11 June 20
ost weeks, we talk about how to save the world, which seems the only accurate way to put it, given that we’ve just lived through the hottest May in recorded history and that the carbon-dioxide levels in our atmosphere just hit a new high, unmatched in the past three million years. There are, per usual, dozens of interesting new reports and studies I could tell you about and dozens of dangerous new political developments, right down to the Trump Administration waiving environmental reviews for major projects such as pipelines. (Just no more review—go ahead and build.) But the pain expressed so eloquently in the richest country on Earth these past few weeks can’t help but make one wonder: If we’re just going to use solar power instead of coal to run the same sad mess of unfair and ugly oppression, is it really worth it? Despite the glad sight of Americans surging into the streets this past weekend—and even with news that the Minneapolis City Council is setting out to dismantle its police department and replace it with something else—I worry that, as with other such moments in the past, this one may slip away without our society really doing the deep work of facing our collective demons.
So I thought it would be worth listening to some of my colleagues at 350.org (a group that I helped found), who, on Thursday night, put together this Webinar. It isn’t necessary, of course, to agree with all the views expressed there; if the Webinar doesn’t make you uncomfortable in spots, your comfort meter may be pegged too high. But discomfort never killed anyone, not like a knee on the neck or a coal-fired power plant down the street. It features the 350.org activists Thanu Yakupitiyage, Dominique Thomas, Cherrell Brown, Natalia Cardona, Emily Southard, Tianna Arredondo, and Clarissa Brooks, as well as Sam Grant, the executive director of the Minnesota chapter of 350. Their guests are Oluchi Omeoga, who is a Minneapolis organizer with Black Visions Collective, and Lumumba Bandele, the national strategies and partnerships director for Movement for Black Lives.
Passing the Mic
Since this is a fairly personal edition of this newsletter, let me say that there is almost no one I like working with more than the Reverend Lennox Yearwood, Jr., who is based in Washington, D.C. We’ve been to jail together on several occasions, most recently in January, at the launch of a campaign to keep Chase Bank from funding fossil fuels, and we’ve worked together in many other ways, because his Hip Hop Caucus has been at the forefront of bringing culture to bear on environmental politics. I remember him addressing people being handcuffed, in Lafayette Square, at the start of the Keystone XL mass protests. “This is the lunch-counter moment for the twenty-first century,” he told them. He and his team are currently filming a climate comedy/documentary called “Ain’t Your Mama’s Heat Wave.” (See www.Think100Climate.com for more information and a film preview.) My conversation with the Reverend Yearwood, which has been edited for length and clarity, is below.
You’ve worked hard on police-brutality issues and on climate change. Describe the intersections.
Climate change and police brutality are directly linked together, because the communities who are most impacted and vulnerable to police brutality are also the same communities that are most vulnerable to climate change. We saw this directly in the case of Eric Garner. When Eric Garner was killed in 2014, he stated the same words that we now have heard from George Floyd: “I can’t breathe.” But one of the things that’s important to know about Eric Garner is that he had asthma, as did most people in the Garner family, including his daughter Erica, who would die after suffering an asthma-induced heart attack and a broken heart fighting for justice for her father. Even though Eric Garner was killed by an illegal choke hold by the New York City Police Department, it’s important to note that the borough he lived in (which has the highest tree density in N.Y.C.) also received an F for ozone pollution, per the American Lung Association’s 2018 report. The way that we can actually fight pollution and police brutality is by fighting them together. I would also add poverty to this deadly mix, because the issues of police brutality, pollution, and poverty are all linked together.
Sixty-eight per cent of black people live within thirty miles of a coal-fired power plant. We know that the destruction of Hurricane Maria, Harvey, Katrina, and Superstorm Sandy all had a direct impact not only on marginalized and vulnerable communities but on communities of color, which reinforces that racial justice and climate justice are linked. But, to be clear, it’s all about justice. Which is why the cries of the people of “No Justice, No Peace” are very real.
So the minute that we become serious about fighting police brutality as an environmental movement will be the minute that we begin to have faster gains in fighting climate change and vice versa. Those who are solely focussed on police brutality, the minute they also understand the impact of the climate crisis and lack of clean air and lack of clean water and those oil companies, gas companies, and coal companies, and how they are directly linked to the poisoning of our communities that we are trying to protect, then they will see that they must take on not only police brutality but also the issue of climate change.
