UK Energy Minister Calls for More Tar Sands, Fracking and Climate Action at Same Time
The UK and Canada must strengthen their energy relationship by increasing investment in tar sands and fracking, Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) energy minister Matthew Hancock said at today’s Europe-Canada Energy Summit in London. “There remains great potential for deepening our energy relationship further, including delivering more British investment in Canada’s energy industry, or […]
Rising Industry Hysteria and the IPCC Call for Change
Amidst dismay at the true extent of climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) submitted its first report with resulting consequences. A need to curb the then current level of energy intake and consumerism undermined an industry reliant on a blind faith in obsessive materialism, resulting in fierce opposition. The IPCC held its third […]
Edelman’s TransCanada Astroturf Documents Expose Oil Industry’s Broad Attack on Public Interest
Documents obtained by Greenpeace detail a desperate astroturf PR strategy designed by Edelman for TransCanada to win public support for its Energy East tar sands export pipeline. TransCanada has failed for years to win approval of the controversial border-crossing Keystone XL pipeline, so apparently the company has decided to “win ugly or lose pretty” with […]
Climate Deniers Still Tout Debunked Conspiracy 5 Years On While Public Demands Action
It has been five years since climate scientists’ e-mails were stolen from the University of East Anglia in 2009. Since then, the public’s interest in the scandal has declined considerably. While the wider public “astutely lost interest in climategate long ago”, this is not the case for climate deniers, according to a new study published in […]
State Department's Keystone XL Contractor ERM Approved Project Now Melting Glaciers
A controversial government contractor once again finds itself in hot water, or in this case, melting glacier water. TransCanada chose Environmental Resources Management Group (ERM) as one of its contractors to conduct the environmental impact statement for Keystone XL on behalf of the U.S. State Department. ERM Group also happens to have green-lighted a gold mining project in central Asia […]
Walton Family, Owners of Walmart, Using Their Billions To Attack Rooftop Solar
A recent trend has seen utilities deciding that since they haven’t been able to beat back the rise of rooftop solar companies, they might as well join them (or at least steal their business model). But the Walton Family, owners of Walmart as well as a stake in a manufacturer of solar arrays for utilties, […]
Prosecution of Don Blankenship a Historic Moment for Coal Industry
This week’s indictment of former Massey Energy CEO, Don Blankenship, was as much a political turning point for West Virginia as it was a moment of reckoning economically for the coal industry writ large. It marked the wane of one of America’s last great robber barons and yet another ominous warning for the country’s dirtiest […]
Meet the Kid Who Chained Himself to the Kinder Morgan Vehicle to Protest the Trans Mountain Pipeline
On Friday, community members from across Vancouver converged on Burnaby Mountain, the site of conflict surrounding the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, after the B.C. Supreme Court approved an injunction to remove a group of protesters, who call themselves the Caretakers of Burnaby Mountain, by Monday at 4 p.m. This article takes an in-depth […]
Government Accountability Office Report on Oil Export Ban Based On Industry-Funded Studies
Earlier this year, at CERAWeek, the must-attend energy conference for industry players, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) made an interesting statement while advocating for lifting the oil export ban in her keynote speech. “This year – 2014 – will be the Year of the Report. Think tanks and research institutions across the country are examining the possibility […]
DeSmogCAST 3: Historic US-China Climate Deal, Pipeline News and Scientists Standing Up to Harper
This week’s episode of DeSmogCAST covers the two major developments from Washington, D.C. this week — the historic climate deal between the United States and China and the upcoming GOP majority leaders’ plans to attack the EPA’s carbon emission standards — along with new developments in the Kinder Morgan and Keystone XL tar sands export pipelines […]