On the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s landfall, another climate-fueled superstorm — Ida — hit the Louisiana coast just outside New Orleans. It’s one of the strongest storms in recorded history, but it wont be the last.
While those with the means are escaping, those without in New Orleans, especially poor, black, brown and indigenous communities – are once again left stranded.
The IPCC and scientists around the world are very clear – Storms like Ida are fueled by climate change. So are the wildfires out west, and a host of other disasters happening right now all around us. The number one thing scientists and disaster experts say we have to do is cut global warming pollution and fossil fuel use, right now. But Congress hasn’t passed legislation to stop climate change in the 16 years since Katrina.
Why? The fossil fuel industry and their lobbyists have been incredibly effective at paying lobbyists, front groups, disinformation, false advertising, and bad faith arguments to derail action and keep making the biggest profits in the histroy of the world – even as the planet burns and floods. We think that makes the people lobbying right now for the fossil fuel industry complicit in the death, destruction and chaos of storms like Ida.
Today at noon, our old friends at Shut Down DC are taking the fight directly to four major lobbying firms that represent the fossil fuel industry. There will be a New Orleans-style brass band to play a funeral march for all the people we’ve lost to Katrina, Ida, and climate denial. And to draw attention to the role of DC disinformation in making climate chaos worse we’ll be bringing plywood and sandbags to blockade their doors. If you’re in DC, you don’t want to miss this. Click here to RSVP to join us in person (bring a mask and follow COVID guidelines at the event).
We are living in a moment of profound climate chaos. The UN Secretary General calls this moment “Code Red for Humanity”, military officials call climate change an existential threat, and the vast majority of the population agrees in polls.
So why are our politicians paralyzed? Why is Congress unable to act and why has the Biden administration approved more fossil fuel extraction than Trump? Why can’t they just shut down projects his administration directly oversees like the Dakota Access Pipeline, the Mountain Valley Pipeline, and the Line 3 and Line 5 pipelines? If we all agree that climate change is an existential threat, why aren’t policy makers taking the types of bold steps that we need to rise to this challenge?
We all know the reason: the fossil fuel industry, their lobbyists and enablers. Greenpeace’s sting video might have embarrassed a few Exxon Lobbyists, but the web of corruption runs much deeper. Democrats as well as Republicans are complicit in the crimes against our climate and common home. And while a lot of people should do more, only a handful of elite lobbyists and profiteers are actually getting rich off the climate change that’s killing us all.
Like Utah Phillips said “The Earth isn’t dying, it’s being killed. And the folks doing the killing have names and addresses.”
Our friends dug deep into House and Senate lobbying reports, tax filings, and the personal LinkedIn profiles of lobbyists and front-group staffers. We built a database of 3,291 unique entities and 9,586 connections between them. They broke down all the data into charts and graphs and identified four major categories: The Corporate Hacks, Front Groups, Advocates for the Devil and Guns for Hire.
Now, we need your help to spread the word and share the data as we take on some of the biggest, best funded people in Washington DC who are blocking action on climate change. Check it out and help spread the word at https://www.killingtheplanet.org/
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