We’re coming up on the fifteenth anniversary of Katrina, which was an early chance for Americans to think about the links between race, poverty, and the environment. You’ve worked hard on relief and recovery in New Orleans. What lessons did that leave you with?
To be honest, our modern-day, twenty-first-century environmental movement is pretty much based on the backs of what happened in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast with Hurricane Katrina. So it’s a little disappointing that our movement is still trying to connect the dots. Trying to figure out what racial justice means to climate justice. Our movement is still trying to break the silos. We didn’t move fast enough with understanding the issue of racial justice and climate justice after Hurricane Katrina, and in some cases are behind the curve on how we are addressing this issue right now.
On the other hand, while we approach the fifteenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, I am excited to see how, within those past fifteen years, the movement has changed to see more leaders of color in key positions of leadership, groups like Hip Hop Caucus moving to the forefront, and to see young people rising up, doing so many phenomenal things and engaging in the conversation of how we connect the dots of climate justice and racial justice.
Even though it seems to have taken a very long time to get to this point, I am encouraged by seeing large environmental organizations and environmentalists willing to have the conversation about the issues of racial justice and defunding the police. They’re calling out white supremacy and institutional racism and posting it on social media. And taking part in protest and talking about it, and not acting like it’s taking away from their core mission. They’re understanding that they must discuss racial justice and climate justice at the same time, and not act like race is some kind of trip wire for our movement. I’m excited because it feels like we are stepping over the race trip wire at this critical moment. The stakes are clearly high, with the killings of Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd, but I’m very encouraged at this moment.
I’m also encouraged that white people are not only asking to be allies at this critical time but accomplices in this moral and just fight to end white supremacy. I think 2020 is the year of truth, and I think that this fifteenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina is a moment that the entire climate movement can get it right. If we do this now, then when we approach the twenty-fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, in 2030, we can say we defeated poverty, pollution, and police brutality in this country.
What a glorious moment that can be!
Warming Up
The Reverend Yearwood suggested that people might profit from listening to Meek Mill’s “Other Side of America,” which was released Friday.
Former national security adviser Michael Flynn leaves the federal courthouse in Washington last month with his lawyer Sidney Powell, left. (photo: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)
Former Federal Judge Says Push to Dismiss Flynn Case Is Abuse of Power
Michael Balsamo and Colleen Long, The Associated Press
Excerpt: "Former U.S. District Judge John Gleeson said in a filing Wednesday that the government 'has engaged in highly irregular conduct to benefit a political ally of the President.' He urged the judge handling the case to deny the motion and argued that Flynn had committed perjury."
READ MORE
Michael Balsamo and Colleen Long, The Associated Press
Excerpt: "Former U.S. District Judge John Gleeson said in a filing Wednesday that the government 'has engaged in highly irregular conduct to benefit a political ally of the President.' He urged the judge handling the case to deny the motion and argued that Flynn had committed perjury."
READ MORE
Wendi C. Thomas learned during a police surveillance trial that the Memphis Police Department spied on her and three other journalists. (photo: Andrea Morales)
The Police Have Been Spying on Black Reporters and Activists for Years. I Know Because I'm One of Them.
Wendi C. Thomas, MLK50: Justice Through Journalism and ProPublica
Excerpt: "On Aug. 20, 2018, the first day of a federal police surveillance trial, I discovered that the Memphis Police Department was spying on me."
Wendi C. Thomas, MLK50: Justice Through Journalism and ProPublica
Excerpt: "On Aug. 20, 2018, the first day of a federal police surveillance trial, I discovered that the Memphis Police Department was spying on me."
EXCERPTS:
The ACLU of Tennessee had sued the MPD, alleging that the department was in violation of a 1978 consent decree barring surveillance of residents for political purposes.
One of the first witnesses called to the stand: Sgt. Timothy Reynolds, who is white. To get intel on activists and organizers, including those in the Black Lives Matter movement, he’d posed on Facebook as a “man of color,” befriending people and trying to infiltrate closed circles.
Projected onto a giant screen in the courtroom was a screenshot of people Reynolds followed on Facebook.
My head was bent as I wrote in my reporter’s notebook. “What does this entry indicate?” ACLU attorney Amanda Strickland Floyd asked.
“I was following Wendi Thomas,” Reynolds replied. “Wendi C. Thomas.”
I sat up.
“And who is Wendi Thomas?” Floyd asked.
