Take Back St Louis
<div><span id="docs-internal-guid-28e1e723-7e83-42be-a722-cb459a9b8723"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="text-decoration-line: none;">=</font></span></div><div><span><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">todd g</font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In New York City, energy flowed into campaigns against police stop-and-frisk practices and to help victims of 2012’s Hurricane Sandy. Occupy experience put organisers in touch with community members normally scornful of ‘weirdos’ but resolved to fight corporate power.<b> One experienced organizer, fresh from Occupy in Missouri, went on to help launch the Take Back St Louis initiative, subtitled Reclaiming our Tax Dollars for a Sustainable Future. </b>The group gathered more than 22,000 signatures of registered voters, more than enough to put on to an April 2014 ballot a measure to "stop the city from giving tax breaks and other incentives to corporations that mine coal, gas and oil, and any corporation doing $1m of business with a mining company"; to "create a sustainable energy plan in the city that would invest public money in and open up land for renewable energy and sustainability initiatives like weatherisation programmes, urban farms and solar arrays". In other words, to create sustainable jobs – against the retrograde claim that measures to halt global warming are ‘job-killers’.</font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">There is, it happens, one mining company headquartered in St Louis, and it’s a giant: Peabody Coal, the world’s largest company that mines the dirtiest fuel. Working together, the mayor and Peabody Coal lawyers convinced a judge to grant an injunction, declaring that coal companies share equal rights with people (citing the recent ‘Citizens United’ Supreme Court decision), but the coalition is appealing to a higher court. Meanwhile, the cascade rolled on: </span><a href="http://studentsagainstpeabody.org/" data-link-name="in body link" class="u-underline" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); touch-action: manipulation; cursor: pointer; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(220, 220, 220); transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures; text-decoration-line: none !important;">students at Washington University</a><span style="font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> in St Louis, never before a hotbed of activism, sat-in for more than two weeks at the university president’s office to protest the membership of Peabody’s president on the university’s board of trustees. The anti-corporate spirit rides high among them. Occupy fanned such flames.</span></font></span></div><div><span><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="text-decoration-line: none;"></font></span></div><div><span><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></span></div><div><span><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><a href="https://webbrain.com/brainpage/brain/E212D5AA-EEF5-535C-9D0D-27920B094E45#-536" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" color="color" rgb="rgb" font-weight="font-weight" font-variant-numeric="font-variant-numeric" normal="normal" font-variant-east-asian="font-variant-east-asian" text-decoration-skip-ink="text-decoration-skip-ink" none="none" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" white-space="white-space" pre-wrap="pre-wrap" style="text-decoration-line: underline;">Peabody Coal: vs </span><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" color="color" rgb="rgb" font-weight="font-weight" font-variant-numeric="font-variant-numeric" normal="normal" font-variant-east-asian="font-variant-east-asian" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" white-space="white-space" pre-wrap="pre-wrap" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Take Back St. Louis</span></a></font></span></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><span id="docs-internal-guid-4fb42311-7e84-fa3a-611a-9abb339d283c"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://webbrain.com/brainpage/brain/E212D5AA-EEF5-535C-9D0D-27920B094E45#-536" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" color="color" rgb="rgb" font-weight="font-weight" font-variant-numeric="font-variant-numeric" normal="normal" font-variant-east-asian="font-variant-east-asian" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" underline="underline" text-decoration-skip-ink="text-decoration-skip-ink" none="none" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" white-space="white-space" pre-wrap="pre-wrap">Peabody Coal: vs </span><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" color="color" rgb="rgb" font-weight="font-weight" font-variant-numeric="font-variant-numeric" normal="normal" font-variant-east-asian="font-variant-east-asian" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" white-space="white-space" pre-wrap="pre-wrap">Take Back St. Louis</span></a></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><b><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-variant-numeric="font-variant-numeric" normal="normal" font-variant-east-asian="font-variant-east-asian" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" white-space="white-space" pre-wrap="pre-wrap">7/14</span><a href="https://webbrain.com/brainpage/brain/E212D5AA-EEF5-535C-9D0D-27920B094E45#-605" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" color="color" rgb="rgb" font-variant-numeric="font-variant-numeric" normal="normal" font-variant-east-asian="font-variant-east-asian" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" white-space="white-space" pre-wrap="pre-wrap"> </span><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" color="color" rgb="rgb" font-variant-numeric="font-variant-numeric" normal="normal" font-variant-east-asian="font-variant-east-asian" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" underline="underline" text-decoration-skip-ink="text-decoration-skip-ink" none="none" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" white-space="white-space" pre-wrap="pre-wrap">Missouri</span></a><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" color="color" rgb="rgb" font-variant-numeric="font-variant-numeric" normal="normal" font-variant-east-asian="font-variant-east-asian" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" underline="underline" text-decoration-skip-ink="text-decoration-skip-ink" none="none" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" white-space="white-space" pre-wrap="pre-wrap"> </span></b><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-variant-numeric="font-variant-numeric" normal="normal" font-variant-east-asian="font-variant-east-asian" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" white-space="white-space" pre-wrap="pre-wrap"><b>Governor