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In the United States, electric utilities are an outsized influence on our political process. Utilities can be a force for good but as UC Santa Barbara professor Leah Stokes explained to ODP this past spring, “There is an abundance of shadow, dark money, and nonprofits groups whose missions’ are to stifle clean energy progress and I think this is one way the utilities have been able to so successful and discreetly amassed political power and influence historically.”
This paradigm needs to change, but what are the obstacles? That’s the conversation that Political Climate podcast host Julia Pyper had with Dr. Stokes in this week’s episode of the DITCHED miniseries:
In the face of a mounting climate crisis, financial institutions are re-evaluating their relationships with coal, gas and oil. But while the divestment movement is picking up speed, it isn’t on a one way street.
There is still lots of money flowing into fossil fuels through various public and private channels. At the same time, fossil fuel interests are spending heavily to influence policy that protects their assets and future growth opportunities.
In this episode, we speak to Leah Stokes, assistant professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara about her research on how fossil fuel companies and electric utilities are slowing the shift away from polluting resources.
This is the fourth episode in the Political Climate miniseries called DITCHED: fossil fuels, money flows and the greening of finance. Listen and subscribe to Political Climate wherever you get podcasts!
Listen to the full episode here.
Recommended reading:
Catch all DITCHED episodes in addition to our regular Thursday shows! Listen and subscribe to Political Climate on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play or wherever you get podcasts!
by Ashira Morris, ODP Staff Writer This week, the European Union will debate new rules on chemicals, specifically polymers. Plastic is made of synthetic polymers, which simply means a long, repeating chain of molecules, and the new proposed safety regulations would only apply to about 6% of them, The Guardian reports. Plenty of plastics with […]
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by Amy Lupica, ODP Staff Writer A new survey by travel company Virtuoso found that 82% of people say the pandemic has made them want to travel more responsibly in the future and that 72% of people believe that travel should support local communities, preserve cultural heritage, and protect the planet. But another study conducted by The Vacationer […]
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by Amy Lupica, ODP Staff Writer A new study has found that “super-emitter” landfills produce more methane than the fossil fuel or agricultural sectors. The years-long aerial survey performed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena and the leak-detection firm Scientific Aviation found that these landfills were emitting up to six times more than Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates. […]
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