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Greenhouse Gangsters Vs. Climate Justice in Bulk and Distribute It Through Your Community, Activist Networks, Co-Workers and Friends

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Greenhouse Gangsters Vs. Climate Justice in Bulk and Distribute It Through Your Community, Activist Networks, Co-Workers and Friends Greenhouse Gangsters Published by TRAC Transnational Resource vs. Climate Justice and Action Center Greenhouse Gangsters* vs. Climate Justice Contents 1 Introduction: Oil’s Injustices • Defining Climate Justice 6 Part 1: The Most Powerful Industry on Earth • Size Matters • Getting Their Way • Oil, Globalization and Climate Change 11 Part 2: The Corporate Response: The Five “Ds”: Deny, Delay, Divide, Dump, Dupe 22 Part 3: A Platform for Climate Justice • Remove the Causes of Global Warming • Oppose the Destructive Impacts of Oil Locally and Globally • Forge Just Solutions Between and Within Nations • Reverse Corporate-led, Fossil Fuel-Based Globalization. Sidebars 3 What is Climate Justice? 4-5 The Basics: What is Climate Change? 8 Other Corporate Climate Culprits—Car, Coal, Utilities 17 Global Warming and Global Equity 19 The World Bank’s Climate Hypocrisy 21 Hydrocarbons and Human Rights 24 No New Exploration 27 End Notes *The American Heritage Dictionary definition of gangster is “an organized group of criminals.” The history of big oil’s collusion, price fixing, transfer pricing, environmental crimes, complicity in human rights violations and most recently, concerted efforts to undermine initiatives to address global warming, effectively stealing our children’s future, eminently qualifies them as such. Written by Kenny Bruno, Joshua Karliner and Published by TRAC—Transnational Resource & Action Center China Brotsky Transnational Resource and Action Center PO Box 29344 Kenny Bruno is a Research Associate with TRAC. San Francisco, CA 94129-0344 USA He also works with Earthrights International Tel: (415) 561-6568 e-mail: [email protected] (ERI), on human rights and environment issues. Kenny worked with Greenpeace for more than TRAC works to build global links for human twelve years on a variety of domestic and interna- rights, environmental justice and democratic tional toxics issues. He is co-author of Greenwash: control over corporations. We publish Corporate Watch, www.corpwatch.org, an Internet maga- The Reality Behind Corporate Environmentalism (Third zine and Resource Center.This paper and sup- World Network/Apex Press, 1996). plemental materials are also available on the Corporate Watch website in both PDF and HTML formats at Joshua Karliner is TRAC’s Founder, Executive http://www.corpwatch.org/climate. Director and editorial coordinator of Corporate This paper was made possible with a generous grant from The Watch. He is author of The Corporate Planet: Ecology Turner Foundation. and Politics in the Age of Globalization, (Sierra Club We wish to thank those who helped us with research, review of Books, 1997). His writing has appeared in many the paper and other support, including: Joe Anderson, David Atkin, publications, including The Washington Post, The San Stephanie Barnhart, Marc Beck, Adam Davis, Antonio Diaz, Megan Doyle, Danny Faber, Jennifer Ferrigno, Kirsty Hamilton, Liz Karan, Francisco Chronicle, and Global Policy Dialogue. Danny Kennedy, Rob King, Geoff Kinsey, Denny Larson, Julie Light, Penn Loh, Esperanza Martinez, Richard Moore, John Passacantando, China Brotsky is Chair of TRAC’s Board. She Angela Ranzoni, Amit Srivastava, Steve Sawyer, Tristi Tanaka, Jorge is Director of Special Projects of the Tides Varela Marquez, Daphne Wysham. Foundation and The Tides Center. She is an TRAC is a project of The Tides Center. Organizing Board member of the Political Printing: Autumn Press. Printed with union labor on recycled 30% Ecology Group, a San Francisco-based environ- Post Consumer Waste paper with soy based inks. mental justice organization, and is a long time Cover Art: Paul Normandia environmental and social justice activist. Design: Melissa Lawton Design ©TRAC/Tides Center, November 1999 bad it will be. And if take public transport to work, and Introduction the extraordinary economic incentives for conserva- number of extreme tion and efficiency are practically weather events the non-existent. world has recently The ability of the individual con- has meant mastery been experiencing— sumer to influence climate is killer hurricanes, throughout the dwarfed by the impact of giant floods and heat waves corporations which explore for, twentieth century.” in places as far flung as extract, transport, refine and dis- Central America, —Daniel Yergin, tribute oil which is the primary Bangladesh and the “ source of carbon dioxide emissions The Prize East Coast of the — by far the major greenhouse Oil United States—are a gas. Just 122 corporations account harbinger of what is to for 80% of all carbon dioxide come, the greenhouse world will emissions. And just five private be harsh indeed. As we hurtle into the twenty-first global oil corporations—Exxon century, oil is still King. But it does The common wisdom is that the Mobil,1 BP Amoco,2 Shell, not rule benevolently. Rather, the modern consumer is at fault; Chevron and Texaco—produce oil reign of those who control the excessive driving, homes packed