Message From the Editor

This week, Sharon Kelly reviews Christopher Leonard’s new book, Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America, which probes into the business that not only funds the Koch political machine, but also represents the clearest embodiment of the Kochs’ market fundamentalist political philosophy in action.

As New Yorker reporter Jane Mayer points out in her review, Kochland lays to rest any doubts about the Kochs’ position as the primary sponsors of climate change doubt in the U.S.

Another question put to rest this week was how much fracking and drilling for shale oil and gas are causing a spike in globe-warming methane. A new study points to the shale revolution as a major culprit.

Down in Louisiana, environmental activists recently laid to rest Geraldine Mayho, who fought the expansion of the fossil-fueled petrochemical industry in her corner of Cancer Alley and who suffered from the pollution it brought to her home. Julie Dermansky has striking photos and the moving story of Mayho’s life and death.

Have a story tip or feedback? Get in touch: [email protected].

Thanks,
Brendan DeMelle
Executive Director

Christopher Leonard's New Book Puts an Ever-Expanding 'Kochland' on the Map

— By Sharon Kelly (8 min. read) —

Christopher Leonard’s new book, Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America, begins, appropriately enough, with an FBI agent, who is investigating criminal activity by the company, standing in a field with a pair of binoculars, trying to catch a glimpse of the daily operations of a company that prizes secrecy.

Koch Industries was under investigation for theft of oil from the Osage and other Indigenous nations. Walking into the company's office building involved passing through security checkpoints, Leonard explains, so numerous that one investigator later told Leonard that it “reminded him of traveling to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.”

Fracking and Shale Drilling Caused Spike in Climate-Warming Methane Pollution, Says New Study

— By Sharon Kelly (8 min. read) —

Climate-changing pollution reached unprecedented levels in 2018. That's both judged against the last 60 years of modern measurements and against 800,000 years of data culled from ice cores, according to the U.S. government’s State of the Climate report, which was published this week with the American Meteorological Society.

That pollution creates a greenhouse effect that is over 42 percent stronger than it was in 1990, the report added.

Another Death in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley Brings Environmental Activists Together to Honor One of Their Own

— By Julie Dermansky (7 min. read) —

On August 7, after Geraldine Mayho’s funeral, her body was laid to rest in the St. James Catholic Cemetery in southern Louisiana, across the street from a cluster of oil storage tanks. The tanks are like those that surround the Burton Lane neighborhood in St. James where she had lived, and are emblematic of the type of polluting industry she spent her last years rallying against.

I met Mayho in 2017. She showed me suitcases and boxes she kept packed and waiting in her living room, in case she could find a way to afford to move. She was aware that the nearby oil storage tanks often leak the carcinogen benzene as well as other air pollutants, and with more petrochemical plants being built nearby, she desperately wanted out of the neighborhood.

Deniers Deflated as Climate Reality Hits Home

— By David Suzuki (4 min. read) —

Climate science deniers are becoming desperate as their numbers diminish in the face of incontrovertible evidence that human-caused global warming is putting our future at risk. Although most people with basic education, common sense, and a lack of financial interest in the fossil fuel industry accept what scientists worldwide have proven through decades of research, some media outlets continue to publish inconsistent, incoherent opinions of people who reject climate science. 

Funding for Annual UN Climate Talks Plummets as Mining Companies Slash Contributions — Reports

— By Matt Maynard (5 min. read) —

Funding arrangements for the upcoming UN climate conference may be in disarray after local reports suggested contributions from the local mining industry to the Chilean authorities were to be slashed.

Chile's Tele 13 Radio journalist Paula Comondari reported on Wednesday that the national Mining Council's expected $10 million funding package for the UN’s 25th Conference of the Parties (COP25) was to be slashed to just $2 million. Mining is Chile’s biggest industry and is intensive in terms of its water, energy and associated carbon emissions.

Big Oil Can't Fight the 'Irresistible' Rise of Electric Vehicles — Report

— By Paul Brown for the Climate News Network (4 min. read) —

The days of oil as a fuel for cars, whether petrol or diesel, are numbered — because the economies offered by wind and solar energy and other cheap renewables, combined with electric vehicles, are irresistible, a French bank says.

BNP Paribas Asset Management calculates that oil majors like Exxon, BP and Shell will have to produce petrol from oil at $10 a barrel (the current price is $58) to compete with electricity on price, while for diesel, it says, oil can cost no more than $19 a barrel. 

Adani Beware: Coal Is on the Road to Becoming Completely Uninsurable

— By John Quiggin, The University of Queensland (6 min. read) —

The announcement by Suncorp that it will no longer insure new thermal coal projects, along with a similar announcement by QBE Insurance a few months earlier, brings Australia into line with Europe where most major insurers have broken with coal.

U.S. firms have been a little slower to move, but Chubb announced a divestment policy in July, and Liberty has confirmed it will not insure Australia’s Adani project.

Other big firms such as America’s AIG are coming under increasing pressure.

From the Climate Disinformation Database: 60-Plus Association

The 60-Plus Association describes itself as “the conservative alternative to the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP).” 60 Plus has sought to privatize social security, end the federal estate tax, and strengthen gun rights. They oppose aspects of health care reform, federal energy standards, and tax increases. Between 2010 and 2012, the 60 Plus Association received more than $42 million from organizations, many of which are affiliated with the Koch brothers.

Read the full profile and browse other individuals and organizations in our Climate Disinformation Database or our new Koch Network Database.