Tag Archives: Greenpeace

Media Manipulators: David Koch resigns as WNET Trustee amid New Yorker article

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Amid concerns that Koch Industries could buy several major U.S. newspapers from Tribune Company, industrial billionaire David Koch was forced to step down as trustee of WNET, New York City’s largest public TV station, after the New Yorker revealed how WNET gave Koch inappropriate influence over its programming. Mr. Koch was floating a seven-figure donation over WNET’s leadership as the station aired a movie that portrayed him as a particularly greedy Manhattan resident.

Sure enough, WNET didn’t wind up receiving David Koch’s hefty donation.

Click to read New Yorker’s article on David Koch’s influence over WNET. Image: The New Yorker.

Last Thursday, David Koch submitted his resignation at a WNET Board of Trustees meeting, and Brad Johnson at Forecast the Facts* reports that Koch’s name was scrubbed from WNET’s website several days prior to the resignation. Koch Industries’ public relations website, KochFacts, released a preemptive response to the New Yorker article (which it has now urgently elaborated on), attempting to stifle New Yorker reporter Jane Mayer and the details of her newest piece. David Koch’s resignation as a WNET Trustee, coupled with telling quotes from WNET president Neal Shapiro and other sources, makes it clear that Koch had too much influence at the decreasingly-public TV station in New York.

The article is a fascinating culmination of two portions of the ongoing legacy of the Koch brothers: their desire to influence media, which is playing out with their company’s bid for the Tribune Company’s eight national daily newspapers, and their attempts to intimidate journalists and silence reporting they consider unfavorable. Continue reading →

Tribune Company: Don’t Sell Newspapers to Koch Industries!

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Today, Greenpeace proudly ads its voice to a growing coalition of groups to urge Tribune Company, publisher of the LA Times, the Chicago Tribune and several other major US newspapers, not to sell their print media to Koch Industries. SIGN OUR PETITION TO TRIBUNE COMPANY CEO PETER LIGUORI TO KEEP TRIBUNE’S NEWSPAPERS OUT OF KOCH’S HANDS.Koch bros climate denial tribune

Charles and David Koch, the billionaire brothers who own Koch Industries, the second-largest private company in the US, oversee an estimated $115 billion in annual revenue. The Kochs are each worth $31 billion to $45 billion, and the brothers have a bad habit of funneling tens of millions of dollars to organizations that deny the reality or severity of global warming. They have a keen interest in influencing US politics and culture, hosting secretive gatherings of wealthy elites who collectively raise hundreds of millions of dollars to spend on state and national politics. This quiet circle of business leaders already has a concerning amount of influence in the US media and has prioritized increasing that influence.

Greenpeace’s opposition to the Koch bid for Tribune Co. newspapers is rooted in the billionaire Koch brothers’ proven track record of peddling misinformation on climate change science through media outlets they already have ties to, such as the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, the National Review and the Washington Examiner. And when the Kochs can’t get favorable reporting, they fund organizations to gin up their own media that promote Koch priorities–busting unions, beating back environmental protection laws, smothering public education, watering down healthcare reform, and a variety of other initiatives that only the 1% stand to gain from.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN THE PETITION. And stay tuned for more updates from Greenpeace on our work to keep the Kochs’ corrupting influence out of Tribune Company newspapers.

Southeasterners can thank Duke Energy when global warming gives them twice as many thunderstorms

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A new study suggests that global warming could increase thunderstorms in the Southeast

A new study from NASA suggests that global warming could increase the number of violent, damaging thunderstorms that strike the U.S., particularly in the Southeast, which could see a 100 % increase in the number of days with thunderstorms. Continue reading →

The Solar Revolution is Happening, with or without Duke Energy

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© Tim Shaffer / Greenpeace

Last week, the largest producer of power in the United States took a radical step to acknowledge a basic fact: the solar energy revolution has finally reached the United States, and it cannot be stopped. Continue reading →

Drawing a line the in the sand, not in the forests.

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Pristine natural forest in Southeast Alaska. © Bob Taylor

At Greenpeace, we’re often working hard to help save unique and amazing forests in places like the Amazon and Indonesia. This week, we’re excited to announce a major victory for our unique and amazing forests right here in the U.S.

It started with a simple premise – if there’s no road going into a forest, it’s very hard to get in and chop the trees down. This is why, since 1999, Greenpeace and other NGOs have been supporting what’s known as Clinton’s “Roadless Rule”: a formal federal rule proclaimed at the close of his presidency which aimed to protect the remaining 58+ million acres of unprotected roadless areas in our national forest system.

Continue reading →

Brrrrrrrr: Arctic ice loss responsible for our chilly spring

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Although it’s Cherry Blossom festival time in Washington D.C., Greenpeace’s United States headquarters, we’re still bundled in our winter gear. Turns out that the same warmer temperatures causing Arctic ice loss at record-breaking speeds are responsible for the extreme winter weather and cold temperatures experienced in much of Europe and North America. The ice loss in the Arctic broke a previous 2007 record shrinking 18 percent, according to data published by National Snow & Ice Data Center last fall. Continue reading →

Duke Energy & Koch Brothers aim to kill clean energy in North Carolina

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As anticipated, former Duke Energy engineer and North Carolina Representative Mike Hager has introduced a version of the American Legislative Exchange Council’s “Electricity Freedom Act” into the state’s General Assembly.

House Bill 298 would fully repeal North Carolina’s renewable portfolio standard (RPS)–a state law requiring utilities to generate more electricity from clean sources over time. The existing RPS law is credited for contributing to the rapid growth of the clean energy sector in North Carolina.

By introducing a bill to fully repeal North Carolina’s RPS law, Rep. Hager is backtracking on his own promise not to eliminate current renewable energy targets for NC’s dominant utility, Duke Energy. From the Charlotte Business Journal last December:

Hager says he does not support eliminating the renewable requirements. N.C. utilities already have committed to long-term contracts to meet the current level of renewable-energy requirements. So changing the rules could cause problems for the utilities, he notes. That is why he generally favors capping renewables at the current level.

But Rep. Hager abandoned this position, instead marching in lockstep with the American Legislative Exchange Council’s full repeal initiative.

At least seven of the bill’s sponsors are known affiliates of ALEC, including three of the four primary sponsors–Rep’s Mike Hager, Marilyn Avila, George Cleveland, Rayne Brown, Justin Burr, Sarah Stevens, and Mike Stone. Continue reading →

Greedy Lying Bastards: See the movie Exxon and the Kochs hope you don’t

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The new film Greedy Lying Bastards (GLB for short) opened Friday in theaters in about 30 cities around the US. Go see it, first of all…there is a theater list here.  And tell your friends about it. Continue reading →

Supporting Appalachian Communities

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Mountaintop Removal

A destroyed mountaintop after the Mountaintop Removal process.

Today would have been Larry Gibson’s 67th birthday. I only met him a few times, but he was the kind of person that met just about everyone — and stamped a deep impression on you. So, we wanted to take today to do something that would have been the right thing to do by Larry.

As people rally in Charleston, WV to save Blair Mountain and stop Mountaintop Removal (MTR) altogether, we thought we’d make our position clear – that Mountaintop Removal mining must stop immediately. Continue reading →