A far-left climate activist organization was granted a private meeting with senior White House adviser John Podesta last month after the group repeatedly derailed federal officials’ public events with disruptive protests.
The Washington, D.C.-based Climate Defiance — which was founded in early 2023 by activists Michael Greenberg and Rylee Haught — announced last week on social media that it had met with Podesta on Dec. 15. The group, whose members regularly conduct protests opposing fossil fuel production and use, failed to detail the contents of the meeting, but published a letter it gave to Podesta following the meeting.
“Thank you for taking the time to meet with us today,” Climate Defiance wrote to Podesta in the letter. “We appreciate your willingness to heed our deeply-held concerns. Echoing the voices of millions of Americans, we write to you in the eleventh hour of the greatest threat that humanity has ever faced: planetary and societal collapse due to the continued burning of fossil fuels.”
“We urge you to wield your utmost authority to implement a swift end to any federal support for new fossil fuel infrastructure. Both the urgency of this action and the severe consequences of further delay cannot be overstated,” it continued. “Climate Defiance recognizes your commitment to climate action and commends you on your vital work developing and implementing the Inflation Reduction Act.”
Climate Defiance said it met with senior White House climate adviser John Podesta, right, last month. (Getty Images | Brendan Gutenschwager/X/Video screenshot)
Climate Defiance added in the letter that the White House cannot only push green energy development, but must actively oppose all fossil fuel development. It further accused President Biden of supporting “massive new fossil fuel infrastructure projects which eclipse emissions reductions.”
It also acknowledged that it has taken action to disrupt events where federal officials, including Podesta and Cabinet members, were speaking. In 2022, Biden appointed Podesta to lead the White House Office of Clean Energy Innovation and Implementation, a role that includes overseeing billions of dollars in Inflation Reduction Act spending.
“We have done so because, like the millions of young people who delivered Biden a decisive victory in 2020, we are stunned and enraged by his willingness to sacrifice our futures to satisfy the greed of the fossil fuel industry,” the letter stated.
“The President’s reversal of his campaign promise to end drilling on federal lands and his relentless approval of new oil and gas projects jeopardize the survival of our species — and threaten his own political future,” the group added. “We share this information as people of conscience who know that, should Biden’s anticipated 2024 opponent win the election, it is not only game-over for the climate — but for democracy and national security.”
Activists interrupted a talk given by White House senior adviser John Podesta in April. (Climate Defiance/Twitter)
On April 25, 2023, in one of group’s first actions, members of Climate Defiance shut down an event where Podesta was speaking about climate change policy. The activists chanted “no more drilling,” called on the Biden administration to keep its “promise” and said the nation “never needed fossil fuels.”
The comments were made in reference to Biden’s approval of the Willow Project, a massive 30-year oil drilling project located in northern Alaska. The project’s developer projected it would produce up to 180,000 barrels of oil per day over the next three decades.
The Willow Project approval was announced by the Department of the Interior in March, but the decision was ultimately made by Biden and White House officials including Podesta. The decision sparked an internal dispute between officials with some seeking to tank the project from within.
In addition, in the letter published following Climate Defiance’s meeting with Podesta last month, it said the Biden administration must, at the very least, withdraw support for oil and gas export projects like the Texas GulfLink project. That project is a crude oil export terminal proposed to be constructed off the coast of Texas, but has yet to receive approval by the Transportation Department’s Maritime Administration.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was forced to leave an event in Baltimore in October after Climate Defiance activists stormed the stage. (Getty Images | Climate Defiance/Video screenshot)
In October, Climate Defiance activists chased Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg from a Baltimore event which they protested to call for his agency to reject both the Texas GulfLink project and a separate project, the Sea Port Oil Terminal.
“Petro Pete is a coward. As we write he is ramming down our throats the Sea Port and GulfLink oil terminals – each worse than Keystone,” Climate Defiance tweeted following the event. “We must resist him with all we’ve got. And we will.”
Months earlier, in June, Climate Defiance disrupted an event in Michigan where Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm was delivering remarks. Some of the activists associated with the group were forcibly dragged from the event after they refused to leave.
