonwealth nation. Among the list of “champions” is Martha Hall Findlay, who serves as the chief sustainability officer at Suncor, a major tar sands player. An accompanying “storybook” of all the chosen climate champions includes Findlay’s resume as well as a quote attributed to her: “Suncor fully supports Canada’s Paris Agreement commitments, and we look forward to COP26 to continue building the all-important collaboration among the private sector, governments and other organizations needed to find real solutions.”

The choices for climate champions weren’t made by any member of Canada’s robust climate activist community, but rather by the British High Commission in Canada and the Canada Climate Law Initiative. Climate Home, which first reported last week, reports they won’t have any formal role at COP itself. And Findlay herself certainly has an impressive resume—there’s nothing in there at first glance that’s a red flag (outside the working for an oil company thing), and I’m sure she’s a nice lady. But the cognitive dissonance of appointing an executive at one of the dirtiest companies in the world as a climate champion is pretty jarring.

Suncor may not be as recognizable a name to American readers as Exxon or Chevron, but its hands are plenty dirty. The company is the top global producer of tar sands oil. Alberta is the epicenter of tar sands production, and the operations there form the largest industrial project in the world. Tar sands are also wildly polluting, resulting in three times the emissions as regular ol’ crude production. While Suncor rakes in money from its oil sands operations—it’s the second biggest energy company in Canada—its product has made it a challenge for Canada to meet its climate goals. In fact, Canadian greenhouse gas emissions rose slightly in 2019 due to more oil and gas extraction even as other developed nations have seen theirs fall in recent years.

Like many of the world’s fossil fuel companies who are trying to earn brownie points for helping us stave off the climate disaster they caused, Suncor’s website presents a squeaky-clean image of a corporation that is Committed To Acting On Climate. “Suncor accepts the scientific consensus, publicly stating that ‘climate change is happening and we need to take action,’” its climate page reads. Links to the company’s various sustainability reports detail its plan to reduce emissions 30% over the next decade and it aims to “embed low-carbon thinking into the day-to-day activities and decisions of our employees” (whatever that means). Suncor is in favor of Canada’s national price on carbon—a common show of support among oil companies—and its then-CEO in 2018 dragged politicians who dabble in climate denial.

Suncor has also worked hard to cultivate its relationships with Indigenous and First Nations groups, many of whom are on the front lines of the environmental devastation from the impacts of oil sands extraction and who have led public campaigns and lawsuits against other tar sands companies, like the owners of the Trans Mountain Pipeline. In 2019, Bloomberg called the company “an industry leader when it comes to business partnerships with Indigenous groups.” (One of Findlay’s listed duties, according to the company’s website, is being “responsible for the continued deepening of the company’s Indigenous, stakeholder, and community relations.”)

All of this is great for Suncor, but, as the old adage goes, you can put lipstick on a pig—it’s still a pig. There are oil companies that are doing better than others at trying to clean up some of the mess they’ve made—and Suncor looks like it’s doing its homework to become the best little oil company it can be. Indeed, the industry as a whole has made concerted efforts over the past year to right its sinking PR ship, introducing confusing terms like “carbon management company” and “net-zero oil” to help buy them a little time to keep polluting.

At the end of the day, however, like Exxon, Chevron, and all the others, Suncor is still a company that produces an enormous amount of oil each year, with no plans to stop soon, despite our ticking carbon clock. People who work for the company, no matter how noble their intentions or how embedded their “low-carbon thinking” is, are helping further that goal. If these are the kinds of “climate champions” that governments are honoring as the world prepares to gather for what will be a crucial climate conference to hammer out details of the Paris Agreement, we may be in trouble.
Subscribe to our newsletter!

Molly Taft
Writing about climate change, renewable energy, and Big Oil/Big Gas/Big Everything for Earther. Formerly of the Center for Public Integrity & Nexus Media News. I'm very tall & have a very short dog.

s

Martha Hall Findlay

Member of the Canadian House of Commons

Interesting storiesCareerEarly life

Martha Hall Findlay is a Canadian businesswoman, entrepreneur, lawyer and politician from Toronto, Ontario, who was recently president and CEO of the Canada West Foundation, a Calgary-based think tank, and is now senior vice-president and chief sustainability officer with Suncor Energy. Previously, she was elected to the House of Commons of Canada as the Liberal Party of Canada's candidate in the Toronto riding of Willowdale in a federal by-election held on March 17, 2008, to fill a vacancy created by former Liberal MP Jim Peterson's resignation. She was re-elected in the 2008 general election but lost her seat in the 2011 election.

