A group of Quaker peace activists have one of
Wall Street's dirtiest banks running scared.
The Quakers have been leading a campaign to force one
of America's Big Five banks, PNC, to pull its billions from one of the
most destructive forms of coal mining. The bank is funding big mining
corporations to literally blow apart whole mountains to get at the coal buried
inside.
And the campaign is working. With tens
of thousands of SumOfUs members also calling on the bank to stop its
environmental destruction, it's feeling the pressure. Last year, the bank's CEO
ended the company's annual shareholder meeting after just 15 minutes to prevent
the Quakers from speaking out.
So guess what the bank's CEO just did? He moved
this year's shareholder meeting to the other side of the United States, hoping
it will keep the Quakers away.
But he didn't count on us. The meeting is just
2 weeks away, but we're teaming up with the Quakers to organize local
SumOfUs members to speak out at the meeting. But we also need to make sure that
we can get the Quakers to the meeting to tell their story.
The mining that PNC is funding is truly horrific. In a
desperate rush to squeeze more profit out of dwindling coal seams, coal
companies are turning to an extreme form of mining known as mountaintop removal. It’s exactly
what it sounds like: Appalachian mountains are being blown to pieces
with heavy explosives.
It’s not just wild forests and mountains that are being
destroyed. As heavy metals and arsenic leach into water supplies,
communities are being poisoned. Children in Appalachian coal mining
communities are 42% more likely to be born with birth defects and have a life
expectancy that is almost 5 years lower than the national average.
PNC says it’s “a leader in eco-friendly development”
but it’s financing some of the worst perpetrators of mountaintop removal and
profiting from the destruction.
In 2010, PNC responded to pressure by introducing a
policy of not providing funding to individual mountaintop removal projects, or
providing credit to coal producers whose primary extraction method is
mountaintop removal. And yet, in 2011, PNC provided loans for 4 of the 5
largest coal companies. These 4 companies account for 47% of all
mountaintop removal coal mining. The policy amounted to nothing.
But we know that PNC care what the public thinks of it.
And we know that the will is there to change. Last April, a quarter of
PNC shareholders voted in favour of a proposal calling on PNC to evaluate its
financial risk of funding carbon intensive practices such as coal
mining. In terms of shareholder activism, that is huge. If we put
enough pressure on PNC to divest from mountaintop removal mining projects, we
could have a tremendous impact on the communities and landscapes of Appalachia.
But to do that, we need to make sure we can get the Quaker peace activists to
the shareholder meeting to speak directly to the shareholders who will vote.
Thanks for all you do,
Paul, Martin and the rest of us.
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