Nixon</b> signed SB 672, with Amendment 135.980 from the state legislature — where Peabody spent almost half a million dollars in the last two elections) which</span><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-weight="font-weight" font-variant-numeric="font-variant-numeric" normal="normal" font-variant-east-asian="font-variant-east-asian" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" white-space="white-space" pre-wrap="pre-wrap"> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">bans the City of St. Louis from restricting through ballot initiative public financial incentives for coal mining companies for two years, basically stopping giving incentives to coal companies and help create a green economy</span>. </span><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-variant-numeric="font-variant-numeric" normal="normal" font-variant-east-asian="font-variant-east-asian" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" white-space="white-space" pre-wrap="pre-wrap"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">While the case was pending, the mayor’s office pushed a curious amendment to an obscure state bill. In the middle of a bill about county prosecutors and sewer districts, you’ll find a provision that specifically prohibits the city of St. Louis from passing, by ballot measure, any restrictions on tax breaks for coal mining companies. There’s only one coal mining company in St. Louis known to receive city tax breaks: Peabody Energy</span>.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-variant-numeric="font-variant-numeric" normal="normal" font-variant-east-asian="font-variant-east-asian" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" white-space="white-space" pre-wrap="pre-wrap">This story began when ordinary citizens joined together and took a stand against both climate change and their city’s destructive practice of granting enormous tax breaks to big business while cutting funding for public services. They talked to thousands of residents who were upset that St. Louis keeps giving away tens of millions of dollars of badly needed public money to Peabody Energy (the world’s largest private-sector coal company). They collected over 22,000 signatures — more than 10 percent of all the voters in St. Louis — on a petition for a ballot initiative.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> The city’s elections board verified the signatures, and began preparing to print ballots. The coal company’s lawyers rushed to court and asked a judge to block the election on the grounds that the law would unfairly discriminate against the coal company and its business partners, in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. At the trial, Take Back St. Louis provided evidence about the environmental damage caused by burning coal, and the damage to the fabric of St. Louis caused by the city’s penchant for giving away public dollars to big business. The other side didn’t put any witnesses on the stand.</span></span></p>
<span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-weight="font-weight" font-variant-numeric="font-variant-numeric" normal="normal" font-variant-east-asian="font-variant-east-asian" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" white-space="white-space" pre-wrap="pre-wrap"><b>The judge also opined that the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution - which was passed after the Civil War to protect the rights of newly-freed slaves - prevents the people of St. Louis from voting on the initiative. </b></span><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-variant-numeric="font-variant-numeric" normal="normal" font-variant-east-asian="font-variant-east-asian" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" white-space="white-space" pre-wrap="pre-wrap"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The <b>opinion cites the infamous Citizens United </b>decision to suggest that coal companies have the same rights as people, which effectively means that corporate tax breaks are off-limits for voters.</span> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Before the people even had an opportunity to vote, the judge decided that fossil fuel energy companies and their major business partners are entitled to judicial protection from the democratic process.<b> It is unusual in itself that this ruling would occur before residents even had a chance to vote on the initiative. </b>Usually, initiatives go before voters and legal proceedings happen if the initiative passes.</span> CA Prop 49 on corporate personhood was also pulled from the ballot, though for arguably less evil reasons.</span></span></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2014/02/13/st-louis-judge-cites-citizen-united-protect-tax-breaks-peabody-energy"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.desmogblog.com/2014/02/13/st-louis-judge-cites-citizen-united-protect-tax-breaks-peabody-energy</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="print-link" /></font><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden" style="min-height: 280px;"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">With the quick stroke of a pen, a circuit court judge in St. Louis has singlehandedly silenced more than 22,000 city residents, who had sought to bring a ballot initiative to end tax breaks to fossil fuel companies to a citywide vote in April.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Last summer, volunteers with the <a href="http://www.takebackstlouis.com/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Take Back St. Louis coalition</a> gathered over 22,000 signatures to put onto the ballot a measure that would amend the city’s charter to include a “Sustainable Energy Policy” and end taxpayer-funded support of fossil fuel companies.
