Why Do Only Progressives, and Not Polluters, Need to be Diverse?

Darryl Fears has a good piece in today's Washington Post taking a closer look at diversity in the environmental movement - or lack of it. Tough but fair. I work for an environmental organization and I agree green groups don't do nearly enough.

But what about polluters and their allies - how are they doing on diversity?

• Exxon Mobil board of directors: 12 members, 2 women, 0 Hispanics, 2 African Americans
• Arch Coal board of directors: 11 members, 1 woman, 0 Hispanics, 0 African Americans
• Heritage Foundation board of trustees: 27 members, 8 women, 0 Hispanics, 1 African American
• Congressional Republican leadership (House & Senate): 10 members, 1 woman, 0 Hispanics, 0 African Americans

What about workers in polluting industries? It's just as bad:

• Oil & gas extraction: 23% women, 9% Hispanic, 4% African American
• Coal mining: 6% women, 3% Hispanic, 1% African American

No one writes articles about polluting industries being almost entirely white men because it's taken for granted that polluting industries are all run by rich old white guys. Even when they repeatedly get caught using stock photos to try to not look to the public like such rich old white guys - and Republicans, coal, and chemical polluters all have - it isn't covered in the mainstream media because again, everyone is just supposed to already know that polluters are rich old white guys who buy pictures of non-rich old white guys to make themselves look like they care about non-rich old white guys.

Again, I think conservationists need to do more to reach out to Hispanics and African-Americans. Excluding them isn't just wrong, it's bad business - polls show minorities are exceptionally strong supporters of climate action in particular and clean air & water in general.

But much like the media holds polluters and their allies to a much lower standard ethically, they're held to no standard on diversity.

Shocking: Big Oil Front Groups Hate Clean Energy

If you're getting tired of reading headlines like that, imagine how tired The Green Miles is of typing them.

The latest effort from Big Oil front groups to derail clean energy & climate action? This time, it's Americans for Tax Reform and the Heritage Foundation leading the attack. Just one look at these front groups' funding and it's no surprise they're trying to keep America addicted to oil:

• ATR is supported by two foundations funded by "reclusive billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife, whose wealth was inherited from the Mellon industrial, oil, uranium and banking fortune."In addition, it's received funding from Philip Morris, RJ Reynolds and the Tobacco Institute,
• Heritage has received at least $530,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998. It's also received funding from ChevronTexaco and the foundations of oil tycoons the Kochs. On Heritage's board? Richard Mellon Scaife.

If these are the people you think should be dictating our energy policies, by all means check out ATR's bizarre website, which features President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid apparently as some sort of witches.

Fortunately, Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) was on the floor of the House yesterday blasting Republicans for repeating Big Oil's lies about clean energy & climate action:



Cross-posted from Blue Virginia

Heritage Hearts Dissent (Except at Its Own Events)

For some strange reason, someone decided to invite The Green Miles to tonight's "premiere" of Not Evil Just Wrong, a new global warming denial movie. I say "premiere" because the film has already been screened regularly this year at conservative political conferences.

So why stage a phony "premiere"? The Washington Independent reports, "Some conservative films like last year's An American Carol have been given mass releases that backfired when audiences failed to show up." Ah. Makes sense now.

Anyway, I come here not to slam the documentary, which richly deserves the complete indifference it's received from the non-teabagging world. I come to slam the hosts: The Heritage Foundation.

It's certainly not surprising that Heritage would host these filmmakers. After all, their last movie was a mining "documentary" funded by the mining industry. Now they're screening their pro-fossil fuels "documentary" at Heritage, which has received at least $530,000 from ExxonMobil in just the last decade.

But a line in the invitation caught my eye: "Terms and Conditions of Attendance are posted online at www.heritage.org/Press/Events/terms.cfm".

Here's an excerpt from that page:

DECORUM
This event is open to the public as part of The Heritage Foundation’s commitment to promote reasoned discussion and understanding of important public policy issues. In support of these goals, The Heritage Foundation expects that all attendees will conduct themselves with courtesy and respect for every speaker and those in the audience, regardless of agreement or disagreement with any speaker or member of the audience. Accordingly, The Heritage Foundation reserves the right to deny admission to, and to remove, anyone who, while our guest, does not conduct themselves with courtesy and respect for the speakers and the audience.

All that would be totally fine -- it fits most every public standard for decorum -- if not for one thing. The Heritage Foundation spent all summer defending that very behavior.

The Heritage Foundation blog defended teabaggers as "upset citizens" and decried any attempt to maintain decorum as an effort to "silence" protesters and "stage manage" events.

So if an elected official tries to maintain civility at a public event, it's cause for revolution. But if anyone tries to revolt at a Heritage Foundation event, they could be arrested.