Kennedy Robert F. Jr. - Horsemen of the apocalypse: the men who are destroying life on earth and what it means to our children

Copyright 2017 by Richard Russell

Introduction Copyright 2017 Robert Kennedy Jr.

Foreword Copyright 2017 David Talbot

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Cover design by Brian Peterson

Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-2175-3

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-2176-0

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

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This book is dedicated to the children who will inherit the earth.

Foreword

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By David Talbot

Their names will go down in infamy. They are the dark lords of the energy underworldthe oil, gas, and coal executives who continue to exhume fossil fuels from the earth as the planet grows hotter by the year.

Some of their names are already infamous. And some are being made more so by their intimate association with the Trump presidencysuch as fossil fuel titans Charles and David Koch, who rule the world of political dark money; Secretary of State and former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson; and Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt, who as Oklahoma attorney general fended off efforts to regulate widespread fracking in the state, which has led to a surge of earthquakes and pollution.

Others have pursued their dirty wealth relatively discreetly, away from the public spotlight, such as former Peabody Coal chief Greg Boyce and Oklahoma fracking king Harold Hamm. But their impact on the health of the planet has been no less destructive.

These are the horsemen of the apocalypse whom author Dick Russell investigates and indicts in the following pages. These are the men whose colossal fortunes and power come at humanitys expense, as the earth burns.

The growing calamity of climate change is usually presented in scientific and environmental terms that are either too abstract or too starkly real for average citizens to know how to respond. But the alarming changes in weather patternsthe droughts, firestorms, flooding, and freak storms that are wreaking havoc around the worldcan be traced to the business and political decisions made by the men profiled in this book.

These men like to think of themselves as not only generators of great wealth and economic progress but pillars of their community. But this book shows them for what they truly are. As author Dick Russell writes, These dark lords like to pose as good family men, benefactors of charities and the arts, upstanding pillars of their community. But first and foremost they are enemies of life on earth. This book has sought to put a face to the entrenched evil that has pushed us to the point of no return.

There is nothing abstract about the energy policies pursued by these menthey are directly linked to the heating of the planet. These energy moguls and power brokers are guilty of crimes against nature. And, as with any criminals, they must ultimately be held accountable for their crimes. In the current political climate, of course, this is impossibleat least in Congress or the courts. But if we care about the lives of our children and grandchildren, we must finally put a stop to these mens reckless profiteering and plundering.

These men claim they care about future generations on earth. Tillerson even served as president of the Boy Scouts of America. But at the same time that he was devoting himself to the physical and moral health of young men, Tillerson and fellow Exxon executives were covering up frightening evidence produced by their own company scientists about fossil fuels impact on planet warming. There is a special ring in hell reserved for men such as thisthose who put their prosperity and success ahead of humanity, including their own flesh and blood.

Despite the grim prospects we face in the age of Trump, there is reason for hope, notes Russell. Some of those whose wealth is based on Big Oil not only have awakened to the existential threat of climate change but are doing something significant about it. The dynasty built on the enormous fortune of John D. Rockefeller, Americas original oil tycoon, has begun to disinvest from fossil fuel companies like ExxonMobil. We all have a moral obligation, stated Valerie Rockefeller Wayne, the chair of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Our family in particular[since] our lifestyles come from dirty fossil fuel sources.

Although the Trump administration is stacked with horsemen of the apocalypse, the movement to shift the planet from dirty to clean energy sources is growing stronger. Even school-age childreninsisting they have a right to a safe and healthy futureare now taking climate change polluters to court.

As Russell concludes, we are engaged in an epic struggle between the forces of greed and devastation on one side and those of life. By identifying the enemies of life and exposing the ways they operate, Horsemen of the Apocalypse strikes a blow for all those who are fighting for the future.

David Talbot

March 2017

Introduction

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By Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

The earth mourns and withers,

The world pines and fades,

Both heaven and earth languish.

The land lies polluted,

Defiled by its inhabitants

Who have transgressed the laws,

Violated the ordinances,

And broken the covenant.

Therefore a curse consumes the land

And its people burn for their guilt.

Isaiah 24:4-6.

Not long ago, the legendary economist Amory Lovins showed me two photos, taken ten years apart, of the New York City Easter Parade. A 1903 shot looking north from midtown showed Fifth Avenue crowded with a hundred horse and buggies and a solitary automobile. The second, taken in 1913 from a similar vantage on the same street, depicted a traffic jam of automobiles and a single lonely horse and buggy.

That momentous shift occurred because, over a thirteen-year period, Henry Ford dropped the nominal price of the Model-T by 62 percent. While wealthy New Yorkers led the transition, the remainder of America quickly followed. Between 1918 and 1929, according to Stanford University lecturer Tony Seba, American car ownership rocketed from 8 percent of Americans to 80 percentbecause DuPont and General Motors devised a financial innovation called car loans, which soon accounted for three quarters of auto purchases. The buggy drivers never saw it coming.

Compare that platform for disruption to the economic fundamentals of todays solar industry. Over the past five years, photovoltaic module prices have dropped 80 percent, and analogous home solar financing innovations have spread like wildfire. Three-quarters of Californias rooftop solar has been innovatively financed, with no money down, including the system I installed on my own home. NRG Solar leased me a rooftop solar array with zero cost to myself and a guaranteed 60 percent drop in my energy bills for twenty years. Who wouldnt take that deal? And solar costs continue to fall every day.