How To Spot A Fake Grassroots Movement

PERHAPS somebody should write a pocket guide book with the title: “How to spot you’ve been suckered by a fake grassroots movement”. Once it’s written, these guide books could be distributed free of charge to crowds at anti-carbon tax rallies, US Tea Party marches and pretty much any gathering of a “movement” telling you that you’re freedom is […]

Tar Sands Tailings Contaminate Alberta Groundwater

The massive tailings ponds holding billions of litres of tar sands waste are leaking into Alberta’s groundwater, according to internal documents obtained by Postmedia’s Mike De Souza. An internal memorandum prepared for Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver and obtained through Access to Information legislation says evidence confirms groundwater toxins related to bitumen mining and upgrading are […]

The Keystone Principle

This is a guest post by KC Golden, originally published on GripOnClimate.org The big President’s Day rally on the National Mall is more than a Keystone pipeline protest.  It’s a statement of principle for climate action. After a year of unprecedented destruction due to weather extremes, the climate fight is no longer just about impacts in the future.  […]

Industry Funded Front Group Attacks Government Estimates Of Oil Drilling Revenues

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently released a report detailing the many ways in which expanded oil exploration and drilling in federally protected areas would not yield an overall economic benefit for the United States.  The CBO report says that the revenue generated by these operations would take too long to come to fruition, and that […]

Oil Aboard! Tar Sands Industry Eyes Nexen Rail Alternative to Stalled Pipelines

Facing enormous opposition to the proposed Keystone XL and Northern Gateway pipelines, Canada’s tar sands industry is taking to the tracks to get its sticky bitumen to China. Canadian and Chinese oil companies have explored the “pipeline by rail” option for years now, but over the past month, the prospect of tar sands trains has […]

The Credibility Gap: All Talk and Not Much Action on Climate Change

By Hannah McKinnon, National Program Manager at Environmental Defense. In last week’s State of the Union address, President Obama reiterated his vision for clean energy and urgent action on global warming. With TransCanada’s Keystone XL tar sands pipeline on the frontlines and looking threatened, oil industry supporters are suddenly desperate to look like the environmental […]

Science Silenced: US Scientist Caught in Canadian Muzzle

What a difference a decade makes – especially when it comes to government-directed communications policies regarding science, and especially when you’re in Canada.  In 2003 a Canadian-American research collaboration, involving scientists from US universities and Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), began in the Eastern Arctic to track oceanic conditions and ice flow in the Nares Strait. […]

Startling Graph Shows Donors Trust the New 'Dark Money' in Climate Denial Funding

Have you heard of Donors Trust? Most DeSmogBlog readers have heard for years about how the likes of the billionaire Koch Brothers, and major energy companies like ExxonMobil, have pumped tens of millions of dollars into industry front groups that are paid to attack and deny the scientific realities of climate change. But the landscape has […]

The Resurgence of an Evolving Climate Movement, Part 1

Ken Wu is executive director of Majority for a Sustainable Society (MASS) and co-founder of the Ancient Forest Alliance. Read Part 2 of this series here. After years of apathy and political inertia, North America’s climate sustainability movement has found itself in the midst of a timely resurgence, as is evident by the recent massive expansion of Bill Mckibben’s 350.org […]

The Resurgence of an Evolving Climate Movement, Part 2

Ken Wu is executive director of Majority for a Sustainable Society (MASS) and co-founder of the Ancient Forest Alliance.  For Part 1 of this article, click here. In the first part of this article, I described what specific challenges the climate movement faces when confronting its own limiting tendencies as well as industry funded public relations campaigns. In this second part […]