Duke Energy’s Climate Legacy

Despite TV ads that portray Duke Energy as the epitome of modernity, the company is in fact a dinosaur teetering on the brink of extinction if it fails to rapidly evolve its business model to clean, affordable renewables and aggressive energy efficiency programs. Even the Edison Electric Institute agrees with us!

Duke Energy is raising rates on families and small businesses in order to build expensive, climate-wrecking power plants that we don’t even need – while blocking the advance of renewables and efficiency.

We need your help!

Help press Dukeasaurus to switch to clean, affordable energy:

• Send a short email to Duke Energy CEO Lynn Good and ask her to be a climate hero.
• Make the Dukeasaurus image your profile picture on Facebook and Twitter and share it with your friends.
• Post a comment on the Duke Energy customer relations Facebook page.
• Next time you see a media article touting Duke Energy as a champion of clean energy, post a comment. Email us and ask to join our Press the Press team and we’ll alert you when there’s an article that needs a comment.
• Share this page on social media so your friends can also ask: How will Duke Energy be remembered? As a climate change hero or villain? Share this page on Facebook and tweet it @DukeEnergy.

Jim Rogers’ Legacy Newspaper Ad and Personal Appeal

Our Climate Legacy campaign began May 1, 2013 when we ran a full-page ad in the Charlotte Observer, together with Greenpeace, urging former Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers to make his legacy one of a climate leader – instead of a laggard – by acting decisively to slow climate change. Read what the Charlotte Observer wrote about our ad and Rogers’ response.

Also on May 1, Greenpeace Executive Director Phil Radford and NC WARN Executive Director Jim Warren sent a letter to Rogers, calling on him to walk his talk on climate change.

Duke is the second-largest corporate utility in the world!  So the corporation could be a climate game-changer if it moved into the 21st century.

The company has canceled all plans for building new nuclear power plants in the Southeast. But Dukeasaurus is still lumbering toward building 15-20 massive natural gas plants and wants to keep burning coal for decades.

So help us keep the pressure on Duke Energy to move decisively toward a responsible energy future.

Dukeasaurus

Here are the other cartoons in our Dukeasaurus campaign, courtesy of artistic genius V.C. Rogers (click images to enlarge). The character is based on former Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers, but the message still applies. Email Duke Energy’s current CEO, Lynn Good, and tell her to join the 21st century before it’s too late.

Duke Energy Shareholder Meeting

We used to join allied groups annually to protest at the Duke Energy Shareholder Meeting each year in May. In 2017, Duke started to hold online-only shareholder meetings. Coincidence? We think not!

Here is a photo from 2013, when we protested both outside and inside the shareholder meeting in Charlotte. Speakers holding Duke Energy stock proxies spoke inside the meeting while activists outside held a “ratepayers’ stakeholder meeting” and community teach-in. A photo petition was mounted on a wall, with pictures of hundreds of people calling on Duke to stop raising rates for dirty energy.

Here are some of the media reports on the event:

Clean Energy Advocates Inundate Duke Energy Annual Meeting — WFAE

Climate, rates dominate Duke Energy meeting — The Charlotte Observer

Green groups take protests into Duke Energy meeting — Charlotte Business Journal