Help Climate Hawks Vote tell the Department of Justice: Prosecute Exxon.
Tomorrow, I will be personally delivering over 350,000 signatures to the Department of Justice, as the new political director of Climate Hawks Vote.
Over 350,000 people, organized by over a dozen groups, including DailyKos, have signed petitions calling for a DOJ investigation of Exxon. The Climate Hawks Vote petition has ignited a national movement.
And it wasn’t just this petition — Climate Hawks Vote has been involved every step of the way in the #ProsecuteExxon effort.
Months ago, research I was doing into the history of Congressional hearings on climate science gave the investigators at InsideClimate News a key insight that led to them unlocking Exxon’s history of covering up their own climate science research.
Thanks to outreach from Climate Hawks Vote president RL Miller, Rep. Ted Lieu of California was the first member of Congress to call for a DOJ investigation.
Climate Hawks Vote board member Bill McKibben has led the way, first with his bold act of civil disobedience at an Exxon gas station, and then by mobilizing the 350-dot-org network, and then by personally reaching out to leaders of other progressive organizations to sign on to this campaign.
You might recognize something—I, RL, and Bill are all bloggers at Daily Kos. Climate Hawks Vote is very much an effort born from the great community of this site.
This delivery to Attorney General Loretta Lynch is just the start of what we have planned for our Exxon campaign. This could be the new Keystone XL moment for the climate movement, not only offering the opportunity for a world-shaking victory against carbon pollution, but also bringing together new allies in our efforts to protect civilization from the fossil-fuel industry.
We have some ambitious ideas for making sure that every American knows what Exxon has done. We know that we can’t rely on the corporate-controlled, fossil-ad-backed media to do that work, so these plans depend on your involvement to organize and spread the word about the specifics of Exxon’s crimes and what we as a nation can do to hold them accountable.
We want to ensure that the #ProsecuteExxon movement has a powerful electoral element — that candidates and elected officials are involved in this fight. We have begun a campaign to demand that state Attorneys General use their prosecutorial powers to hold Exxon accountable for the damages all fifty states have suffered. We also intend to hold these officials accountable at the ballot box.
When members of Congress like Rep. Ted Lieu and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse stick their neck out to call out ExxonMobil and climate-denial infrastructure, we will continue to support our climate champions with our collective voice—and through our Climate Hawks Vote SuperPAC.
This won’t be an easy fight—Exxon’s polluter profits are backed by a tremendous political machine. But just as Americans took on the tobacco industry and won, we can do that again. The impacts of Exxon’s climate denial, unfortunately, are becoming ever more apparent all across America every day. If we do the work to organize our fellow citizens against their deadly deceit, we can—and will—win.
I am committed to Climate Hawks Vote continuing to lead this fight. For this sustained effort, I need your support:
P.S. Here's a link to add your signature to the petition.