The group also disrupted multiple speeches given in 2023 by Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.
Breaking: today we chased Fed Chair Jerome Powell off the stage at an elite economics forum in Manhattan.
Powell chooses every day to torch the planet. He could end fossil finance tomorrow, but refuses. We're on the brink. We could lose everything.
“Close the f‑‑‑ing door,” Powell appeared to mutter during a November protest in which activists stormed a room where he was delivering remarks.
On Tuesday, after criticism that its meeting with the White House suggested the group was selling out, Climate Defiance vigorously defended itself.
“If there’s an opening at the table we pull up a f—ing chair,” the group said in an X post. “And yes, if you are not careful it is very easy to get so enthralled by the gleam of the White House that you water down your tactics in order to preserve that access. That is a pitfall into which others before us have fallen. We get it!”
The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Thomas Catenacci is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.
A panel of scientists recently claimed that humans’ effect on the planet is so significant it should be memorialized through the creation of a new geological epoch that began sometime in the middle of the 20th century. As we speak, climate activists are preparing to do what any well-adjusted, functioning adult would do on the heels of such news: glue themselves to a building or throw tomato soup at great works of art.
The latest breaking climate story always provides new opportunities for the left to sermonize, identify heretics, and reassert their moral and intellectual superiority while making no changes to their own lifestyles that would demonstrate even a modicum of sincerity. The oft-discussed hypocrisy of elites who charter private jets to attend climate summits is no secret, but less discussed is the day-to-day hypocrisy of the rank-and-file voters who comprise the broader Democratic Party.
Democrats describe global warming as an existential threat with only X number of years to act before the planet is on an irreversible course to becoming uninhabitable. It stands to reason that anyone who genuinely believes this would take dramatic steps to prevent our imminent annihilation. These measures would include self-imposed lifestyle changes far beyond driving an electric vehicle, yet when it comes to climate alarmists, so often we cannot pick their lifestyle out of a lineup.
The lifestyle of voters who believe humans are destroying the planet is often indistinguishable from that of those who believe manmade climate change is a hoax. This suggests one of two things: Either climate alarmists don’t actually believe the planet is doomed (or at the very least they aren’t nearly as confident in that belief as they claim to be), or they truly believe the planet is doomed but aren’t willing to inconvenience themselves in any meaningful way.
Neither explanation presents climate hysterics in a positive light. Living in a manner consistent with one’s proclamations requires sacrifice, and who needs that when you can sport beliefs like fashion accessories and enjoy the perks of trendy moralism without the hefty price tag? This window-dressing approach to morality offers Gucci fashion at Goodwill prices.
Activists will suggest that voting for the Democratic party is more than enough to demonstrate a genuine belief in the claim that we are on the brink of permanently destroying human civilization, but this fails to stand up to scrutiny. Anyone convinced that our extinction is imminent would certainly take it upon himself to enact radical change in his own life, even in the absence of laws requiring him to do so. Abdicating one’s duty by virtue of voting for politicians who claim to care about the planet is not an acceptable stand-in for personal responsibility — not when the stakes are that high.
Similarly, activists supposedly on a mission to thwart the destruction of the planet would not spend their time gluing themselves to artwork but instead would launch aggressive sabotage campaigns up to and including domestic terrorism. Unfortunately, given the increasingly violent nature of the left’s activism and their tendency to use just about anything as an excuse to tear down the society they despise, this is one area where their actions might eventually match their hysteria.
At this stage, it would be beneficial to properly characterize the left’s position on climate change, which is like a Jenga tower. It starts off relatively stable, but as things progress it begins to teeter:
The earth is warming.
Humans are contributing to this warming effect.
Humans are significantly contributing to this warming effect.
Humans are the primary cause of this warming effect.
The data and modeling used to arrive at this conclusion are immune to human error and bias.
This warming effect is mostly preventable.
It is preventable only by implementing a centrally planned economy.
Other countries will join our efforts, including our enemies, even though it would benefit them not to do so.
There will be no unintended consequences to our plan.