CLIMATE CHANGE
The Fight to Define What ‘Clean’ Energy Means

Dharna Noor
GIZMONDO

12/5/2021

These are clean energy. Environmentalists don’t agree on what else is.

Photo: Sean Gallup (Getty Images)

After four years of backsliding under former President Donald Trump, the U.S. is back to increasing its climate ambitions. But there’s a fight brewing over what exactly constitutes zero-carbon energy, showing that challenges decarbonization faces.

President Joe Biden has proposed a clean electricity standard to reduce emissions, and various proposals and bills would create one for the U.S. On Wednesday, though, 650 organizations including Climate Justice Alliance, Greenpeace, Food and Water Watch, the Center for Biological Diversity, and Friends of the Earth sent an open letter to Congress asking it to eschew the clean electricity standard proposals and take another route to clean energy, known as a renewable electricity standard, instead.

If you’re confused, I don’t blame you—the terms “clean” and “renewable” for energy are often used interchangeably. But in this case, while the CES defines non-polluting energy as anything that falls under a certain pollution standard, the RES simply lists out forms of energy that count. The letter calls for a bill that would require the U.S. to solely use renewable sources—defined as wind, solar, and geothermal—to meet its carbon-free electricity needs by 2030. That’s five years ahead of Biden’s current timeline in addition to the only renewables requirement.


“One of the most basic and important questions of climate policy is how you define clean energy,” said Lukas Ross, program manager at Friends of the Earth while noting that “definitions matter.”


Capitol Hill has seen a number of CES proposals. One that the letter specifically cites, the CLEAN Future Act of 2021, sets a metric of “clean” as any source that results in less than 0.82 metric tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent per megawatt hour of energy. (Carbon dioxide-equivalent is a metric that normalizes other types of greenhouse gas emissions, some of which are more potent, to carbon dioxide.) That standard would disqualify coal but allow most gas. Past legislative proposals have included standards that are twice as strict, but an analysis by Friends of the Earth found that even under those, “fewer than 1% of gas-powered facilities would be excluded from qualifying for the standard.”

Disagreements over whether a RES or CES are preferable aren’t new. In fact, CES policies came out of attempts to compromise in the late 2000s, when they were billed an alternative to a renewable portfolio standard that could include things like “clean coal” and natural gas.

Today, coal is all but dead thanks mostly to market shifts. The fight over these limits is largely one about natural gas, which while less polluting than other energy sources like coal, still results in greenhouse gas emissions when dug up and burned. It’s also the number one contributor to the increase in U.S. carbon pollution in 2019.

“A CES does not need to include fossil gas and it shouldn’t,” said Leah Stokes, an assistant professor of political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

That could, however, come with one caveat—gas producers could use carbon capture and sequestration technology to suck up their emissions. A recent report from Evergreen Action and Data for Progress that Stokes co-authored lays out a stringent CES that only gives credits to gas if it is paired with carbon capture technology. Existing forms and techniques to capture carbon suck up only 0.1% of global emissions. But technological developments could, in theory, make CCS possible. The vast majority of modeling scenarios to meet the Paris Agreement target of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) also require at least some form of CCS. Scientists also generally disagree about if the world can transition to solely renewable energy by 2030.

Yet CCS falls under what the groups opposed to the CES call “false solutions.” Among the issues are the high costs to build carbon capture facilities and the fact that it fails to address methane emissions and other forms of air pollution tied with natural gas. And further, the groups argue that the mere inclusion of natural gas of any kind in a CES would send a signal to the industry that it’s okay for it to continue writing gas expansion into its business plans.

“If you look at the at the business models that are continuing to be promoted by Shell, BP, and particularly by Exxon, those business models even to this day, show continued growth in natural gas production and consumption and the thing that makes it magically disappear, is CCS,” Caroll Muffett, ‎president of the Center for International Environmental Law, said.