<a href="http://www.takebackstlouis.com/judge_dierker_sides_with_peabody" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">According to Take Back St. Louis</a>, the “<b>proposed charter amendment </b>would end public financial incentives, such as tax abatements, to fossil fuel mining companies and those doing $1 million of business with them per year, and requires the city to create a sustainable energy plan for renewable energy and sustainability initiatives on city-owned vacant land.”</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">On Tuesday, Judge Robert Dierker sided with <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/tags/peabody-energy" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Peabody Energy</a> (in a decision you can <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/206544694/Sustainable-Energy-Order-Feb-11-2014" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">read here</a>) to grant a temporary restraining order that would, in essence, keep the initiative off the April 8th ballot.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">First declaring the initiative “facially unconstitutional,” J<b>udge Dierker proceeded to cite the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v.Federal_Election_Commission" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><em>Citizens United</em></a> decision</b> in explaining why the policy would represent a “patent denial of equal protection” to fossil fuel energy companies. Specifically, Judge Dierker wrote:</font></p><blockquote style="margin: 1.5em 30px;"><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">business entities (which, after all, are a species of associations of citizens coming together in the exercise of economic freedom) are entitled to constitutional protection as citizens and may not arbitrarily be denied basic legal rights. See <em>Citizens United v. Federal Election Comm.</em>, 558 <span class="caps">U.S.</span> 310 (2010).</font></p></blockquote><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The proposed initiative and judge’s decision have implications far beyond the city of St. Louis. <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/tags/peabody-energy" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Peabody Energy</a>, the largest privately-owned coal mining company in the world, is headquartered in St. Louis, and <b>received tax breaks of over $61 million from the city in 2010</b>. The Take Back St. Louis coalition was <b>hoping to target future giveaways,</b> arguing that the public funds would be much better spent on underfunded local services like schools.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="dquo" style="margin-left: 0px;">“</span>We fundamentally disagree with this temporary ruling, and quoting <em>Citizens United</em> is an insult to home rule powers and our local democracy. Saying that Peabody Energy has equal rights with St. Louis public school students who lack supplies due to corporate tax breaks is what is a violation of rights in our city,” said Reginald Rounds with the Take Back St. Louis campaign. “We, and the 22,000 registered voters in the City of St. Louis who signed to put this on the ballot, will continue to fight for our right to have a sustainable local economy, not one run by coal corporations and other polluters.”</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Peabody Energy’s lawyers filed the restraining order motion two weeks ago, and seem to have a sympathetic ear with Judge Dierker, who is an outspoken opponent of public interest law. In 2006, Judge Dierker authored “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/The-Tyranny-Tolerance-Sitting-Judicial/dp/030733919X" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><b>The Tyranny of Tolerance: A Sitting Judge Breaks the Code of Silence to Expose the Liberal Judicial Assault</b></a>,” a book which he promoted extensively on <b>Fox News.</b>
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Also providing testimony in the hearing were two representatives from the mayor’s office, who oppose the citizen-driven initiative, spotlighting what Take Back St. Louis reps call “collaboration” between the mayor’s office and Peabody.