Osborne Dines Former Chancellors, See the Menu They Fought to Keep Secret for Half a Decade
Just before Christmas, back in December 2010, the chancellor George Osborne (pictured) sat down to a sumptuous lunch with his predecessors, including Lord Lawson of the climate denial charity the Global Warming Policy Foundation. At the time, Lawson was telling anyone who would listen that he advised Osborne to make savage cuts to public services as […]
Fracking Industry Showdown Preceding Stricter Fugitive Emissions Ordinances In Mansfield, Texas
Sharon Wilson, Earthworks’ Gulf Regional Organizer, described FLIR camera footage she shot of a fracking industry site on January 29 in Mansfield, Texas, as ‘the mother lode of all emissions.” The issue of fugitive emissions — like those documented by Wilson at Summit Midstream Partners Compressor Station on the 29th — is one of the reasons […]
The Coal Industry Owns The Courts (VIDEO)
In early February 2014, Duke Energy reported that a coal ash storage site along the Dan River had crumbled, releasing more than 39,000 tons of toxic coal ash into the waterway. This was not the first time that Duke had been responsible for a massive coal ash spill, and most likely not the last. In public, […]
Flustered Liz Truss Blames Civil Servants for Redacted Fracking Report Fiasco
Liz Truss, the environment secretary, turned on her own department yesterday as the Tory government came under increasing criticism for its heavy-handed redactions to a controversial report about fracking. Truss, a Conservative member of the Cabinet, told the House of Commons there are “no plans” for the release of an unredacted version of the Shale Gas: […]
How Much Longer Can David Cameron Continue to Defend 'Going All Out’ for Shale?
An avalanche of anti-fracking activity has swept over Britain this week. It seems each day brought with it another blow to the prospect of a swift shale revolution. First, in an unexpected u-turn, the government agreed to ban fracking in national parks during Monday’s Infrastructure Bill debate. This represents a direct reversal of the policy it […]
Canada is Trading Away its Environmental Rights
This is a guest post by David Suzuki. In 1997, Canada restricted import and transfer of the gasoline additive MMT because it was a suspected neurotoxin that had already been banned in Europe. Ethyl Corp., the U.S. multinational that supplied the chemical, sued the government for $350 million under the North American Free Trade Agreement and […]
No End In Sight For California’s Climate-Exacerbated Drought
As of January 26, the California Department of Water Resources reported that snowpack statewide was at just 27% of its normal level, which is 15% of the average for April 1, the point at which snow is typically expected to stop accumulating and begin to melt. Which means, of course, that California is in for […]
'The Drop in Oil Price Means We Need More Action on Climate Change Not Less'
Simon Bullock, senior campaigner at Friends of the Earth, asks: How should governments react to the drop in oil price? This month, a powerful article in Nature highlighted yet again that most of the world’s oil, coal and gas needs to stay in the ground, if we want to prevent dangerous climate change. This is the […]
Enbridge Gets Another Federal Tar Sands Crude Pipeline Permit As Senate Debates Keystone XL
On January 16, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers gave Enbridge a controversial Nationwide Permit 12 green-light for its proposed Line 78 pipeline, set to bring heavy tar sands diluted bitumen (“dilbit”) from Pontiac, Illinois to its Griffith, Indiana holding terminal. The permit for the pipeline with the capacity to carry 800,000 barrels-per-day of tar sands dilbit came ten […]
Naomi Klein Tells the UK: The Fracking 'Bridge' is Burning!
This post originally appeared on The Ecologist. The lesson of fracking in the US and Canada is a simple one, writes Naomi Klein. The fracking industry is vicious, brutal and will stop at nothing to get its way. British anti-frackers can celebrate this week’s achievements – but the fight ahead will not be an easy one. On […]