There’s also, of course, the question of political viability to going 100% renewable. Even with Democrats in control of Congress and the White House, passing policies to decarbonize the grid won’t be easy, let alone a RES. With the filibuster in place, Evergreen Action and Data for Progress have argued that the best way to pass a CES is to use the complex process of reconciliation, which allows a simple majority of the Senate to pass legislation. This would still require conservative Democrats’ support, namely Sen. Joe Manchin, who’s sent mixed signals on whether or not he’d support such legislation. A CES that includes gas, with or without carbon capture, could be more likely to get him on board.

But for the RES advocates, that’s simply too big a compromise to make. Jean Su, energy justice program director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said that’s especially true for frontline communities who live in the communities where natural gas plants, carbon capture pipelines, biomass plants, or other polluting infrastructure are sited.

“We need to shift the conversation from what is feasible to what is necessary. The climate emergency is a ticking time bomb, and we have no time to embrace electricity standards that lock in decades of dangerous gas and reinforce our profoundly racist and ecocidal energy system,” she said.

Ultimately, the difference between CES advocates’ vision and that of RES advocates’ seems to be this question of compromise. While the former are concerned about acting quickly to pass something that could usher in a better yet imperfect energy system, RES advocates fear that buckling on these key issues renders the project too weak and all too easy for the fossil fuel industry to co-opt.

“We believe that Congress is basically going to have one shot at getting this done and that they need to get it done right,” Mitch Jones, policy director of Food and Water Watch, said.

MUSK GASLIGHTING

Tesla Says It Will No Longer Accept Bitcoin for Car Payments, Citing Fossil Fuel Concerns

Brianna Provenzano
GIZMONDO 12/5/2021

Tesla has “suspended vehicle purchases using bitcoin,” CEO Elon Musk tweeted on Wednesday night, allegedly out of concern over the “rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for bitcoin mining.”

In the statement, which quickly went viral, Musk said that while cryptocurrency is a “good idea on many levels,” the resource-intensive nature of Bitcoin mining — which frequently relies on dirty power sources like coal — has caused the company to hit pause on its role in future transactions.

“Tesla will not be selling any Bitcoin and we intend to use it for transactions as soon as mining transitions to more sustainable energy,” Musk wrote. “We are also looking at other cryptocurrencies that use <1% of Bitcoin’s energy/transaction.”

The stress that Bitcoin mining has put on the planet has become undeniable in recent years as the amount of energy required to mine the cryptocurrency has soared. According to the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index, the currency’s energy use recently surpassed the annual footprint of Argentina. Around the world, countries are beginning to take note: In March, China’s Inner Mongolia province unveiled plans to halt all new bitcoin and other cryptocurrency mining ventures in order to reduce electricity consumption for its already beleaguered grid

But long after the devastating environmental implications associated with Bitcoin became apparent, tech honchos like Musk and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey continued to praise it as an environmentally friendly boon to the future of renewable energy. On April 21 — just one day shy of Earth Day — Dorsey’s company, Square, released a white paper in conjunction with CEO Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest that made a convoluted argument for an ecosystem in which “solar/wind, batteries, and bitcoin mining co-exist to form a green grid that runs almost exclusively on renewable energy.” Dorsey retweeted the claims, and Musk simply replied, “True.”

So it’s odd, to say the least, that less than a month after touting Bitcoin’s green bonafides, Musk would be realigning his company’s balance sheets in the name of saving the environment from dirty, fossil fuel-boosting crypto. It’s certainly something that he himself has a vested interest in: In a February SEC filing, it was revealed that Tesla had bought $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin, and was mulling plans to invest in more crypto coins down the line.

The prominent vote of confidence from Tesla sent share prices for the most popular cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin and Musk’s personal favorite, Dogecoin, skyrocketing at the time of the announcement. Then last week, after a cringeworthy Saturday Night Live appearance where Musk referred to Dogecoin as a “hustle,” prices abruptly dipped again, to the tune of about a third.

Whatever Musk’s intentions are, it’s at least abundantly clear by now that the system is rigged so that when he says jump, the stock prices jump — or vice-versa. Seems like my guy is anti–Italian American Wario-laughing all the way to the bank.