Michael Jacobs: 2015 Is The Year for Climate Leadership

The world’s biggest economies are beginning to match the climate action of early movers such as Germany and California, sensing economic opportunities and a political prize, to lead public support for an international agreement to be reached in Paris at the end of the year, writes Michael Jacobs, Senior Advisor for the New Climate Economy […]

New PBS Documentary Exposes Human Toll Of Oil Boomtown In North Dakota

The boomtown has always loomed large in the American imagination, but as it makes a comeback in this age of overabundant US oil and gas production, it’s more timely than ever to examine the real impacts on people and communities of the new oil boom — and the inevitable bust. Filmmaker Jesse Moss has done […]

Lancashire County Council Rejects One Cuadrilla Fracking Site, Defers Second Decision to Monday

Cuadrilla’s application for fracking at Roseacre Wood site was unanimously rejected by Lancashire County Council last night following three days of heated discussion and months of public anticipation. The decision follows recommendations made last week by council officials that the Roseacre site should be rejected because lorries to and from site would have a “severe” impact […]

EPA's New Fracking Study: A Close Look at the Numbers Buried in the Fine Print

When EPA’s long-awaited draft assessment on fracking and drinking water supplies was released, the oil and gas industry triumphantly focused on a headline-making sentence: “We did not find evidence of widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources in the United States.” But for fracking’s backers, a sense of victory may prove to be fleeting. EPA’s draft assessment […]

How an Environmental Journalist Became an Apologist for the Fossil Fuel Industry

The DeSmog UK epic history series turns to Richard D North, an environmental journalist who later took money from ExxonMobil, placing blame on consumers rather than fossil fuels for causing climate change. During the ‘90s and early 2000s, ExxonMobil money was being refined through the London-based offices of free market think tank the Institute of Economic […]

Tories are Backing the Wrong Horses When it Comes to Energy

What will become of UK energy policy now that the Conservative Party holds all the levers? ask Peter Strachan, professor of energy policy, and Alex Russell, professor of petroleum accounting at Robert Gordon University. The government has already given clear indications of its plans to pare back onshore wind in recent days. June 24 is the […]

Are Coal, Oil and Gas the Subprime Assets of the Future?

This is a guest post by Dan Zegart That question was actually asked by British Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Ed Davey last year, and its ramifications are extensively explored in a provocative report released today by the Center for International Environmental Law, a Washington, D.C. think tank. According to CIEL, the answer to […]

Lifting the Crude Oil Export Ban: Daniel Yergin and the Anatomy of an Industry Public Relations Push

“This is a historic turning point,” said Daniel Yergin. “The defining force now in world oil today is the growth of U.S. production.” That quote is from an article from November 2014 in the New York Times, which described Daniel Yergin as an “energy historian.” As the Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Prize, which BusinessWeek […]

The Carbon Bubble Explained In A Way Even City Investors Can Understand…

The concepts of a ‘carbon bubble’ and ‘stranded assets’ may seem devilishly complex even for City slickers. But the non-profit financial think tank Carbon Tracker has today released a video explaining the risks faced by investors in a way that a particularly astute child might well understand. The film, Fossil Fuel: A Risky Business, was released on […]

Mark Steyn’s Newest Attack On Michael Mann And The Hockey Stick

DeSmog UK visited Washington DC earlier this month to check out the Heartland Institute’s annual climate denial conference. There, amongst the conference’s hand-outs, we discovered a promotional bookmark advertising a new book attacking Michael Mann’s hockey stick as “a disgrace to the profession”. Greg Laden, biological anthropologist and science communicator, takes a closer look. There is […]