Don't Mess With Texas: Michael Bishop's Battle Against TransCanada Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline

If you ever doubted that one man’s stand against the oil and gas industry can make a difference, consider the case of Michael Bishop. The 65 year old Marine veteran, first year medical student, farmer, and partner in a bio-diesel engineering venture, resides in Douglass, Texas, where he is trying to stop the Keystone XL […]

Nobel Women's Initiative Report Explores Tar Sands Expansion Plans From The Perspective of Local Women

A year ago, six female Nobel laureates set out on a nine-day trek across Alberta and British Columbia to find out how Canada’s tar sands expansion is uniquely impacting the lives of women. The resulting 44-page report [PDF], “Breaking Ground: Women, Oil and Climate Change in Alberta and British Columbia,” contains stories curated from meetings with […]

Oil Train Derailment, Explosion In Alabama Points To Need For Tighter Regulation

We’re all used to seeing oil spills at sea, or oil spewing from a ruptured pipeline. But lately we’ve been presented with a new image of oil spills with increasing frequency: train derailment. Last Friday, a train carrying crude oil from the Bakken shale in North Dakota was traveling through a rural part of Alabama when […]

Public Citizen Report Reveals Dents, Holes in Keystone XL Southern Half Weeks Before Planned Startup

The southern half of Transcanada’s Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is supposed to begin pumping up to 700,000 barrels of diluted bitumen per day through the Cushing, OK to Port Arthur, TX route within weeks. But is it ready to operate safely? Public Citizen has released a chilling report revealing that the 485-mile KXL southern line is plagued by dents, faulty welding, exterior damage […]

Facing the Facts: Climate Change Is Bad For Business

As leaders of the industrialized world continue to squabble at home over how to address the threat of climate change – and even as they battle internal factions who don’t believe the science of climate change – one group of leaders has come out in favor of swift, comprehensive action to prevent global catastrophe.  Those […]

Will Canada Continue to Fail on Climate at International Talks in Poland?

With another round of international climate negotiations opening this week in Warsaw, Poland, and a new poll finding Canadians wanting leadership on the issue, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservative government have an opportunity to turn the tides on what has been so far a policy trend in the wrong direction. Since taking the helm, […]

Coast Guard Proposal to Allow Barges to Haul Fracking Wastewater Draws Fire From Environmentalists

The U.S. Coast Guard released plans that would allow wastewater from shale gas to be shipped via barge in the nation’s rivers and waterways on October 30 — and those rules have kicked up a storm of controversy. The proposal is drawing fire from locals and environmentalists along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers who say […]

South Portland Tar Sands Pipeline Defeat: Big Oil Outspends Local Grassroots 6-to-1

Of all the elections and ballot measures voted on around the country on Tuesday, perhaps the most egregious example of the fossil fuel industry’s money influencing an outcome was seen in South Portland, Maine. Voters in the coastal city were deciding whether to approve a ballot item that would have essentially prevented the loading of tar sands […]

Could California's Shale Oil Boom Be Just a Mirage?

Since the shale rush took off starting in 2005 in Texas, drillers have sprinted from one state to the next, chasing the promise of cheaper, easier, more productive wells. This land rush was fueled by a wild spike in natural gas prices that helped make shale gas drilling attractive even though the costs of fracking […]

Heartland Institute Tries To Poison Classrooms With Partisan Climate Pseudoscience

“YOU have an important decision to make,” wrote Diane Bast from the conservative Heartland Institute in a memo posted to science teachers across the US last month. “Will you tell your students the “science is settled” on global warming, as the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) claims it is?” The Heartland Institute likes to […]