Ice Loss Sends Alaskan Temperatures Soaring

This is a guest post by Alex Kirby originally published by Climate News Network. If you doubt that parts of the planet really are warming, talk to residents of Barrow, the Alaskan town that is the most northerly settlement in the US. In the last 34 years, the average October temperature in Barrow has risen […]

Fossil Fuel Lobby Spent $213 Million Last Year to Influence US, EU Politicians

Fossil fuel industries spent an estimated $213 million lobbying U.S. and European Union decision makers last year, according to a new report published by Oxfam International on Friday. In the U.S. alone, the estimated 2013 bill for lobbying activities by fossil fuel interests amounted to $160 million, said the report called Food, Fossil Fuels and Filthy […]

More Oil Companies To Disclose Risks Of Fracking, Climate Change To Investors

Last week brought yet more evidence that investors in oil and gas companies are waking up to the risks of fracking and climate change. Two natural gas companies, Anadarko Petroleum and EOG Resources, recently struck a deal with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to disclose the financial and environmental risks associated with fracking to […]

NASA Confirms A 2,500-Square-Mile Cloud Of Methane Floating Over US Southwest

When NASA researchers first saw data indicating a massive cloud of methane floating over the American Southwest, they found it so incredible that they dismissed it as an instrument error. But as they continued analyzing data from the European Space Agency’s Scanning Imaging Absorption Spectrometer for Atmospheric Chartography instrument from 2002 to 2012, the “atmospheric […]

Would Owen Paterson Let A Child Kick A Sleeping Lion, Scientists Ask

BY STEPHEN LEWANDOWSKY AND RICHARD PANCOST, FROM THE CONVERSATION Former environment minister Owen Paterson has called for the UK to scrap its climate change targets.  In a speech to the Global Warming Policy Foundation, he cited “considerable uncertainty” over the impact of carbon emissions on global warming, a line that was displayed prominently in coverage by […]

Coal One of 'Greatest Products In History' Says Australian Coal Industry Figure

THE Australian newspaper has run a free advertisement today for the coal industry in the form of an op-ed column by a leading industry figure that says that coal is one of the best things ever. And no I’m not exaggerating. New South Wales Minerals Council chief executive Stephen Galilee, a former advisor to several high-ranking Liberal […]

Commissioner’s Report Shows Canada Must Do More For Environment

This is a guest post by David Suzuki. Canadians expect to have our environment protected, and to know how it’s being protected. A report from Canada’s Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development shows we’re being short-changed. “In many key areas that we looked at, it is not clear how the government intends to address the significant […]

Subsidy Spotlight: Paying the Price of Tar Sands Expansion

This is a guest post by Anna Simonton, on assignment with Oil Change International. Carolyn Marsh was in her living room watching television on a Wednesday night in August when she heard a loud boom from somewhere outside. Having lived in the industrial town of Whiting, Indiana––just south of Chicago––for nearly three decades, she wasn’t terribly shaken. […]

Court Files: Coal CEO Robert Murray Unearths Lease from Aubrey McClendon's New Fracking Company

DeSmogBlog has obtained a copy of a sample hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) lease distributed to Ohio landowners by embattled former CEO and founder of Chesapeake Energy, Aubrey McClendon, now CEO of American Energy Partners.  Elisabeth Radow, a New York-based attorney who examined a copy of the lease, told DeSmogBlog she believes the lease “has the effect of […]

Oil-by-Rail Fuels Record U.S. Imports of Canadian Oil

In September, many of the major railroad stocks hit new all-time highs. Investors Business Daily attributed much of the increase to the business of moving oil-by-rail. While the majority of the oil moving by rail has been fracked light sweet crudes from places like the Bakken and Eagle Ford shale basins, the railroads are telling investors that […]