Banking on Disaster

Money is the only language banks understand. We can and must take their money away. They fund fossil fuels. We have power.

Since the 2015 Paris Climate Accords, the bank industry has pumped somewhere between $5.5 to $6.9 trillion into fossil fuel projects. JPMorgan Chase is at the top of the list year after year, totaling $430 billion.

Recently, a reader asked me the biggest of questions. “What can I do personally to stop climate change?” I’m certain most of you have asked that question, too, and made changes in your life to lessen your impact on the planet. Thank you for that.

The sad truth is our individual actions from limiting or eliminating beef in our diets, going full out vegan and driving less, to buying second hand and consuming as little as possible, while admirable, aren’t getting the job done. That doesn’t mean I don’t encourage you to do those things, I absolutely do as I type on my 2013 iMac. I won’t replace it until I’m forced to by an ancient operating system that I can’t update anymore. Eventually it won’t run Firefox browser updates, making it unable to open pages, and a security risk. How I despise planned obsolescence.

For an American, I live low on the carbon scale. I’m writing to you dressed in old cargo shorts and a T-shirt that’s going to holes. I don’t care, I’ve chosen to work at home no matter what (I know many of you don’t have that choice), so I don’t need a work wardrobe (clothing waste is a terrible problem), and I don’t commute adding exhaust fumes to the atmosphere and leaving rubber particles in the environment. I ditched beef many years ago, don’t miss it, and eat vegetarian a few days a week. That’s an area with room for improvement. I would love to do most of my errands on a bicycle, but where I live, that would be risking my life on every ride. Oh, Buffalo, NY, why is there no bicycling infrastructure? A bike path or two for Sunday joyrides is cute, but doesn’t make a difference.

Cheaply made “fast fashion” clothing made in China and consumed by western nations is euphemistically “exported” choking poor nations from the Atacama Desert in South America (Greenpeace link)…

…to Ghana in Africa (great video from CBS). Such clothing is also often full of toxic chemicals. I’ll keep wearing my old clothes, thanks.

In spite of the research and writing I do, I often feel powerless against the machine burning up the planet. I persist because every day brings us closer to the point of no return. I’m extremely worried about permafrost melt, with the Arctic warming four times faster than the rest of the planet. Siberia has astonishingly experienced 100° F (38° C) heat, documented in this excellent June 2020, article from Science, in what is supposed to be one of the coldest inhabited places on Earth. Methane is bubbling up out of newly formed lakes, and hundreds of millions of years of frozen carbon matter is poised to thaw, not just in Siberia, but across the entire Arctic region. That’s a point of no return, and possibly what will force the desperate and unpredictable experiment of solar radiation management (SRM) through strategic aerosol injection (SAI). I’ve written two articles on those subjects discussing the first field test here, and the complicated questions this technology brings, here.

If oil is cancer, banks are the blood supply. At a time when our votes count for less and less, we must use the power of our money to affect change. Banks continue to finance oil exploration and drilling. That has to stop.

The melt of permafrost also threatens releasing ancient microbes for which we have no protection. This article from the Washington Post touches on this, and is filled with stunning photography of what a melting Siberia looks like.

We need action on many fronts, from protestors willing to risk injury and arrest, to educating others in our lives about the dilemma confronting us, and making good personal choices. Personal choices are unfortunately the weakest part of the battle. The fact is, as a citizen in a “developed” nation, my impact on the planet is many times worse than that of a person in a third-world country, no matter how conscientious I try to be. It’s baked into the system. If there’s to be a decent future for people and the creatures who have an equal right to this planet that we depend on for our physical well-being and mental health, the system must change. If the system doesn’t change, there will be no future at all. Systemic change is the goal. Driving an EV, is a greenwashing lie itself, look at the shocking mining and water use I wrote about at Thacker Pass, Nevada to create lithium batteries, just one example of myriad corporate power and guns for hire bullshit. Sorry, if you got sold by Matthew McConaughey in his self-satisfied electric Lincoln SUV ads, but driving an EV will not save the planet. It’s a greenwashing lie. He’s either stupid, an asshole or both, and it’s not as if he didn’t already have enough money. So WTF? Look, as one of my readers I know your intentions are good, and you’re looking for answers. Fact, we’re getting bamboozled. You already know, pretending that crap you conscientiously place in the recycling bin every day won’t save us because it shouldn’t exist at all, should it? Our bodies are recycling bins at this point. Did you take your PFAS today? You bet you did. It’s in your tap water.

If oil is cancer, banks are the blood supply. At a time when our votes count for less and less, we must use the power of our money to affect change. Banks continue to finance oil exploration and drilling. That has to stop.

Here are the top twelve offenders from Bankingonclimatecrisis.org. There is a lot more information on this page and site, and frankly I wouldn’t be surprised if it got disappeared. If you think this site is junk lefty shit, consider mainstream sites to confirm this kind of information. The statistics are widely available. Consider Market Watch.

JPMorgan is the filthiest of all, check it out, this is Forbes for fuck’s sake, but there is no question the top twelve and top sixty need to be brought to heel. We can do this because everything they do depends on your money and mine. Let’s take it away.

We know many of our politicians are in the pockets of big oil. Here’s a list of the most corrupted. Absorb it, be angry and act. BILLIONS of dollars all told. We know our votes have become ever more meaningless as our parties have been hijacked by money from lobbyists of all kinds. We know the electoral college undermines the popular vote, and that gerrymandering lands people in office who should never have been there. We know the conservative “mandate” is no mandate at all, rather a racist, sexist, homophobic attempt to put Christian fascists into power. So what do we do?

We vote, because as shitty as voting is, the difference between the shitty Democratic Party and the Christian Fascist one is profound. But we know that’s not enough, not nearly enough, so every day now we vote with our money, dammit. We don’t become sheep led to slaughter, and we fucking protest to the best of or ability. Or were cooked. Pretty close to literally.

And that voting is the least we do because it’s going to take so much more.

We pick up our fucking mind warping dumb phones, deeply insidious devices used against us, make calls and send emails to take the money away from the people killing us, and our planet. We have conversations with people we know well, and our mere acquaintances. We explain and persuade. We find common ground. We make this our daily life. We risk being unpopular. The enemy is common. Some have misidentified the enemy. We educate those. We start a silent, bloodless revolution. Fuck Jamie Dimon, CEO psycho of JPMorgan Chase and the like. We are in charge. Our money, extracted through our mere human right to wake up and breathe every day, is being used to kill us. They depend on it. That’s why it’s also our power. We stop buying anything beyond necessities, and spend a couple of days in annoying conversations navigating robot answering systems with our banks and force the investment zombies to move our money to small, local institutions without fossil fuel portfolios. We move our fucking cash. Money in this sick world is everything. We can affect that, and must. We have power, but must have the courage to use it. We must push our personal relationships and start a movement. Those at the top do not have our backs.

BankGreen is a tool that could help you find a clean bank. Please note, this tool might not be perfect. Lynn U. researched New Zealand Banks. Thank you, Lynn! Apparently, the tool was confused about a New Zealand bank, Taranaki Savings Bank (TSB), claiming it’s owned by a Banco Sabadell. It mistook New Zealand’s TSB with a UK bank, also abbreviated to TSB. I had to research my bank independently, too little information was available.

We will build a new world, or the world will go on without us. It’s not about you and me in the future. It’s about you and me now, even if it comes at a price. The price deferred is unconscionable and the consequences undeniable. If we don’t fight now, there will be nothing left to fight for. Let’s move our goddamn money.