congress as standalone issues, or would you say to activists and others, stop looking at congress, it s dysfunctional, it s not working when it comes to the fight on climate change? look, we re so far behind in this fight that we have no choice but to try and keep pressuring at the center, at the highest level. we need washington acting. we need wall street acting. those are the two levers big enough to really change the outcome. that said there s also a lot of work to be done at the state and local level and a lot of work to be done by activists building power to weaken the fossil fuel industry. that s the basic political equation here, right? the reason we can t get what we need is because the exxons of the world remain so powerful. when we divest, when we stop banks financing them, when we begin to do those things, we begin to cut off their power.
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gas and oil on public lands. he can move and should move in any in any event to do things like make treasury and the sec and the fed crack down on the banks that are going after that are funding the fossil fuel industry. but let s also be clear and this is maybe the most important point president biden has some work to do, but the rest of us have some work to do too. we need to keep organizing. the great push around organizing that came to a head with the great student climate strikes in 2019 was sidelined by the pandemic. as we emerge from that, we need people pushing hard. that s why we re starting groups like third act for people over the age of 60 who want to take on this fight, want to take on the banks that are funding the climate crisis. so i guess to follow up on that really quickly, the executive branch here does not have a lot of powers when it comes to the power of the purse. that s controlled by congress. are there any pieces of climate policy that need federal do
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prayer session. that s all been planned for next week. but the justice department has spent the past year charging over 700 rioters in the biggest criminal investigation in our country s history. now the first trials are actually slated to get under way in february. among them a colorado man who climbed through the first broken window moments after it was smashed with a stolen police riot shield and then battled with officers in the building. also an alleged rioter from texas who spoke of dragging lawmakers out of the capitol by their ankles. capitol police report that threats against members of congress, they ve more than doubled this year compared to where we were last year. and earlier this month a new hampshire man was sentenced to 33 months for threatening to hang three senators and three members of congress if they did not, quote, get behind trump. while many of the january 6th rioters in those threatening members of congress are being charged, it is significantly much, much hard
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we got closer than ever, than ever this year, to democrats passing real substantial climate change with president biden s build back better bill. but democratic senators joe manchin and kyrsten sinema along with the filibuster have basically put that bill on life support. one of the most influential climate activists is proposing an alternative path, an important path. he s proposing president biden use the executive authority that he has as president to jump start climate policy. and that idea is actually not so crazy. while congress has been tied up, president biden s interior department announced plans to make almost all federally controlled coastline available to be leased for offshore wind farms like this one. so what else could biden do? joining us now is a climate expert and one of the founders of the grass roots environmental group 350.org. thank you so much for joining us. we greatly appreciate your time.
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