She, he replied, used to write for The Commercial Appeal. In 2014, I left the paper after being a columnist for 11 years.
It’s been more than a year since a judge ruled against the city, and I’ve never gotten a clear answer on why the MPD was monitoring me. Law enforcement also was keeping tabs on three other journalists whose names came out during the trial. Reynolds testified he used the fake account to monitor protest activity and follow current events connected to Black Lives Matter.
My sin, as best I can figure, was having good sources who were local organizers and activists, including some of the original plaintiffs in the ACLU’s lawsuit against the city.
In the days since cellphone video captured white Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin squeezing the life out of George Floyd, a black man, residents in dozens of cities across the country have exercised their First Amendment rights to protest police brutality.
One of the first witnesses called to the stand: Sgt. Timothy Reynolds, who is white. To get intel on activists and organizers, including those in the Black Lives Matter movement, he’d posed on Facebook as a “man of color,” befriending people and trying to infiltrate closed circles.
Projected onto a giant screen in the courtroom was a screenshot of people Reynolds followed on Facebook.
My head was bent as I wrote in my reporter’s notebook. “What does this entry indicate?” ACLU attorney Amanda Strickland Floyd asked.
“I was following Wendi Thomas,” Reynolds replied. “Wendi C. Thomas.”
I sat up.
“And who is Wendi Thomas?” Floyd asked.
She, he replied, used to write for The Commercial Appeal. In 2014, I left the paper after being a columnist for 11 years.
It’s been more than a year since a judge ruled against the city, and I’ve never gotten a clear answer on why the MPD was monitoring me. Law enforcement also was keeping tabs on three other journalists whose names came out during the trial. Reynolds testified he used the fake account to monitor protest activity and follow current events connected to Black Lives Matter.
My sin, as best I can figure, was having good sources who were local organizers and activists, including some of the original plaintiffs in the ACLU’s lawsuit against the city.
In the days since cellphone video captured white Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin squeezing the life out of George Floyd, a black man, residents in dozens of cities across the country have exercised their First Amendment rights to protest police brutality.
Here in Memphis, where two-thirds of the population is black and 1 in 4 lives below the poverty line, demonstrators have chanted, “No justice, no peace, no racist police!”
Why Were You Following Me?
After Reynolds left the stand after naming me as someone he had followed, the judge took a short recess. I headed outside the courtroom and saw Reynolds headed to the elevator.
I followed him. When the doors closed, I stuck out my hand and introduced myself. I asked: Why were you following me on social media?
Although it was chilly in the courtroom, Reynolds was sweating. He said he couldn’t talk about it.
Two days after Reynolds’ testimony, I filed a public records request with the city of Memphis, asking for all joint intelligence briefings, emails or other documents that referenced me or any of the three other journalists that the MPD was following on social media.
Four hundred and thirty three days later, the city produced the records — and I still don’t understand what would make police see me as a threat worthy of surveillance in the name of public safety.
Contained in the documents: A screenshot of a Facebook post that I made on Jan. 28, 2016, while I was on a fellowship at Harvard University. I’d shared a notice about a grassroots coalition meeting to be held that day.
In a joint intelligence briefing was a screenshot of a tweet I’d been tagged in. The original tweet, which at the time police captured it had 11 likes and one retweet, was itself a screenshot of an offensive image a Memphis police officer had allegedly posted on Snapchat.
In another police email was a February 2017 tweet I sent about an upcoming protest, which had been announced on Facebook. It got two likes.
The city of Memphis is pushing back against the judge’s ruling. Its lawyers have asked the court to modify the consent decree, contending that the city can’t participate in a Trump administration public safety partnership if it isn’t allowed to share intelligence with federal agencies.
My battles with the city of Memphis didn’t end with the lawsuit, unfortunately.
In 2018, I was trying to figure out which corporations had answered the mayor’s call to financially subsidize police operations by funneling $6.1 million to the city through a secretive nonprofit, the Memphis Shelby Crime Commission.
Strickland wouldn’t divulge the companies’ identities, but he realized that public records I’d requested would. So the mayor’s staff, in conjunction with the Crime Commission and another secretive nonprofit, came up with a plan to release the companies’ names to local journalists before releasing the records to me, I learned through emails released in conjunction with a 2018 public records lawsuit against the Crime Commission.
And this year, I was forced to sue the city after it refused to include me on its media email advisory list despite repeated requests.
