Revealed: UK Government Lobbied Big Oil to be Green Gas Leaders – Shell, BP ‘Not So Keen’
Big Oil made headlines has announced plans to become Big Gas. Speaking at the industry-sponsored World Gas Conference in Paris, companies including Shell, Total, BG Group, BP, and Chevron all stressed “the vital role of natural gas” in helping tackle climate change, write Kyla Mandel and Brendan Montague. However, as documents obtained by DeSmog UK in a Freedom […]
No 'Slowdown' In Global Surface Temperatures After All, Study Finds
This article has been cross-posted from Carbon Brief. A new paper published on June 4 says the much-discussed “slowdown” in warming at Earth’s surface may not exist after all. The study, published in the journal Science, says it is likely to be largely a figment of the way temperature records have been pieced together over time. Scientists from […]
Federal Regulators Restrict Use Of Second Pipeline As Investigation Into California Oil Spill Continues
Federal regulators have ordered Plains All American to restrict usage of a second pipeline in California as preliminary results revealed extensive external corrosion issues with the pipeline that spilled more than 100,000 gallons of oil along the California coast at Refugio State Beach, including at least 21,000 gallons that poured into the Pacific Ocean. Line 901 […]
Lawsuit Forces Government To Disclose Extent Of Offshore Fracking In Gulf of Mexico
In August of last year, 21.6 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico were auctioned off to the dirty energy industry so that they could expand their offshore fracking activities in an area that was still reeling from the effects of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. As DeSmog’s Steve Horn reported at that time, many […]
Let's Issue a Recall On Defective Congress For Failing to Stop Deadly Climate Change
Earlier this year, Blue Bell ice cream issued a mandatory recall of all of its ice cream products after a string of deaths from the bacteria Listeria had been linked directly to their products. Similarly, when a blockbuster drug is found to be defective and begins killing consumers, the FDA will force the pharmaceutical company […]
ExxonMobil ‘Nimby’ CEO Makes Fresh Calls for Fracking in Europe
Rex Tillerson, chief executive of ExxonMobil, the world’s largest oil company, has called for European governments to support fracking, despite being called out as a ‘nimby’ last year. Speaking at the World Gas Conference in Paris this week, he claimed that the large number of wells already fracked in the US and Canada have proven that […]
EPA Study: Fracking Puts Drinking Water Supplies at Risk of Contamination
The Environmental Protection Agency has released its long awaited draft assessment of the impacts that fracking has on the nation’s drinking water supplies — confirming that the process does indeed contaminate water. “From our assessment, we conclude there are above and below ground mechanisms by which hydraulic fracturing activities have the potential to impact drinking water […]
Biomass Is Not A Zero-Carbon Fuel Source, So Why Does The Clean Power Plan Propose To Treat It That Way?
The EPA’s Clean Power Plan is the foundation of President Obama’s climate strategy. The plan, which is to be finalized later this year, sets state-by-state targets for reducing emissions from existing power plants, especially coal-fired power plants, which will be essential to meeting the commitments made in the climate deal President Obama struck with China […]
Will Re-Fracking be the Shale Drilling Industry's Next Big Move?
With oil prices continuing to languish, companies like Halliburton and Schlumberger have started talking up a way to get more shale oil and gas for less money: re-fracking wells drilled over the past 10 years, kick-starting flagging production and pumping out more shale oil and gas while spending less than the cost of a new well. […]
How the Free Market Friendship Between Julian Morris and Roger Bate Came to an End
This DeSmog UK epic history post recalls the falling out between long-term friends and free marketeers Julian Morris and Roger Bate. The free market International Policy Network (IPN) was launched amid much fanfare in 2001 with Julian Morris and Roger Bate at the helm. Almost immediately John Blundell, the director of the Institute of Economic Affairs […]