The Sierra Club took more than $26 million from Chesapeake Energy over three years while promoting natural gas as a cleaner, more efficient alternative to coal, the group’s executive director admitted.
Michael Brune wrote in a blog post that the environmental group took millions donations from individuals and subsidies of Chesapeake Energy, one of the world’s leading natural gas companies.
At the same time, the group was stepping up the fight against coal-powered plants, arguing natural gas was a clean, green energy source. Time Magazine, which first reported the story, reported the money helped to fund the Club’s Beyond Coal campaign.
“The idea was that we shared at least one common purpose — to move our country away from dirty coal,” Brune wrote in the blog post.
The donations, which happened between 2007 and 2010, came primarily from Chesapeake Energy Chief Executive Officer Aubrey McClendon, Time reported.
At the time of the donations, natural gas companies, including Chesapeake Energy, were lobbied Congress to change climate legislation and positioned the fuel as a cleaner alternative than coal.
“Back in 2007, Chesapeake and the Sierra Club had a shared interest in moving our nation toward a clean energy future based on the expanded use of natural gas, especially in the power sector,” Chesapeake spokesman Jim Gipson told Time Magazine.
Gipson said the group and Chesapeake mutually agreed to end the funding.
Since 2010, the Sierra Club has greatly changed its stance on natural gas. The group has been critical of the use of hydraulic fracturing, a process used to release trapped natural gas and oil in shale formations, because what it calls environmental risks associated with it.
Brune, who was not the group’s executive director at the time, said the group has changed its policy and stopped accepting the donations.
“We cannot accept money from an industry we need to change,” he wrote. “Very quickly, the board of directors, with my strong encouragement, cut off these donations and rewrote our gift acceptance policy.”
They have gotten their last dime from me.Total hypocracy.I wouldn’t be surprised to find out they are using extortion to get money from companies that do hydraulic fracturing.
Climate change isn’t about the climate; it is only about money. And in most cases, grant money to study ‘warming’.
What Brune and Chesapeake share was an interest in making money. Is the Sierra Club a shell lobbying group or just a sham? Everyone knows that Chesapeake is in business to make money.
There is plenty of clean coal out there. Just put the word dirty in front of coal and everyone freaks out.
Natural gas is a relatively clean and extremely plentiful energy resource. That said, if you’re not even a little concerned about the potential externalities from fracking, then you’re not paying attention. I hope there’s a way to clean the process up, because it truly is a technological breakthrough.
Yeah OK Nate ’08 , we gotcha.
Just exactly what are these ” potential externalities ” ?
Or are you just furthering the fear mongering ?
I think you just spreading fear without presenting any real evidence that its justified.
“Externalities from fracking”? More like the hystericalities about fracing.
“Since 2010, the Sierra Club has greatly changed its stance on natural gas.”
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Of course. They got their tens of millions, realized it was starting to dwindle, broke off the inside shakedown, and left Chesapeake with nothing.
Sierra Conartists. Never trust a wacko enviro.
Ha!
Hah! Now that we know that they are funded by “Big Oil”, we can’t take them seriously anymore.
Come on folks – you don’t really think that these environmental groups care about the environment, do you? What they care about is THEIR OWN environment. They’d be happy to ban you from the public parks, force you to ride a bike to work, and make everyone do without plastic (even in medical applications) for the sake of mother Gaia. But the moment you threaten to take away their lattes, laptops and social media (all which require tremendous energy resources to develop and maintain) they spit that ideology right back in your face.