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Take Back St. Louis has vowed to fight the temporary restraining order, and the legal battle could prove a crucial precedent for how the controversial <em>Citizens United</em> ruling can be applied to local resistance against taxpayer handouts to fossil fuel companies. </font></p></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-14 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above" style="padding: 1.5em 0px; border-top: 1px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); margin-top: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div class="field-label" style="text-transform: uppercase; display: inline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">TAGS: </font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div class="field-items" style="display: inline;"><div class="field-item even" style="display: inline-block; margin-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/5712">Citizens United</a></div><div class="field-item odd" style="display: inline-block; margin-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/2479">peabody coal</a></div><div class="field-item even" style="display: inline-block; margin-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/tags/peabody-energy">Peabody Energy</a></div><div class="field-item odd" style="display: inline-block; margin-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/662">coal</a></div><div class="field-item even" style="display: inline-block; margin-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/15324">take back st louis</a></div><div class="field-item odd" style="display: inline-block; margin-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/15325">st louis</a></div><div class="field-item even" style="display: inline-block; margin-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/8950">Fossil Fuel Subsidies</a></div></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/protesters-arrested-outside-peabody-meeting">http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/protesters-arrested-outside-peabody-meeting</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</div><div>Peabody Energy is getting protests from all sides.</div><div>
</div><div>More than 50 people gathered outside the corporation’s annual meeting Thursday in Clayton, including Washington University students, St. Louis activists, rural southern Illinoisans and American Indians from Black Mesa, Ariz.</div><div>
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</div><div>Ten protesters were arrested outside the Ritz-Carlton, where the meeting was held.</div><div>
</div><div>The complaints they expressed were as different as their backgrounds, but the group is unified in its opposition to coal.</div><div>
</div><div> </div><div>Judy Kellen, from Rocky Branch, Ill. addresses protesters outside Peabody Energy's annual shareholder meeting.</div><div>CREDIT (MOLLY GOTT.)</div><div>Judy Kellen and her husband live on a farm outside Rocky Branch, Ill. The 74-year-old said the noise and pollution from Peabody’s proposed strip mine will push several elderly couples out of the area. Kellen recently bought stock in the company, so that she could attend the meeting and address Peabody’s CEO Greg Boyce.</div><div>
</div><div>"I wanted to tell Mr. Boyce that there’s got to be a better way to do this than running so many people out of our homes," she said.</div><div>
</div><div>Kellen said she didn’t get the opportunity. She and a handful of other shareholders who intended to voice concerns were escorted to a separate room. Organizers said two of the shareholders were arrested when they tried to get into the main shareholder’s gathering.</div><div>
</div><div>But Peabody spokesman Vic Svec said they could have asked their questions from the overflow room.</div><div>
</div><div>"It allows for full participation of the meeting, people are allowed to ask questions, to have a discussion, and to hear all proceedings and to participate fully," he said. "But [the overflow room] is to allow for an orderly meeting."</div><div>
</div><div><b>Several Washington University students also took part in Thursday’s protest. Julie Ho was involved in a 17-day sit-in demanding the school break ties with the corporation.</b> That effort culminated in the arrest of seven students who attempted to get into a university board of trustees’ meeting to ask Peabody’s CEO to resign from the board.</div><div>
</div><div> </div><div>Eight protesters were arrested outside Peabody Energy's annual shareholder meeting in Clayton on Thursday. Two more were arrested inside the hotel.</div><div>CREDIT (COURTESY MOLLY GOTT.)</div><div>"We’re here to come together as a united front against Peabody," Ho said. "So we’re here for all the same reasons that we were at Wash U, but we think this fight is very intimately connected to what we’re doing."</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Ho is also active in Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment (MORE), which has been instrumental in the "Take Back St. Louis" campaign. </b>That effort gathered more than 36,000 signatures for a ballot initiative to ask citizens to ban corporations who produce “unsustainable energy” from getting tax incentives from the city of St. Louis.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A lawsuit prevented the measure from getting on last month’s ballot. Peabody’s Svec said “scores” of businesses oppose the initiative, while the city of St. Louis is seeking a state law to prevent the measure or similar initiatives.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"This isn’t about Peabody," Svec said. "It’s about keeping the city in the 21st century."</span></div><div>