Anyone unwilling to accept this list from top to bottom is a “climate denier.”
It is not difficult to understand why Republicans are skeptical. Democrats present their argument with the credibility and trustworthiness of a flea market fortune teller, not only because their palm reading has proven to be wildly inaccurate in the past, but because their solutions have a striking resemblance to the agenda they’ve been trying to implement long before climate change was a thing. As if incrementally destroying the economy by transforming it into a centrally planned bureaucratic hellscape is not enough, the left has managed to work race into this issue — because of course they have.
Regular Americans are mocked for offering opinions on climate change because they are not experts, but one need not be a climate scientist to understand the fatal flaw in the left’s strategy. If we are to collectively address any problem, whatever the cause might be, solutions and teamwork become impossible when the left’s approach is nothing more than the shoddy work of rigid ideologues. Republicans have suggested that perhaps there are ways to address the effects of a changing climate without destroying the U.S. economy and compromising national security, but because their ideas do not exponentially grow the federal government and usher in a socialist utopia, they are ignored by the Democratic Party.
It would be disingenuous to claim there are zero climate alarmists living a lifestyle consistent with their beliefs. They do exist, I’m quite certain. I’ve just never met one. There is another explanation — perhaps every climate alarmist I’ve met has cleverly disguised himself as a “climate denier” to gain access to the seedy world of repugnant moral lepers who drive SUVs and eat meat — a secret mission to convert heretics from the inside. That must be it.
The parties will probably never agree on an approach, but I eagerly await the day when every climate alarmist practices what he preaches. If the leftists next door have one of those yard signs proudly staked on their front lawn that lists a variety of hollow political slogans including “we believe science is real,” at the very least they should downsize, get rid of their air conditioning, and use valuable lawn space not for bragging about the supposed moral character of their household, but for growing all their own food.
B.L Hahn is a freelance writer covering topics including culture, politics and economics.
The Biden administration announced Monday that it is moving forward with approving a massive 30-year oil drilling project in Alaska over objections from climate activists and Democratic lawmakers about its environmental impact.
The Department of Interior (DOI) approved three of the five drilling sites proposed by oil company ConocoPhillips as part of its Willow Project in the National Petroleum Reserve (NPR-A) located in North Slope Borough, Alaska. ConocoPhillips previously stated that, for the project to remain economically viable, the federal government would need to approve at least three of the sites.
According to the record of decision published by the Bureau of Land Management, the administration is also flatly rejecting the two other drilling sites and associated infrastructure proposed by ConocoPhillips. And the Houston-based company agreed to forfeit about 68,000 acres of drilling rights that it owns for a separate project.
The decision noted that the approved option would produce the fewest greenhouse gas emissions compared to all alternatives and the DOI said, by denying two of the drilling sites, it was “substantially reducing the size of the project.”
President Biden is pictured next to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland at the White House on Oct. 8, 2021. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
“The Record of Decision denies two of the five drill site pads proposed by ConocoPhillips, reducing the project’s drill pads by 40 percent,” the DOI said in a statement. “The concurrent relinquishment of 68,000 acres by the company of its existing northernmost and southernmost leases within the Bear Tooth Unit reduces the Bear Tooth Unit’s footprint in the NPR-A by one-third.”
“This reduces the project’s freshwater use and eliminates all infrastructure related to the two rejected drill sites, including approximately 11 miles of roads, 20 miles of pipelines, and 133 acres of gravel, all of which reduces potential impacts to caribou migration and subsistence users.”
While the DOI issued the final decision Monday morning, President Biden and senior White House officials have been actively involved in overseeing the approval process.
The final record of decision, meanwhile, comes years after ConocoPhillips first proposed the project. Willow was originally approved under the Trump administration before a federal judge ordered the government to conduct a more rigorous environmental analysis following a legal challenge from climate advocacy groups.
The company has forecasted the project will produce up to 180,000 barrels of oil per day, create more than 2,500 construction jobs and 300 long-term jobs, and deliver as much as $17 billion in revenue for the federal government, Alaska and local communities, many of which are Indigenous. The project will lead to the construction of up to 250 wells, multiple pipelines, a central processing plant, an airport and a gravel mine.
