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TICK TOCK THE CLIMATE CLOCK PART TWENTY-THREE


The climate emergency is all about oil.  And coal.  And natural gas.  But especially politics.  Contrary to the sign above, oil pumps death.

Bubble, Bubble, Oil, Gas, and Coal Trouble.  The Guardian has outed the 20 state-owned and investor-owned fossil fuel firms responsible for more than a third of all carbon emissions released into the atmosphere between 1965 and 2017.  The article is based on an analysis by Richard Heede of the Climate Accountability Institute, the world’s leading authority on the role of fossil fuels in the climate emergency.  Here’s the link: Guardian Article

Above is the chart showing the 20 firms—just in case you’d like to boycott any of them, divest your portfolio of their stock, or write some nasty letters to their CEOs.

Leave it in the Ground!  Ninety percent of the emissions attributed to these 20 fossil fuel companies came from the use of their products—gasoline and diesel fuel, jet fuel, natural gas, and thermal coal.  Just 10% came from extracting, refining, and delivering the finished fuels.  So, if use is the problem—and it clearly is--leave it in the ground!
But We’re in Business to Increase Shareholder Returns!  Rhetorical question:  Do you think any of these 20 governmental or corporate behemoths is going to give up record profits and international political and economic influence in exchange for keeping the global temperature increase below 1.5°C?  No, I didn’t think so.

And They’ve Known for Fifty-Four Years!  According to the Guardian article:

Heede of the Climate Accountability Institute said he chose 1965 as the starting point for this new data because recent research had revealed that by that date, the environmental impact of fossil fuels was already known by industry leaders and politicians, particularly in the US.

In November 1965, the president, Lyndon Johnson, released a report authored by the Environmental Pollution Panel of the President’s Science Advisory Committee, which set out the likely impact of continued fossil fuel production on global heating.

In the same year, the president of the American Petroleum Institute told its annual gathering: “One of the most important predictions of the [president’s report] is that carbon dioxide is being added to the Earth’s atmosphere by the burning of coal, oil and natural gas at such a rate by the year 2000 the heat balance will be so modified as possibly to cause marked changes in climate beyond local or even national efforts.”
  
Let’s Ram Through Saudi Aramco.  You may have noticed that Saudi Aramco is the largest offender in the list above.  Mohammed bin Salman aka MBS (which in my glossary stands for More Bull Shit), announced that the Kingdom would go ahead with its plans to sell a 5% stake in the company, despite recent drone strikes on its oil fields.  MBS values the state-owned company at $2Trillion, setting up the largest IPO in world history. According to Market Insider: 

Should Aramco list 5% of its shares at a $2 trillion valuation, the IPO could raise as much as $100 billion, four times the largest IPO to date. The company has hired JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, and Saudi Arabia's National Commercial Bank to assist in the offering.

That’s a cool $100 Billion to the same guy who ordered the beheading and acid wash of Jamal Khashoggi and whose image among multi-national corporations has been personally burnished by President Trump and his Middle East Peace expert, Jared Kushner.  I guess there is no need to point out that JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley are US companies, and that they will rake in millions on this deal.  Or that Trump just ordered an additional 3,000 US troops to Saudi Arabia to protect Saudi oil fields, with the promise that MBS will pay for them.  Rhetorical questions:  Do you think these things are at all related? Do you think the US is guaranteeing the Saudi investment’s viability?  Asking for a friend.
Back to Boil, Boil—This Time it’s Naftogaz.    Brace yourself—it’s petro-politics and it’s complicated.  But here’s a vivid example of how fossil fuel generates more than energy.  It also generates political corruption and turmoil.  The cast of characters--Energy Secretary Rick Perry, stand-in for Vice President Pence; Rudy Giuliani, bungling consigliere for President Trump; and the recently-indicted, money-laundering, campaign-finance-violating duo Messrs. Parnas and Fruman, stand-ins for Rudy Giuliani--have been brewing up a cauldron of trouble at Naftogaz (below), Ukraine’s state-owned natural gas company.   The US has long wanted to sell liquefied natural gas to Ukraine, a lucrative market that supplies gas to energy-hungry Europe.  Trump has recently wanted to tank his perceived 2020 rival. Here's how the fossil-fueled drama unfolded.

  • Trump sent Perry to Ukraine in Pence’s stead for Volodymyr Zelensky’s inauguration. 

  •  Perry had been pushing Ukraine to buy US LNG, on the pretext that this would be good for Ukraine’s anti-corruption image.

  • Part of Perry’s brief was to stack the Naftogaz Board with American-friendly directors.

  • To get in on the action, Messrs. Parnas and Fruman, US citizens born in Ukraine, set up a sham corporation called Global Energy Producers in the hopes of selling US LNG to Naftogaz.

  • To further their business ventures in Ukraine and the US, Global Energy shoveled $325,000 in Russian money into America First Action, a pro-Trump super PAC, as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars to several other federal and state political campaigns and PACs.

  • Former Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch (below), wasn’t keen on either Perry’s concept of stacking the deck, or on Global Energy's business plan.

  • To get pesky Yovanovtich out of the way, Parnas contributed heavily to former Congressman Pete Sessions' campaign, who obligingly wrote a letter to Secretary of State Pompeo, insisting that he fire Yovanovitch, which he did.

  • The Global Energy deal cratered anyway, but Parnas and Fruman had already found another gig—this one with Rudy.

  • Rudy engaged Parnas and Fruman to fix him up with Ukrainian officials willing to make up dirt on Joe Biden.

  • Parnas and Fruman, who had been dodging their creditors, all the while racking up $13,000 in hotel bills at Trump hotels in NYC and DC, and making substantial, illegal federal and state GOP campaign contributions, eventually caught the attention of the Federal Election Commission, which referred the matter to the US Attorney for the Southern District of NY, which issued an indictment and arrest warrant.

  • The same day the indictment issued, Parnas and Fruman had lunch with Rudy in DC.  Shortly after desert, the hapless Ukrainian-American duo was arrested at the airport with one-way tickets to Vienna, where their Russian money man, Dmitry Firtash, former partner of Paul Manafort, has for four years been avoiding extradition to the US on bribery charges.  Rudy reportedly also had a ticket to Vienna.  (Wonder if it was also one-way.)

This has been widely reported in the media, and you can read all about it here, in these New York Times pieces:  

Shadow Foreign Policy
Rick Perry
Rudy Giuliani

Last but Not Least, The Kurds.  This is just my intuition, but I think we will also find that oil played a role in the Kurds’ deal with Damascus in response to Turkey’s invasion of Kurdish-controlled northeastern Syria.  That’s where the oil fields are.  

I really think we’d all be much better off if we just left the oil, the gas, and the coal in the ground.  Too much money, too much influence, too much killing, and too much global warming. 

Keep it real!
Marilyn

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