Experts Confirm Coal Industry’s “Global Poverty” Campaign Is Bogus

When Peabody Energy isn’t busy trying to have the lyrics of a folk song struck from the evidentiary record in a Wyoming lawsuit, the company is aggressively pushing fossil fuels like coal — conveniently, Peabody’s main product — as a solution to global poverty. As Media Matters has thoroughly documented, however, experts say that not […]

What Happened to the ‘Greenest-Ever’ Conservative Party?

In a year when the all-important UN climate change summit will take place in Paris and the UN’s sustainable development goals will be finalised, one would have thought the government of one of the world’s most powerful nations might seize the moment to put forward progressive environmental policies. Unfortunately the summer budget introduced by UK […]

Greenwash: Shell May Remove "Oil" From Name as it Moves to Tap Arctic, Gulf of Mexico

Shell Oil has announced it may take a page out of the BP “Beyond Petroleum” greenwashing book, rebranding itself as something other than an oil company for its United States-based unit. Marvin Odum, director of Shell Oil’s upstream subsidiary companies in the Americas, told Bloomberg the name Shell Oil “is a little old-fashioned, I’d say, and at […]

In Last Ditch Effort, Coal Industry Picks ‘Worst Idea Ever’ With Argument That Coal Ends Poverty

The coal industry is facing hard times as it tries to battle against a growing demand for climate action and clean energy. Cheaper and cheaper renewables along with the increasingly successful fossil fuel divestment campaign (which largely targets coal for being the dirtiest of all the fossil fuels) means the industry has had to reimagine itself. This […]

Climate Denier Lord Lawson Calls for Government to Overturn Lancashire Fracking Decision

Prominent climate denier Lord Lawson has called for the British Government to override Lancashire County Council’s decision to refuse Cuadrilla’s fracking planning applications. Speaking on the BBC’s Daily Politics yesterday, Lawson, chairman of the climate sceptic Global Warming Policy Foundation, voiced his concern that the ‘Northern Powerhouse’ is missing out on the opportunity to develop the […]

Is Koch Industries Lobbying the EU Over Natural Gas?

America’s largest privately owned energy company, Koch Industries, has been lobbying on “energy markets/financial regulation” reveals new data released by the interactive lobby database, EU Integrity Watch launched at the end of June. On 28 April, Koch’s lobbyist met with Lee Foulger, an EU cabinet member working under European Commissioner Jonathan Hill. Hill’s team works on […]

New and Improved Bomb Trains? Oil Industry Plans to Ship Even More Dangerous Light Oils

As oil train protests continue across North America to mark the two-year anniversary of the Lac-Megantic disaster, trouble is brewing in Texas. At the recent Crude Markets and Storage Summit energy conference in Texas, Pat McGannon, vice president of Rangeland Energy, made the following statement. “Rail provides a solution for high-gravity condensates.”  High gravity condensates are the […]

How David Cameron Beat Out a Climate Denier for Tory Party Leadership in 2005

In this DeSmog UK’s epic history post we take a look at how David Cameron’s rhetorical flourish beat down climate denier David Davis to win the Conservative Party leadership. David Davis was among the few fantastically sceptic Conservative MPs and also one of the closest to the free-market think tank, the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) […]

Former Dept. of Justice Official Says Exxon News Worsens Liability Picture

This is a guest post by Dan Zegart, Senior Fellow at the Climate Investigations Center The former Department of Justice lawyer who led the watershed lawsuit against tobacco companies, says that the news out today about oil giant ExxonMobil knowing as early as 1981 about the threat posed by climate change could worsen the fossil fuel industry’s liability picture.  Not […]

The Case For Letting Canada’s Forest Fires Burn

As climate change is fingered as a culprit behind the early rash of forest fires across northern and western Canada, experts say the most prudent approach at this stage is to, whenever possible, let the fires burn. It’s a grim situation. But those studying the issue say the human toll of wildfire needs to be balanced […]