Men of Big Coal Send Women to Lobby Congress

The coal lobby is sending women to lobby Congress this week. The Women's Mining Coalition includes "companies like Arch Coal Inc. and Cloud Peak Energy Inc.," reports Manuel Quinones of E&E News.

"This group of females really represents such tremendous leadership across the entire mining sector," says the group's president. Does it? Let's take a look at the numbers:

• Coal mining employment (2013): 91% men, 9% women
• Arch Coal Board of Directors: 10 men, 1 woman
• Arch Coal Corporate Governance Officers: 14 men, 1 woman
• Cloud Peak Energy Management Team: 8 men, 0 women

It's the latest reminder that polluting industries are run almost exclusively by rich old white guys.

When Only Five White Middle-Aged Male CPAC Climate Science Deniers Just Won't Do

The CPAC climate science denial panel featured six middle-aged white guys (and zero scientists):

It's the latest reminder that polluting industries are almost exclusively run by rich old white guys.

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.

Why Lobby Day Reminded Me of the Maitre-D' in Ferris Bueller's Day Off

As much fun as I had at Monday's Lobby Day in Richmond and as impressed as I was to see so many people come out to ask their legislators to protect our environment for our children's future ... the event left me with some nagging concerns.

What bothered me was ... well, don't take my word for it. Let's play a little game and see if you come to the same conclusions I do.

Take a look at this picture:

Now answer these questions (yes, you can look back at the picture, I'm not keeping score):

1. How many non-white people do you see?
2. How many people under the age of 30 do you see?
3. Doesn't my giant head (back left) stick out like a mylar balloon?

I counted two non-white people and about a dozen people under 30. (Most depressing moment of the day - realizing I'm no longer part of that demographic.)

To quote the maitre-d' in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, "I weep for the future."

Why so little diversity? Because minorities have seen the environmentalism as a movement of rich white suburbanites, and frankly, they've been right. If you're a poor city-dweller, you've probably never seen an eagle or a bear that wasn't in a zoo. What do you care about saving wildlife?

There are people and groups, like Van Jones, Dick Gregory, and the African American Environmentalist Association, trying to make the green movement more accessible to people of all backgrounds. But they can't do it alone. Traditional environmental organizations also need to diversify their issues, outreach, and publicity to bring more people into the movement.

There's one issue that's shifting the traditional paradigm over who has the most to lose -- climate change. The wealthy can afford to move away from rising seas. People in New Orleans didn't have a choice. The wealthy can afford to buy solar panels when carbon pricing like the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act makes fossil fuels more expensive. Renters who don't own a roof to put it on, never mind the money to buy a solar panel, won't have a choice (though the Climate Security Act does include $350 billion in transition assistance for low-income families).

It's also possible to draw in the other missing demographic - teenagers and young adults - through the same issue. Global warming has galvanized millions of young people, as the Step It Up rallies have shown.

Many traditional conservation organizations, especially local ones, still haven't caught on. At lobby day, the day's program didn't contain the words "global warming" or "climate." Instead, the top priority was "energy efficiency." While that was carefully coded to avoid scaring off climate change deniers, it also failed to capture the urgency of the issue and the passion of climate activists. Other priorities included preserving citizen environmental commissions and improving land use - important issues, yes, but also considered snoozers for the younger crowd.

Would modernizing the message turn off the well-respected lobbying groups who turn out now like the Virginia Garden Club? It doesn't have to. There's plenty of room between avoiding climate talk and destroying Hummers. Our challenge is to find that moderate ground.