The New York Times revealed a shocking conspiracy among Republican state treasurers to thwart efforts to improve the environment. They have combined to punish banks that oppose climate change. Fighting climate change, they believe, is “woke.” They don’t care about the extreme droughts, storms, floods, and other climate catastrophes affecting their states and the nation. They want to protect the fossil fuel industry, not their children and communities.
The investigative report was written by David Gelles based on a review of thousands of documents.
Nearly two dozen Republican state treasurers around the country are working to thwart climate action on state and federal levels, fighting regulations that would make clear the economic risks posed by a warming world, lobbying against climate-minded nominees to key federal posts and using the tax dollars they control to punish companies that want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Over the past year, treasurers in nearly half the United States have been coordinating tactics and talking points, meeting in private and cheering each other in public as part of a well-funded campaign to protect the fossil fuel companies that bolster their local economies.
Last week, Riley Moore, the treasurer of West Virginia, announced that several major banks — including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Wells Fargo — would be barred from government contracts with his state because they are reducing their investments in coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel.
Mr. Moore and the treasurers of Louisiana and Arkansas have pulled more than $700 million out of BlackRock, the world’s largest investment manager, over objections that the firm is too focused on environmental issues. At the same time, the treasurers of Utah and Idaho are pressuring the private sector to drop climate action and other causes they label as “woke.”
And treasurers from Pennsylvania, Arizona and Oklahoma joined a larger campaign to thwart the nominations of federal regulators who wanted to require that banks, funds and companies disclose the financial risks posed by a warming planet.
At the nexus of these efforts is the State Financial Officers Foundation, a little-known nonprofit organization based in Shawnee, Kan., that once focused on cybersecurity, borrowing costs and managing debt loads, among other routine issues.
Then President Biden took office, promising to speed the country’s transition away from oil, gas and coal, the burning of which is dangerously heating the planet.
The foundation began pushing Republican state treasurers, who are mostly elected officials and who are responsible for managing their state’s finances, to use their power to promote oil and gas interests and to stymie Mr. Biden’s climate agenda, records show.
Again, straight from the Powell memo, man. Now 51 years later with the nation’s testicles in its grip, courtesy of the Kochs, Bradleys, Olins, Mellon-Scaifes, DeVoses, and Popes to start.
Funny how capitalism works to impoverish people …
correction: cutthroat capitalism works to impoverish the working class.
There are other forms of capitalism that are not as toxic and destructive as the US version.
One is called cuddly capitalism that works to improve the lifestyles of the working class.
“The cuddly capitalism of the Nordic nations provides an economic equity that makes a middle class lifestyle the norm, where the sharp edges of worry about the cost of health care, elder care, child care, and education simply don’t exist.” May 11, 2014
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2014/0511/Nordic-cuddly-capitalism-Utopia-no.-But-a-global-model-for-equity#:~:text=The%20cuddly%20capitalism%20of%20the,education%20simply%20don't%20exist.
If countries fail to move towards clean energy, there is will more poverty than simply in those that live in equatorial regions of the planet. Climate change is an existential threat to all, and everyone has to pitch in to cut CO2 emissions, whether Republicans like it or not. There’s plenty of money to be made in making this shift away from fossil fuels. These state conservatives are stubbornly delusional. They need to accept the bigger reality, even if it hurts their pocketbooks now.
cx: there will be more poverty
Ohio’s treasurer is part of SFOF. If you’re in Ohio, vote for his Democratic opponent, Scott Schertzer. The election will be held in Nov., 2022.
Schertzer’s war chest is small and Sprague’s is huge- no difficulty identifying why.
Sprague’s campaign slogan, Faith Family Finance.
He omitted the 4th, “F”, which is
F—U Ohioans and the planet earth.
You need to learn how to get around the censors with the use of “fecking.” Brought into use by the writers of Father Ted to get around Irish censors and now a staple in Irish TV comedy.
the derivation of fecking- thanks
Father Ted reminds me of Trump, throwing his food across the room.
A cult of suicide and murder.
Technically speaking, should you need more examples, this is fascism. Textbook, even.