The city of Memphis did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
My experiences have shaped the way my newsroom has covered more recent protests, including those in Memphis since Floyd’s death.
A guide on covering protests from the Racial Equity in Journalism Fund at Borealis Philanthropy notes, “Understand how police use news coverage to surveil black communities. Don’t allow police to use you, or your coverage, to do their jobs.”
We applied these principles to our recent coverage of a civil disobedience training that drew more than 350 people. While we know the names of the people we talked to, if participants weren’t comfortable using their whole name or showing their entire face, we protected their identity.
After all, I know how it feels to know that the police are watching you.
A new voting rights organization represents LeBron James’s most significant foray yet into electoral politics. (photo: Brandon Dill/Getty)
"Time for Us to Finally Make a Difference": LeBron James and Other Stars Form a Voting Rights Group
Jonathan Martin, The New York Times
Martin writes: "The N.B.A. superstar LeBron James and a group of other prominent black athletes and entertainers are starting a new group aimed at protecting African-Americans' voting rights, seizing on the widespread fury against racial injustice that has fueled worldwide protests to amplify their voices in this fall's presidential election."
Jonathan Martin, The New York Times
Martin writes: "The N.B.A. superstar LeBron James and a group of other prominent black athletes and entertainers are starting a new group aimed at protecting African-Americans' voting rights, seizing on the widespread fury against racial injustice that has fueled worldwide protests to amplify their voices in this fall's presidential election."
EXCERPT:
“This is the time for us to finally make a difference,” the N.B.A. superstar said of the new group, which will aim to protect African-Americans’ voting rights.
“Because of everything that’s going on, people are finally starting to listen to us — we feel like we’re finally getting a foot in the door,” Mr. James said in a phone interview on Wednesday. “How long is up to us. We don’t know. But we feel like we’re getting some ears and some attention, and this is the time for us to finally make a difference.”
The organization, called More Than a Vote, will partly be aimed at inspiring African-Americans to register and to cast a ballot in November. But as the name of the group suggests, Mr. James and other current and former basketball stars — including Trae Young, Skylar Diggins-Smith and Jalen Rose — will go well beyond traditional celebrity get-out-the-vote efforts.
Black Lives Matter protester in front of National Guard soldiers. (photo: Agustin Paullier/Getty)
Trump Wanted to Send in the Troops. Now Some Are Ready to Quit.
Sarah Jones, New York Magazine
Jones writes: "To a president who threatened protesters with 'the most vicious dogs' and tear-gassed his way to a photo-op, the military looked like a blunt instrument. But soldiers aren't dogs, and may object to being used as such. In the ranks, dissent blooms."
Sarah Jones, New York Magazine
Jones writes: "To a president who threatened protesters with 'the most vicious dogs' and tear-gassed his way to a photo-op, the military looked like a blunt instrument. But soldiers aren't dogs, and may object to being used as such. In the ranks, dissent blooms."
rotests demanding justice for George Floyd have been overwhelmingly peaceful. But as unrest over Floyd’s killing by the Minneapolis police entered its first full week, President Trump pined for resolution. In a press conference, he warned that if cities and states won’t “defend the life and property of their residents,” he’ll “deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them.” He enjoyed at least some support from his party. It was time to send in the troops, Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas wrote in the New York Times. Several Army units are on stand-by for possible deployment.
Under any president, the prospect of federal troops in American streets would invite accusations of authoritarianism. But Trump is a special case. The protests tarnished his reputation as the prince of law and order and so he wanted a cudgel. To a president who threatened protesters with “the most vicious dogs” and tear-gassed his way to a photo-op, the military looked like a blunt instrument.
But soldiers aren’t dogs, and may object to being used as such. In the ranks, dissent blooms. Organizations that provide advice and assistance to conscientious objectors and dissidents in the military say that since governors first mobilized National Guard units to put down protests, they’ve heard from service members who object to their orders. Trump and Cotton were eager to send in the troops, but the troops themselves were somewhat less enthusiastic.
“There are a lot of concerns, and there’s a lot of personal conflict and moral crisis that service members are experiencing right now,” said Garett Reppenhagen, the executive director of Veterans for Peace and an Army veteran. “In the last 15 years, we’ve seen our foreign conflicts escalating all over the world. But I don’t think that folks thought that the global war on terror would be fought here in our country against Americans.”
