Vermont climate change author Bill McKibben is out of jail and back home after his arrest at a Washington, D.C., bank during a test run of a coming national protest targeting financial institutions that support fossil fuel interests.
McKibben and two dozen fellow activists held a sit-in at the Chase Bank nearest the U.S. Capitol Jan. 10 to both publicize the fact its parent firm is the world’s largest investor in oil and gas companies as well as to practice for a nationwide mass action planned for Earth Day in April.
“If banks like Chase Bank stopped funding the fossil fuel industry, they could not go on building pipelines, they could not go on making new coal mines and building new LNG terminals and doing all the other things that are making our planet, week by week, less habitable,” McKibben said in a speech broadcast from the branch to loudspeakers at actress Jane Fonda’s nearby climate change protest at the Capitol.
Chase customers watched an increasing surreal scene as demonstrators unfurled a “Defund Climate Change” sign before Fonda arrived with fellow Academy Award-winning actress Susan Sarandon and 100 Capitol protesters who had marched down Pennsylvania Avenue to the bank.
“Move your money, Chase, or we’ll move ours,” the actresses and fellow activists shouted outside as police entered the bank to arrest McKibben and nine others on charges of trespassing.
The branch shut down for several hours as the Vermonter spent eight hours in jail.
McKibben, recalling his arrest during a home-state speaking tour, said the protest was a test run of a new “Stop the Money Pipeline” campaign that’s aiming to mark Earth Day this April with similar takeovers of Chase, Bank of America, Citibank and Wells Fargo branches nationwide.
“We’re going to need people in the lobbies all over this country,” said the Ripton resident, who has yet to name any Vermont banks.
McKibben, credited with writing the first book about global warming for a general audience, long has called for college and university endowments, pension funds and philanthropies to divest their stock in fossil fuel companies.
Under his latest project, McKibben’s grassroots environmental group 350.org will join similar organizations in targeting financial institutions that invest in coal mining, fracking and oil and gas projects.
“2020 is obviously a big year for politics,” McKibben told a capacity crowd that filled Brattleboro’s Centre Congregational Church. “But there’s another power center on this planet, and that has to do with money. Unlike political systems, financial systems move fast. If Chase announced tomorrow they no longer would be loaning money to the fossil fuel industry, we would be living in a different world.”
Chase has financed nearly $200 billion in fossil fuel projects since the creation of the United Nations’ 2015 Paris climate accord, according to a new report by the environmental advocacy groups Rainforest Action Network and Sierra Club.
McKibben has taken advantage of his Washington, D.C., protest to write a New York Times opinion piece on the new campaign.
“We want people to understand that the money inside the vaults of banks like Chase is driving the climate crisis,” he wrote. “Cutting off that flow of cash may be the single quickest step we can take to rein in the fossil fuel industry and slow the rapid warming of the earth.”
McKibben notes the world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock, recently joined an initiative pushing private investors to reduce fossil fuel holdings.
“The promises they made were fairly underwhelming — what was more important was they said the cutting edge of finance is now around climate change,” he said. “They’re more scared about what’s going to happen to their large piles of money than to the planet, but what the hell. We need to snowball that and snowball that fast. No longer can we do modest things. If we do it right, the effects will be remarkable.”
