Harvard Study Finds Renewable Energy Is Responsible For Millions In Health Benefits

The displacement of fossil fueled electricity, especially coal-fired power plants, by renewable energy technologies is just as good for public health as it is for the climate, Harvard researchers say.  In a new report published in the journal Nature Climate Change, researchers from Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health write that regional health […]

Exclusive: Battle Over Flaming Water and Fracking Reignites As Analysis Prompts Call for Renewed EPA Investigation

At the heart of the international controversy over fracking has been the contention that the oil and gas drilling technique can contaminate people’s drinking water, sometimes even causing it to light on fire. One poster child for this claim has been Steven Lipsky, a Texas homeowner who has appeared in a viral video with a garden hose spewing flames […]

What Happened to Obama's 'Planet in Peril' Rhetoric?

“We know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime: two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century,” the newly elected president Barack Obama said in 2008 during his victory speech in Grant Park, Chicago, Illinois.  “The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. […]

Met Office Asks British Public to #NameOurStorms. Here's What They Came Up With

The Met Office asked and the public has answered: name our storms after climate deniers. This week, the Met Office issued a call for people to help create a list of names for storms expected to affect the UK and Ireland this winter. Names can be suggested by tweeting directly to @metoffice using the twitter hashtag […]

Four Reasons Jeremy Corbyn’s Innovative Energy Policy Is No 80s Throwback

Have you heard the one about Jeremy Corbyn’s plans to renationalise the energy system? asks Stephen Hall, research fellow in energy economics and policy at University of Leeds. In an interview with Greenpeace, the Labour MP and leadership candidate said: “I would personally wish that the Big Six were under public ownership, or public control in […]

Australian Aboriginals Fear Gas Fracker Aubrey McClendon's Down Under Drilling Plans

Energy companies the world over would love to think they could be first in the queue at the next big global frontier for fossil fuel energy. Aubrey McClendon was a key figure in creating the last big energy boom in his own backyard, using the controversial hydraulic fracturing technology to release gas from shale in the […]

Fracker Aubrey McClendon Signs Deal in Mexico with Firm Led by Former Mexican President

Aubrey McClendon, former CEO of hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) giant Chesapeake Energy and current CEO of American Energy Partners (AEP), has signed a joint venture with a private equity firm led* by former Mexico president Vicente Fox.*  In a joint press release, AEP and EIM (Energy and Infrastructure Mexico) Capital announced a “long-term, landmark partnership to […]

Who Was Actually Behind Lord Lawson's Idea to Create the Global Warming Policy Foundation?

This DeSmog UK epic history post explains how Lord Lawson’s climate denying Global Warming Policy Foundation was actually created. Lord Lawson in 2008 was congratulated in private for his pamphlet attacking climate science and policy by a handful of peers and MPs, mostly from the Tory party. Some even suggest he set up a new foundation […]

Half a Million California Students Attend School In Oil Train Blast Evacuation Zones

A new analysis by the Center for Biological Diversity finds that 500,000 students in California attend schools within a half-mile of rail tracks used by oil trains, and more than another 500,000 are within a mile of the tracks. “Railroad disasters shouldn’t be one of the ‘three Rs’ on the minds of California school kids and […]

How Fracking Changed the Economics of Oil Production Around the World

James Meadway, chief economist at the New Economics Foundation, explains the interrelated economics behind China’s ‘Black Monday’ stock market crash, Middle Eastern oil and US fracking. The ‘fracking revolution’ has transformed the economics of oil production globally, with the US becoming a bigger producer than Saudi Arabia and – after decades of dependency on oil imports […]