Trump’s threat unsettled high-ranking officials, too. In a rare break with Trump, Defense Secretary Mark Esper described the use of the military for domestic law enforcement as “a matter of last resort.” Mike Mullen, a retired admiral and the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, condemned the proposal in an editorial for The Atlantic. In a statement published by the same outlet, Esper’s predecessor, retired general Jim Mattis, warned that militarizing the protest response “sets up a conflict — a false conflict — between the military and civilian society.”
That conflict may already be underway. By June 1, CNN reported, there were as many guardsmen on protest duty in the U.S. as there are active-duty troops in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan combined, though numbers are now declining as governors begin to send their units home. Mobilized to support state and local police officers in addition to federal law enforcement, guardsmen have not helped de-escalate tensions. In Louisville, Kentucky, members of the National Guard shot and killed David McAtee, a beloved local restaurant owner. Another guardsman reportedly fired live ammunition at a car in Minneapolis, though no one was injured. Videos taken in Washington, D.C., show National Guard helicopters flying deliberately low over protests. Rotor wash knocked tree branches into the street.
For one member of the National Guard, the possibility of harming civilians is too much to stomach. “Essentially, the events of the last week (escalating police violence against protesters, the militarization of the police response, political factors fueling political conflict) sort of catalyzed in me a realization in my heart that I cannot continue to engage in violence or be complicit in it,” he wrote to Intelligencer by encrypted text. The guardsman, who must remain anonymous to protect his identity, was deployed to a major American city. He has decided to leave the service as a result of his orders.
There’s no way to determine exactly how many guardsmen or active-duty soldiers are prepared to take similar action. But Reppenhagen said that service members have reached out to his organization through email and social media, asking for help as they consider their next steps. Other groups, including the GI Rights Hotline and About Face: Veterans Against the War confirmed that they’ve also received queries from service members who have either been mobilized in response to the protests, or fear they will be soon. “Some of them are just exploring their options and seeing what’s available to them, and what the legality is of various decisions they could make,” Reppenhagen explained. Others are looking for direct contact with lawyers. “Some have already made a decision not to deploy and not to report for duty. And they’re trying to figure out what the repercussions are going to be for them, and how to mitigate it,” he added.
In Reppenhagen’s view, the right of a service member to refuse an unlawful order provides them with some protection, though he said it can be ambiguously interpreted and defined. Service members have cited it in the past with mixed results. In one high-profile case, Army lieutenant Ehren Watada refused orders to deploy to Iraq in 2006 due to his belief that the war was illegal. After three years of court martial proceedings, the Army eventually allowed him to resign.
There are other, potentially more drastic options for service members who don’t want to deploy against fellow citizens. “There’s G.I. resistance, which involves ignoring orders, failing to cooperate with orders, going AWOL, filing for conscientious objector status, and things of that nature, which are different levels of escalation, and have different consequences through the Uniform Code of Military Justice,” Reppenhagen explained.
Jacob Meyer, a former Marine who volunteers with About Face, said that the stakes attached to any act of disobedience “can be scary.” Disturbed by the travails of LGBT Marines and by the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, Meyer filed for conscientious objector status while he was still in the military. “I couldn’t justify my service in the Marines anymore, feeling that way,” Meyer said. He was discharged eleven months later.
“The consequences are steep, but I don’t think any of them come close to the kind of burden on your conscience if you were to obey an immoral order,” he added.
For other service-members, the penalties for resistance aren’t as disturbing as the thought of being ordered to put down protests. Like the guardsman, who said he was “especially affected” by the involvement of fellow National Guard members in the Louisville shooting, they’re experiencing their own moments of reckoning.
An active-duty soldier in touch with About Face told Intelligencer that when he first enlisted, he was apolitical, and found Army life mundane. “I didn’t really foresee myself ever being in this kind of scenario, where I would have to seriously think about shooting an American citizen,” he said. After he deployed to Iraq, he became more critical of what he described as “the overall mission of the military.” Now that his unit is on stand-by, meaning it could still be called up by the Pentagon to quell unrest, he’s reached a difficult conclusion. He’s prepared to defy orders to deploy.
“I want to make it clear, I don’t want to go to prison,” he said. “But I have children. When they’re adults, I want them to look at their dad, and be able to say that when he was faced with this tough situation, he had the courage to stand up and do what he felt was right by the people of America. Not that he was a cowardly soldier who was just following orders.”
