Four Years After the BP Oil Disaster, A Look Back in Photographs
Just prior to the four-year anniversary of the BP oil spill, BP and the Coast Guard issued press releases. BP announced the “active cleanup” in Louisiana is over, while the Coast Guard stated the clean up response is far from over. “We are absolutely committed to continuing the clean-up of Deepwater Horizon oil along the […]
Deepwater Horizon: BP’s Toxic Legacy
It has now been four years since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, killing 11 men and leaking an estimated 210 million gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The media attention has disappeared, but the oil that continues to wash up along the Gulf Coast is a constant reminder to those who […]
Keystone XL Review Extended, Delaying Final Decision Until After 2014 Elections
Reuters and Politico broke a major story today that TransCanada‘s northern leg of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline will not be decided on until after the 2014 mid-term elections. “The U.S. State Department will…extend the government comment period on the Keystone XL pipeline, likely postponing a final decision on the controversial project until after the November 4 midterm elections,” Reuters explained. Secretary of State […]
"Russia with Love": Alaska Gas Scandal is Out-of-Country, Not Out-of-State
A legal controversy — critics would say scandal — has erupted in Alaska’s statehouse over the future of its natural gas bounty. It’s not so much an issue of the gas itself, but who gets to decide how it gets to market and where he or she resides. The question of who owns Alaska’s natural gas and where they’re from, […]
Pseudoskeptics Are Not Skeptics
Genuine scientific skepticism is not just the unmoving rejection of evolution or climate change by fake skeptics, called pseudoskeptics. The real thing avoids premature conclusions, recognizes uncertainty, motivates searches for good data and causes real skeptics to change their minds, as put succinctly by John Maynard Keynes: “When my information changes, I alter my conclusions. What […]
Interview: Big Men Director Rachel Boynton on Oil, Ghana and "Responsible Capitalism"
The subtitle of the newly released documentary film Big Men is “everyone wants to be big” and to say the film covers a “big” topic is to put it mildly. Executive produced by Brad Pitt and directed by Rachel Boynton, the film cuts to the heart of how the oil and gas industry works and pushes […]
Insect Population Dwindling in Louisiana Marshlands Four Years After BP Blowout
Louisiana State University entomologist Linda Hooper-Bui has been studying the impact of the BP oil spill on insects and spiders for almost four years. She started her study shortly after the Macondo well blew out on April 20, 2010, before any oil washed up on shore. Her work documents the dwindling of the insect population in areas directly […]
New Study Shows Link Between Climate Change And California Drought
A study published by Geophysical Research Letters sheds new light on the connection between California’s epic drought and human-induced climate change. The study carries the decidedly wonky title, “Probable causes of the abnormal ridge accompanying the 2013-14 California drought: ENSO precursor and anthropogenic warming footprint.” A subscription is required to read the full thing, but you […]
Study Finds Methane Leaks 1,000 Times EPA Estimates During Marcellus Drilling
This week, a United Nations panel on climate change issued one of its most urgent warnings to date, explaining that unless major changes to greenhouse gas emissions are made within the next few years, it will become extraordinarily difficult to ward off the worst impacts of climate change. “We cannot afford to lose another decade,” Ottmar […]
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee Hires Coal Lobbyist to Direct Policy Office
This is a guest post by Eric de Place, originally published on Sightline Daily and cross-posted with the Sightline Institute‘s permission. In a classic instance of the revolving door between government and industry, Governor Inslee has decided to hire Matt Steuerwalt as the director of his policy office effective May 1. In recent years, Steuerwalt has acted as […]