Crude Oil Transport Project Halted In California After Environmentalists Sue
Back in August, DeSmog reported on California environmentalists stopping “stealth carbon bombs” in their communities. Now they’re celebrating another victory as a dangerous—and illegal—crude oil transport project in Sacramento has been halted as well. According to a report by the Sacramento Bee last March, the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District first caught InterState Oil […]
How Traditionalist Hayek Feared Science Would Lead to Socialism
Margaret Thatcher’s intellectual love affair with the economist Friedrich von Hayek continued despite divergent views on the importance of science, rationality and truth… Margaret Thatcher presented a clear argument before the Royal Society in 1988: The free market economy depended on a sustainable natural ecology. And science provided the necessary knowledge to guide the industry on […]
Climate Science Denialist Patrick Moore Tours Australia After Comparing Students to the Taliban
Canadian climate science denialist Patrick Moore is at the beginning of a tour around Australia speaking to audiences across the country. But here’s a warning. If you do find yourself in the audience and don’t want to be compared to the “Taliban” then don’t even think about walking out in protest. Less than two weeks before flying to […]
B.C. Ought to Consider Petronas’ Human Rights Record Before Bowing to Malaysian Company's LNG Demands
It should come as no surprise that Petronas expects B.C. to cave in to its demands to expedite the process of approving its Pacific NorthWest LNG terminal and natural gas pipeline, lowering taxes and weakening environmental regulations in the process. After all, Petronas has a well-established record of getting what it wants in the other countries […]
Wind Power Could Supply 25% of Global Electricity By 2050 — If Fossil Fuel Industry Doesn't Get in the Way
Wind power has become so successful that it could provide 25 to 30 per cent of global electricity supply by mid-century if vested interests don’t get in the way, according to a new report published Tuesday. The report — Global Wind Energy Outlook 2014 — said that commercial wind power installations in more than 90 countries […]
Uncertainty Over Tax Credits Causing Turmoil In Renewable Energy Sector
Uncertainty over the future of the wind production tax credit and the solar investment tax credit—and Congressional inaction on both matters—could pose a serious challenge to development in the renewable energy sector. Wind energy had a huge year in 2012, with 13,128 megawatts (MW) of new wind capacity installed, but has failed to get anywhere […]
Methane Leaks Wipe Out Any Climate Benefit Of Fracking, Satellite Observations Confirm
This is a guest post by Joe Romm, republished with permission from the original on Climate Progress. Satellite observations of huge oil and gas basins in East Texas and North Dakota confirm staggering 9 and 10 percent leakage rates of heat-trapping methane. “In conclusion,” researchers write, “at the current methane loss rates, a net climate benefit […]
Rail Industry Fights Speed Limits, Brake Regulation in Quest for Profits
Earlier this month Hunter Harrison, the CEO of Canadian Pacific told the Globe and Mail that he thought regulators have “overreacted” to the oil-by-rail disaster in Lac-Megantic that killed 47 people. “Lac-Mégantic happened, in my view, because of one person’s behaviour, if I read the file right,” Harrison said. As detailed by DeSmogBlog, he didn’t read the […]
New Short Film Exposes The Human Cost Of Coal Ash Dumping
The threats posed by coal ash are well known today, but not too long ago, the dangers of coal ash disposal were a dirty energy secret. For a large section of residents in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, the dangers of coal ash were kept a secret, and in their place the dirty energy industry fed them […]
Politico Allows BP Exec To Mislead Public About Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Impacts
Geoff Morrell, the senior vice president of communications at BP, wants the whole country to know that the company’s negligence that led to the Deepwater Horizon oil geyser has not destroyed the Gulf of Mexico. And all of those fears about lost revenue and declining tourism along the Gulf Coast? That never happened, according to Morrell. […]