fossil fuel industry

Bill McKibben 9-26-2023
The illustration shows s transportation vessels on a map of the world.

Golden Sikorka/iStock 

IF YOU THOUGHT Job had it bad, consider for a second the trials of Travis Dardar.

Dardar was born a Houma Indian in Isle de Jean Charles in Louisiana — whose residents are the first Americans that the federal government has officially designated as climate refugees, as it bought out their land before the sea could swallow it. So Dardar moved upstream to Cameron, La., and resumed his life as a fisherman — until an out-of-state company built a truly giant liquified natural gas (LNG) export terminal half a mile away and announced plans for another, 350 feet from his house. This time it was the fossil fuel company that bought him out, and so he’s moved yet further upstream — a man chased not once but twice from his home by the scourge of hydrocarbons.

That LNG buildout now underway in the Gulf and elsewhere — there are seven of these terminals operational already, with plans for 20 more — is the most extreme example of fossil fuel expansion in the U.S., even though it’s mostly flown under the radar. The fight against the absurd Willow oil project in Alaska, for instance, became a TikTok viral sensation, and millions of people signed petitions; but bad as it is, Willow will produce 1/20th of the carbon emissions associated with just one of the planned new LNG terminals, the CP2 project in Dardar’s old home of Cameron.

President Joe Biden blew it on Willow, breaking his pledge to block new drilling on federal lands, and it may endanger his hopes with young voters next year. Luckily for him, he gets another chance with these LNG projects, many of which are currently awaiting a certificate that they’re in the “public interest” from Biden’s Department of Energy.

An illustration of a woman with red hair in a blue and white-striped shirt, kneeling down to plant a small tree. Its shadow spreads out into a large, fully-grown tree. Looming power plant silos and oil rig towers cast their shadows behind the girl.

Illustration by Guang Lim

A RELATIVELY NEW front in the culture wars is emanating from the realm of finance: the push to increase financial investments that take into account “environmental, social, and governance” considerations. What is known in the finance industry as ESG has grown considerably over the past decade. According to the Global Fossil Fuel Divestment Commitments Database, the amount of wealth divested from fossil fuels worldwide has grown from $52 billion in 2014 to more than $40 trillion last year. But the increased visibility and prominence of ESG investing has triggered a backlash, with at least seven GOP-controlled states enacting anti-ESG policies and 15 others introducing bills to disallow the application of ESG principles in state investments such as pensions.

The anti-ESG push is coming from the usual suspects. Texas is heavily involved, due to the prominence of the fossil fuel industry in the state’s economy. Right-wing groups such as the Heritage Foundation and the American Legislative Exchange Council have also been big promoters of model anti-ESG legislation. West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey has formed a coalition with more than 20 of his counterparts to challenge the Securities and Exchange Commission’s ability to implement a climate disclosure rule, a case that could end up at the Supreme Court and hobble the executive branch’s ability to interpret and act on congressional statutes. Apparently, many conservative activists and politicians are only champions of the “free market” when it advances their ideological agendas.

Bill McKibben 7-10-2023
An illustration of a white house against a crème-colored backdrop. The house's red roof is being blown off and upward by an explosion of fire from within.

CSA-Printstock / iStock

THERE IS A reasonable argument, I suppose, that Christians should eschew insurance — after all, the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, and letting tomorrow be anxious for itself. But almost all of us have it, and it is one of the most interesting parts of our economy: In essence, we’ve asked insurers to be the people who understand the concept of risk for us.

So, we should probably pay some attention when — as happened this spring — State Farm and Allstate both announced they would no longer be writing new homeowners policies in California. Why? In a word, fire — or, as that good neighbor State Farm put it, “rapidly growing catastrophe exposure.” There’s simply too much chance that any given home in the Golden State will burn to the ground in any given year, and when it does it costs too much to replace. Something of the same is happening along the Gulf Coast, where increasingly state governments are becoming insurers of last resort — and where, when a hurricane approaches, economists now have models to show if the destruction is likely to bankrupt any companies.

You would think that this experience would be enough to convince insurers to become activists in the climate fight. After all, their basic tool — the actuarial table, which lets them predict and thus hedge risk — depends on the world working in the future as it has in the past, something that’s increasingly a sucker’s bet. But truth be told, insurers go on investing vast sums in the fossil fuel industry, and even underwriting new pipelines or coal mines. (One is reminded of the Leninist dictum that capitalists will sell you the rope with which to hang them.)

Bill McKibben 12-17-2019

Illustration by Matt Chase

WHAT'S THE MOST generic, uninteresting building in your town? Probably the new bank branch, all brown brick with sterile “landscaping” in the parking lot.

And what’s the most dangerous building in your town? Probably the new bank branch, with its drive-through window and its smiling teller and its pens on chains.

Dangerous because if it’s connected to one of the big national banks—Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo, Bank of America—that branch is deeply enmeshed in the destruction of God’s creation that climate change represents. It’s taking your money and turning it into carbon.

Those four banks—the same ones that helped nearly bring down the world economy in 2008—are the main lenders to the fossil fuel industry. If you want to build a new gas pipeline, if you wish to frack a well, if you hope for a shiny new LNG port, all you have to do is apply and chances are you’ll get your cash. Consider Chase, which lends more than any bank on Earth to the fossil fuel industry. In the last three years it handed the industry $196 billion. For ultra-deep-sea drilling, for Arctic exploration—you name it. It’s single biggest energy client? TC Energy, which is still trying to punch the Keystone XL pipeline across the continent. Its lending has gone up—way, way up—since the Paris climate accords. If Exxon is a carbon giant, so is Chase.

Bill McKibben 4-03-2013

In February, more than 30,000 demonstrated in Washington, D.C., against the Keystone XL pipeline. Photo by Rick Reinhard.

ALL I EVER wanted to see was a movement of people to stop climate change, and now I've seen it. And it looks so beautiful. It's hometown heroes like our friends in D.C. who've been fighting coal plants, and far-flung heroes like those who've been bravely blocking the Keystone XL pipeline with their bodies in Texas. It's people who understand that the fight against fracking and coal ports and taking the tops off mountains is ultimately the fight for a living planet; it's people who have lived through Sandy and survived the drought, some of whom I got to go to jail with recently.

It's the students at 252 colleges who are now fighting the fossil fuel industry head on to force divestment of their school's stock—the biggest student movement in decades. It's all of you—you are the antibodies kicking in, as the planet tries to fight its fever.

We've waited a very long time to get started, I fear. We've already watched the Arctic melt; our colleagues in 191 countries tell us daily of some new drought or flood.

Because we've waited this long, the easiest answers are no longer enough; we're going to have to make tough decisions. Our theme has to be: When you're in a hole, stop digging. Above all stop the Keystone XL pipeline. The president can do it with a single stroke of his pen, and if he does he will become the first world leader to veto a big project because it's bad for the climate. That would be a legacy—and a signal to the rest of the world that we're serious about this fight. It's his test.

Tim Kumfer 8-12-2011

If the United States is a fossil fuel addict, then the Alberta tar sands are our next big fix.

The tar sands contain the largest oil reserves in North America and their extraction has been called "the most destructive project on earth". The proposed Keystone XL Pipeline would carry oil from the tar sands down to Texas refineries, making it available for our consumption and pushing a turn to green energy sources even further down the road.

Borrowing wisdom from the twelve step program pioneered by Alcoholics Anonymous, theologian Ched Myers contends that addiction -- "the inability to say no because of captivity to pathological desires" -- names our spiritual and cultural condition. Perhaps nowhere is this clearer than in the case of fossil fuels.