Peabody Energy Faces Popular Revolt at Illinois EPA Coal Hearing
Last night, at an Illinois Environmental Protection Agency hearing about a water quality permit for the expansion of a Peabody Energy strip mine in Rocky Branch, IL, local residents made it clear that they’ve had enough of the coal industry’s destructive presence in their community. According to writer Jeff Biggers, residents outnumbered Peabody supporters four-to-one among those […]
FOX Alert: O'Reilly Factor Producer Asks DeSmogBlog to Provide Best Arguments Against Global Warming
Look out, folks. Bill O’Reilly is about to talk about global warming again on the O’Reilly Factor. Of course, he’s already reached his conclusion that “Nobody can control the climate but God.” It’s just that he doesn’t have any data to back up his anti-science position. So he has one of his producers on the […]
CNRL Releases New, Lower Cold Lake Oil Spill Estimates
The Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) has released new figures tallying the total volume of bitumen emulsion recovered at the Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. (CNRL) Primrose site in Cold Lake, Alta. The new total — 1,177 cubic metres or 1.1 million litres — is more than a third lower than previously reported amounts. An earlier incident report […]
ALEC's Fracking Chemical Disclosure Bill Moving Through Florida Legislature
The American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC) model bill for disclosure of chemicals injected into the ground during the controversial hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) process is back for a sequel in the Sunshine State legislature. ALEC‘s model bill was proposed by ExxonMobil at its December 2011 meeting and is modeled after a bill that passed in Texas’ legislature in spring […]
Mardi Gras: Krewe du Vieux Raises Awareness of Environmental Threats to New Orleans
“Where the Vile Things Are,” the Krewe du Vieux’s 2014 Mardi Gras parade electrified the streets of New Orleans on Saturday night, February 16, bursting with raucous irreverent satire. Floats addressing environmental and social issues rolled, as participants dressed in mutant fish and insect costumes danced in between them. DeSmogBlog spoke with noted author and king of […]
Chevron Tries A New PR Trick: Free Pizza to Neighbors of Exploded Gas Well
Chevron is known for responding aggresively to anyone who tries to hold the company accountable. The creativity the company applies to evading responsibility for its messes is arguably unparalleled. Even still, Chevron’s latest PR move, after one of its natural gas pipelines exploded and burned for five days in southwestern Pennsylvania, is probably the first time […]
Nobody Knows How Much Fracking is Happening Off California's Coast
The modern environmental movement was born when a drilling platform blew out and some 100,000 gallons of oil spilled into the Santa Barbara Channel in 1969, polluting California’s famous coastline. Yet as the race to exploit the vast amount of oil in the Monterey Shale heats up, environmentalists are warning that the state of California’s […]
Proposed Colorado Constitutional Amendment Would Let Cities Ban Fracking
Many Coloradans who have battled city-by-city to regulate fracking near their residential areas may get some relief under a proposed constitutional amendment that would give cities and towns the right to regulate business activities within their borders. In January 2014, the Colorado Community Rights Network (CCRN) submitted ballot language to amend Colorado’s constitution, which would give municipalities the right […]
Polluter Harmony Video Spoofs Duke Energy and ALEC
Greenpeace USA‘s Polluter Harmony project released another great spoof video this week as part of it “world’s dirtiest dating service” series mocking polluters and bought-off politicians. Watch:
Canadian Company Called U.S. Oil Sands Will Soon Start Extracting Utah's Tar Sands
Think only Canadians need to worry about tar sands extraction? Think again. In October, U.S. Oil Sands, Inc. joined Kentucky-based Arrakis Oil Recovery as the second company to receive a permit to produce U.S. tar sands. The Utah Water Quality Board gave U.S. Oil Sands a permit to extract 2,000 barrels of oil per day from Utah’s tar sands reserves. Despite its name, […]