Over its three-decade lifespan, Willow is projected to produce up to 614 million barrels of oil. In 2022, producers in the U.S. drilled for 4.3 billion barrels of oil on federal lands and waters.
Oil pipelines stretch across the landscape outside Nuiqsut, Alaska, where ConocoPhillips operates the Alpine Field on May 28, 2019. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
“The permitting and environmental review process encompassed a period of well over two years and included multiple rounds of public comment and public meetings with Alaska Native stakeholders,” Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN) President Julie Kitka wrote in a letter to Haaland last year.
“AFN understands that the need for a proactive whole of government approach to deal with climate change; however fossil fuels will be with us for quite some time to come, and projects like Willow can help bridge the gap,” Kitka continued. “The Willow Project could jumpstart our economy with thousands of jobs and be a model in community and environmental stewardship for future opportunities.”
In addition to the AFN, the largest group representing Natives in Alaska, Willow also received strong support from the state’s entire legislature, Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy, labor unions, elected leaders of the North Slope Borough and Alaska’s entire congressional delegation — Republican Sens. Dan Sullivan and Lisa Murkowski and Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola — over the last year.
During an hour-long meeting between Biden and the Alaska congressional delegation at the White House earlier this month, Sullivan handed the president a unanimous bipartisan resolution passed by the state’s legislature in support of the project.
“I’m Yupik. We have Athabascans in this audience, we have Tlingits, we have Eyaks,” Peltola said during a March 1 event in support of Willow. “Across the board, Alaska Natives are standing in support with Inupiaqs … across America there is no issue that has 100% unanimous support but clearly there is the preponderance of Inupiaqs who are in support of this. The majority of Alaska Natives, and the majority of Alaskans are in support of this.”
Climate activists hold a demonstration to urge President Biden to reject the Willow Project at the Department of the Interior headquarters on Nov. 17 in Washington, D.C. (Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Sunrise AU)
However, environmentalists and climate-focused Democratic lawmakers have blasted the project and urged Biden to completely reject its permits. It is estimated to produce 278 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions, the equivalent of the carbon footprint of two million cars. Groups like Earthjustice have labeled Willow as a “carbon bomb” and, following reports Friday evening that the DOI would sign off on it, Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., characterized the decision as a “complete betrayal.”
THE WORDS OF CLIMATE TERRORISTS, AND THE CLIMATE RELIGIOUS CULT.
“If allowed to proceed, the Willow [Master Development Plan] would pose a significant threat to U.S. progress on climate issues,” several House and Senate Democrats wrote to Biden on March 3. “Climate damage is unlikely to stop with the first phase of the Willow project; your administration needs to draw the line now.“
“You can stop this ill-conceived and misguided project,” they continued. “We therefore ask your administration to reject the Willow [Master Development Plan], choose the no-action alternative, and fundamentally reconsider this unsustainable approach to managing the Western Arctic.“
Biden remarked in his State of the Union address on Feb. 7 that the U.S. would “need oil and gas for a while.” (Nathan Howard/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The letter — led by House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., and Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass. — added that the project alone would cause $19.8 billion worth of “climate-related damages.”
Progressive lawmakers Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., and Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., also signed the letter.
Though, in an apparent attempt to soften the blow of its Willow approval, the Biden administration announced Sunday that it would indefinitely block 16 million acres of federal land and water in Alaska near the site of the Willow Project from future fossil fuel drilling.
A former senior Bureau of Land Management official told Fox News Digital on Sunday the action was a “totally political decision” and not based in science. But activists said the move was not enough to blunt the impacts of Willow.
“These conservation decisions by the Biden administration are positive steps, but not nearly sufficient to blunt the impact of any version of the Willow oil and gas project,” Karlin Itchoak, the Alaska senior regional director for The Wilderness Society, said in a statement.
“We cannot allow ConocoPhillips to accelerate the climate crisis.“
Thomas Catenacci is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.
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