Rights activist Nabeel Rajab, second from right, with family members at his home in Manama, Bahrain, after he was released from prison. (photo: Ahmed Alfardan/EPA)
Bahrain Releases Its Best-Known Human Rights Activist After Nearly Four Years in Prison
Kareem Fahim, The Washington Pos
Fahim writes: "Authorities in Bahrain on Tuesday freed Nabeel Rajab, the country's best-known human rights activist, nearly four years after he was imprisoned on charges related to expressing anti-government dissent on Twitter, his family and his lawyer said."
Kareem Fahim, The Washington Pos
Fahim writes: "Authorities in Bahrain on Tuesday freed Nabeel Rajab, the country's best-known human rights activist, nearly four years after he was imprisoned on charges related to expressing anti-government dissent on Twitter, his family and his lawyer said."
EXCERPT:
Rajab, a co-founder of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, will serve the remainder of his seven-year sentence at home, his lawyer, Mohammed al-Jishi, said in a text message. A photo of Rajab, smiling broadly while standing with his family, was circulated by his supporters on Tuesday.
Rajab’s prosecution became the most prominent example of Bahrain’s vigorous clampdown on dissenters in the years after the state forcefully quashed a pro-democracy uprising in 2011. His imprisonment, on charges widely dismissed as political, galvanized rights activists around the world and led to a chorus of calls for Rajab’s release, including from the United States, Bahrain’s close ally.
Bahrain, a small island state in the Persian Gulf that hosts the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, has recently released hundreds of prisoners over fears that the coronavirus would spread in jails. But the government kept prominent dissidents like Rajab behind bars.
His release was “absolutely unrelated” to the pandemic, Jishi said, adding that his client was eligible for release under a law allowing “alternative penalties” after convicted people served half of their sentences.
Rajab was convicted in 2018 on charges that he wrote social media posts criticizing wartime airstrikes in Yemen carried out by Saudi Arabia, Bahrain’s closest ally. He also accused prison authorities in Bahrain of abusing prisoners. The charges against him included insulting state institutions as well as a neighboring country.
In a jailhouse letter that was published in the New York Times a few months after he was detained in 2016, Rajab wrote that the experience of prison “is not new to me: I have been here before, from 2012 to 2014, in 2015, and now again, all because of my work as a human rights defender.”
Referring to his opposition to the war in Yemen, he wrote: “The civilian death toll was immediate and catastrophic, and I spoke out against the unfolding humanitarian crisis, calling for peace. Now, I am paying the price.”
The Sacred Head Waters of the Amazon. (photo: Pachamama Alliance)
America's Banks Are Financing Destructive Oil Projects in the Amazon
Maurício Angelo, Mongabay
Angelo writes: "Five of the biggest financial institutions in the world invested a combined $6 billion in oil extraction projects in the western Amazon between 2017 and 2019, according to a study recently published by the NGO Amazon Watch."
Maurício Angelo, Mongabay
Angelo writes: "Five of the biggest financial institutions in the world invested a combined $6 billion in oil extraction projects in the western Amazon between 2017 and 2019, according to a study recently published by the NGO Amazon Watch."
ive of the biggest financial institutions in the world invested a combined $6 billion in oil extraction projects in the western Amazon between 2017 and 2019, according to a study recently published by the NGO Amazon Watch.
Leading the race to underwrite this resource rush are some of the most powerful banks and investment funds in the world: Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, HSBC and BlackRock financed oil companies including GeoPark, Amerisur, Frontera and Andes Petroleum.
The projects are spread across 30 million hectares (74 million acres) of the Amazon, accounting for 25% of the rainforest distributed between Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.
The area is known as the Sacred Headwaters of the Amazon: it is here where the Amazon River, the largest on Earth by discharge volume, is born. But oil projects abound here, in a region considered the most biodiverse section of the Amazon and the world, and that’s home to around 500,000 indigenous people.
The region’s oil reserves are estimated at 5 billion barrels. Keeping this fossil fuel in the ground would prevent the emission of 6 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide. That would be in line with the goals of the Paris climate agreement, which Colombia, Ecuador and Peru have all ratified. To achieve the agreement’s long-term ambition of capping global warming at 1.5° Celsius (2.7° Fahrenheit), the rate of greenhouse gas emissions would have to be five times lower than current levels, according to the U.N.’s most recent report.
