"You cannot be called an alarmist if there is something to be alarmed about." Unknown
Joe Manchin describes the Build Back Plan as reckless and fiscally irresponsible. A growing number of Americans beg to differ. What is crazy and reckless, Joe, is that climate inaction continues to threaten the world's biosphere with collapse and a looming total extinction event by mid-century if we do not drastically reduce carbon emissions. The 2020 election is described as the world's last best chance to address the climate and extinction crises. The failure of COP26 in combination with Manchin's refusal to support Joe Biden's Build Back Better plan, containing critical climate provisions, has likely doomed us to face an extinction event within our lifetimes.
Manchin has always lusted after the profits from burning and mining coal to line his pockets. After all, he is a coal baron, and he has reaped millions of dollars as a result. If you weren't already aware, coal is the single largest source of global carbon emissions. We have been nice enough, it’s time to fight him.
The Intercept wrote on his filthy ties to coal:
For decades, Manchin has profited from a series of coal companies that he founded during the 1980s. His son, Joe Manchin IV, has since assumed leadership roles in the firms, and the senator says his ownership is held in a blind trust. Yet between the time he joined the Senate and today, Manchin has personally grossed more than $4.5 million from those firms, according to financial disclosures. He also holds stock options in Enersystems Inc., the larger of the two firms, valued between $1 and $5 million.
Those two companies are Enersystems Inc. and Farmington Resources Inc., the latter of which was created by the rapid merging of two other firms, Manchin’s Transcon and Farmington Energy in 2005. Enersystems purchases low-quality waste coal from mines and resells it to power plants as fuel, while Farmington Resources provides “support activities for mining” and holds coal reserves in the Fairmont area. Over the decades, whether feeding tens of thousands of tons of dirty waste coal into the power plants in northern West Virginia or subjecting workers to unsafe conditions, Manchin’s family coal business has almost entirely avoided public scrutiny.
Manchin has raised over 763,000 dollars from the fossil fuel industry from 2017 to 2020. Those numbers have only increased since 2021 as Manchin is critical to stop any action on the climate. Polluters got their investment return, and then some as the coal baron whittled most life-affirming provisions out of BBB.
Manchin doesn't give a crap about West Virginia either. Sludge described how West Virginia would have benefitted from the climate provisions back in October.
Many West Virginians supported the Build Back Better Act before it was stripped down to accommodate Manchin and other conservative Democrats—a study from West Virginia University found the bill would have directed nearly $21 billion in investment in renewable power, grown the state’s economy by hundreds of millions of dollars annually, and created thousands of jobs. Mayors of Charleston and other large cities last week called on Manchin to vote for the bill, and the president of the United Mine Workers of America backed a section that would have transitioned from coal with thousands of clean energy jobs. A poll by Data for Progress earlier this year found that 57% of state likely voters favored the agenda, including 50% of independents and 45% of Republicans.
Manchin is the top recipient of oil and petrochemical industries, and surprise, Sinema is number two. He truly is despicable, Sludge continues.
Manchin continues to be by far the top recipient of oil and gas industry contributions in Congress, while holding non-public shares valued at up to $5 million in his family coal brokerage and receiving a rich annual income from its waste coal services. The power plant where his family company handles waste coal was recently approved by a state commission to operate until at least 2040, surviving after a ratepayer bailout he oversaw as governor in 2006 and another publicly-funded rescue in 2015, and Manchin inserted $11.3 billion in funding in the bipartisan infrastructure bill that could free up more waste coal to burn, among other provisions he added targeting the niche industry.
While Manchin was in the process of removing the clean energy programs, over which he had previously demanded sole committee jurisdiction from Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, his campaign and leadership PAC saw an influx of over $400,000 in third quarter donations from fossil fuel industry PACs and the executives and employees of oil and gas companies.
The Independent (2017) wrote on the oil industry where companies are planning for a five-celsius temperature rise by mid-century. We will not survive that: 2100, 2050, 2040, and 2030 are all extinction dates because the planet is in extreme danger from climate change. And we are not being told the truth by the media and the powerful on how dire our survival chances are. I'll be planning in-depth information in later diaries.
Oil giants Shell and BP are planning for global temperatures to rise as much as 5°C by the middle of the century. The level is more than double the upper limit committed to by most countries in the world under the Paris Climate Agreement, which both companies publicly support.
The discrepancy demonstrates that the companies are keeping shareholders in the dark about the risks posed to their businesses by climate change, according to two new reports published by investment campaign group Share Action. Many climate scientists say that a temperature rise of 5°C would be catastrophic for the planet.
snip
Neither company sets targets to reduce emissions and BP’s total investment in renewable and clean technologies has actually shrunk since 2005, the reports said. That’s despite the company’s public-facing image of being “beyond petroleum”.
BP invests just 1.3 per cent of its total capital expenditure in low-carbon projects while Shell has pledged to invest 3 per cent of its annual spend on low-carbon by 2020.
Both companies assess the resilience of their businesses against climate models in which temperatures warm by between 3°C and 5°C.
Nothing has changed; the industry still lies, stalls, and plans to burn every single drop of oil on earth despite their public statements to the contrary.
Similar to The Independent reporting, the NYT writes on the House Oversight Committee that had grilled Oil executives at the end of October. The COO's still have not responded to subpoenas from congress.
Former President Donald J. Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris agreement during his term in office. President Biden rejoined it in January.
According to the study, the four oil companies and trade groups reported 4,597 instances of lobbying Congress since that agreement was inked. Of those only eight referenced lobbying on the Paris Agreement, and none cited lobbying on legislation to cut carbon emissions and promote the goals of the agreement.
Ms. Maloney said she intends to issue subpoenas to the companies to see whether they are spending to fund campaigns that fight climate policy and if so, how much. She said that while the companies had submitted thousands of pages of documents to the committee, many of them were of little use. One company, she said, printed 1,500 pages from its own website.
I am in complete despair over recent events with Antarctica, COVID, and Democracy. That does not mean I have given up; I will fight these mothefu@kers as long as I have breath. But, I am weary.