</div><div>Zach Chasnoff, with MORE, told protestors Thursday that those efforts are subverting democracy.</div><div>
</div><div>"Your government does not answer to the people. Unless you count corporations as people," Chasnoff said through a bullhorn to a chorus of boos.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">At least two opponents traveled from<b> Black Mesa, Ariz.</b>, to try to attend the shareholders meeting. Marshall Johnson called himself an “original shareholder” who works with the organization “To Nizhoni Ani” in opposition of Peabody’s coal mining in the area. He said 40 years of coal mining and climate change resulting from pollution have depleted the Navajo Aquifer.</span></div><div>
</div><div>"They are in discussion on how to improve their profits, while they are jeopardizing our way of life," Johnson said, pointing to the Ritz where the meeting was being held. "That’s how we are shareholders; the original shareholders."</div><div>
</div><div>Peabody reached an agreement with the Navajo Nation and Hopi Tribe in the 1960s. Svec said a minority opposed to mining in the area should instead bring their concerns to the tribes.</div><div>
</div><div>As for being attacked from several organizations at once, Svec said it’s part of being a big company.</div><div>
</div><div>"What you don’t hear from are the vast majority who wake up every day and want to have low cost electricity and want the air to become a little cleaner," he said. "And that’s the business that we’re about and it was that business that we were engaged in today despite the fact that attention seems to flow to those who were conducting unlawful activities."</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.bioneers.org/youth-leader-arielle-klagsbrun-asks-which-side-are-you-on/">http://www.bioneers.org/youth-leader-arielle-klagsbrun-asks-which-side-are-you-on/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A<span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">t Bioneers, we believe in supporting our future leaders. #BioneersYouth speaker Arielle Klagsbrun is already making a difference in her community. </span></font></div><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; outline: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Klagsburn is an organizer with Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment and Rising Tide North America. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">She was a leader of the "Take Back Saint Louis" campaign to remove tax incentives to corporations profiting from climate change. </span><span style="background: 0px 0px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; border: 0px; outline: 0px; line-height: 20.8px;">She is also a 2013 recipient of the Brower Youth Award for a campaign to confront Peabody Coal, the world's largest private-sector coal corporation headquartered in St. Louis.</span></font></p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; vertical-align: baseline; background: 0px 0px rgb(254, 254, 254); border: 0px; outline: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Originally slated to speak at the 2014 Bioneers conference about youth leadership in the climate movement, she decided to change her focus last-minute in response to the protests in Ferguson, Missouri. "The resistance of African-American young people in Saint Louis has sparked a nation-wide movement, because in reality, Ferguson is everywhere."</font></p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; vertical-align: baseline; background: 0px 0px rgb(254, 254, 254); border: 0px; outline: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; line-height: 15px;">"Which side are you on?" Arielle says. "</span><span style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; line-height: 20.8px;">As people who care about sustained life on this planet, we must also care about sustained life right now on this planet. </span><span style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; line-height: 1.2;">Just like in fighting the fossil fuel industry, the sides are clear. Either you are</span> actively fighting white supremacy or you're upholding the status quo that results in the killing of black and brown lives."</font></p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; vertical-align: baseline; background: 0px 0px rgb(254, 254, 254); border: 0px; outline: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">She continued with a potent reading of the letter, <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/243363734/An-American-Horror-Story-Open-Letter-from-Ferguson-Protestors-and-Allies-10-17-14#scribd" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: 0px 0px; outline: none 0px;">An American Horror Story — Open Letter from Ferguson Protestors and Allies</a>:</font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div>