that contributes some ten percent politics of petroleum continues to with appliances, central heating of the world’s carbon emissions.3 undermine democracy while fos- and cooling, and failure to turn off While these five companies and tering human rights violations and the lights when leaving the house their allies in Congress are busy environmental disasters across the are what’s ailing us. This is partly blaming the American consumer Earth. true. But the ability of individual consumers to radically change Now, by making a major contribu- their lifestyle while participating Climate change affects everyone and 1 tion to a global problem that in mainstream society is severely looms larger than perhaps any everything. Bound Brook, New Jersey limited. U.S. residents cannot easi- before it, big oil may well have ly buy a solar-powered house or in the wake of Hurricane Floyd, met its match. Indeed, climate low emission car, many cannot September, 1999. change (often referred to as global warming or the greenhouse effect) has the potential to radically damage entire ecosystems, agriculture, and the inhabitability of whole countries. Changing the climate affects every- one and everything. Despite the efforts of a few transnational oil cor- porations (as well as their cohorts in the coal, chemi- cal and car businesses) to dupe the public into think- ing that global warming is not a real threat, the vast majority of the world’s cli- mate scientists and a grow- ing body of evidence say it is. No longer does the sci- entific debate focus on if global warming will hap- pen, but rather on how soon it will occur and on how for massive energy consumption, Meanwhile, tankers and pipelines Meanwhile, in order to remain or the “Developing World” for belonging to corporations like “competitive” in a global econo- not taking adequate steps to curb Texaco and Exxon Mobil have my they themselves have helped global warming, the emissions leaked and gushed oil into rivers shape, the Greenhouse from the fuel they produce and the sea, devastating aquatic Gangsters are cutting costs at exceed the total of all green- ecosystems, undermining the home. To do so they are under- house gasses coming from livelihood of local fisherfolk the mining worker health and safety, Central America, South America world over, and, once again, gen- and shedding jobs. They are also and Africa combined! erating resistance in communities merging with one another to across the globe. form a group of “super major” In addition to producing the oil companies—oil behemoths of a which is bringing on global warm- Refineries run by the likes of BP scale not seen since the break-up ing, these Greenhouse Gangsters con- Amoco and others have spewed of the Standard Oil empire near- tribute to and perpetuate the cli- toxic waste into the workplace, ly a century ago. mate change dynamic in several as well as the air and groundwa- other key ways: ter of neighboring communities, Big Oil’s profits depend upon the for decades. This behavior has perpetuation of local environ- — They are refiners and marketers severely affected the health and mental injustices along this glob- of oil and gas. safety of refinery workers. It has al chain of production that — They use their political power left the refineries’ neighbors— reaches from extraction, to trans- to prevent technological often poor communities of portation, to refining, to distribu- transformation and maintain color—dirty water and air, low tion. These activities lead up business as usual. property values and depressing and contribute to climate — They buy public and nick names such as “cancer alley.” change. In fact, the looming scientific opinion. But it has also helped spawn a crisis of climate change repre- vibrant movement for environ- sents the globalization of this 2 Oil’s Injustices mental justice that has spread chain of local ecological and At the same time that the green- across the United States. human rights problems. In a house gangsters are pushing the sense, global warming is the world to the edge of global eco- explosion of this diversity of logical havoc, they continue to he dynamics of corpo- local problems into a full blown relentlessly destroy the health rate-led globalization are planet-wide disaster of unprece- and well being of local commu- only magnifying this dented proportions. complex set of problems, nities and ecosystems where What’s more, catastrophic cli- Tand with it, the injustices. Big oil profits from oil are to be found– mate change itself will bring is riding the wave of globaliza- be it in the mangrove swamps of with it a new round of injustices. tion to more profits, power and the Niger Delta, the far reaches While the least powerful are the pollution. With the help of insti- of the Amazon basin, or the frag- ones who are hit hardest by the tutions such as the World Trade ile environs of the Arctic. oil industry’s multitude of Organization and subsidies from As Ecuadorian activist Paulina impacts today, it will once again the World Bank, the Greenhouse Garzon describes the petroleum be the poor and disenfranchised Gangsters are expanding their industry’s tremendous impacts: who will suffer the most severe exploration into new, uncharted, “Oil has changed the face of our effects of global warming.
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