That makes these oil extraction projects, and the funding that enables them, counterproductive in the fight against climate change, activists say. According to Moira Birss, climate and finance director at Amazon Watch, only pressure from civil society can make these corporations stop extracting natural resources without guaranteeing the conservation of the environment and the rights of indigenous people.
The issue is urgent, “especially at a moment in which the governing bodies in the Amazon and the United States — where these banks and funds are based — are eliminating the protections to the environment and the indigenous,” Birss said.
Heavy investments in fossil fuels
In late 2019, President Donald Trump confirmed to the United Nations that he was withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Agreement. Though many of these financial institutions have since publicly expressed commitments to socio-environmental corporate responsibility and climate initiatives like the Paris Agreement, they continue to finance the destruction of the Amazon and the violation of indigenous territorial rights, the report from Amazon Watch shows.
Many of them are heavily invested in fossil fuels. BlackRock, for example, considered the world’s largest global fund, with $7.4 trillion under management, is also the world’s biggest investor in commodities as oil, gas and coal. JPMorgan Chase, meanwhile, has since 2016 invested more than $196 billion in fossil fuel companies.
Amazon Watch, working in partnership with other institutions, has introduced the Stop The Money Pipeline campaign. The idea is to seek engagement from civil society to pressure banks to stop investing in these projects.
Another initiative is the request for a moratorium to be placed on the Amazon during the pandemic, suspending all projects prospecting for mining, oil, wood and agribusiness, as well as the religious proselytizing of indigenous peoples.
The region has suffered serious consequences from commercial exploitation, including large-scale environmental contamination caused by oil extraction. From 1964 to 1990, Texaco (purchased by Chevron in 2001) illegally dumped more than 59 billion liters (15.6 billion gallons) of toxic waste and 63 million liters (16.6 million gallons) of crude oil in the Ecuadoran Amazon, directly affecting indigenous territories.
More than 480,000 hectares (1.2 million acres) of forest were polluted and at least 30,000 people were impacted by Texaco’s actions. The toxic waste made it all the way to Brazil and Peru. Another company, Occidental Petroleum, which operated in Peru from 1975 to 2000, released billions of liters of toxic waste into the region’s forests and rivers.
“The oil companies that operate in the Amazon tend to use divide-and-conquer tactics in order to push their plans for drilling, leading to more inequality in the region,” Birss said.
Oil activity has also severely impacted the health of the indigenous communities. An epidemiological study in Ecuador discovered that, among people living in oil-producing areas, the risk of numerous types of cancer is a dozen times higher than the average for the population. Highly toxic elements are found in the waters near the oil sites in the Amazon, including cadmium, mercury, lead, potassium chloride, nickel, copper and others.
In the Corrientes River Basin in northeastern Peru, a study by the Ministry of Health showed that 90% of the people from the Achuar indigenous community registered levels of heavy metals in their bloodstreams substantially higher than what is considered safe.
“We need to act quickly, because, as everyone knows, the Amazon is rapidly approaching the tipping point, with more fires and droughts each year. The forest and the traditional populations, especially indigenous peoples, are in serious danger,” Birss said.
Pandemic highlights risk of oil dependence
The novel coronavirus pandemic has directly impacted the oil industry. The price of a barrel of crude oil dropped below zero in late April, with supply greatly exceeding demand. In the mid term, this could curtail projects planned for the Amazon and discourage financial institutions from continuing to dump billions of dollars in the region. But Birss said she is skeptical.
She said the pandemic has made it even clearer that governments and companies must respect the rights of indigenous peoples, since COVID-19 is having a devastating effect on their communities, especially among isolated peoples. “The pandemic exacerbated the crisis that the oil and gas sector was already facing, both because of climate change as well as mismanagement and excessive debt. It also leaves clear the extent to which local communities are forgotten in the promises of ‘development’ made by companies,” she said.
In the case of Ecuador, the crisis has revealed the vulnerability of the country’s economy and its dependence of export commodities — especially oil. “Since the 1960s and even when the price of a barrel was at $120, has oil failed to be the economic panacea that the government continues to sell it as. Instead, it has locked the country into a cycle of debt and dependence,” Birss said.
With oil and gas hurting not just the climate and indigenous peoples, but also investors’ wallets, Birss said, “it’s time to invest in climatic resilience, indigenous-led alternatives and renewable energy.”
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