By Greg Evans 1 March 2015 (Newsweek) – In Merchants of Doubt, their 2010 book that vivisects bad science and industrial cynicism, science historians Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway decried the uneven battle for the popular imagination fought, on one side, by scientists ill-equipped for high-volume cable-TV tussles and, on the other, by the […]
By Ed Crooks15 February 2015 New York (Financial Times) – Discoveries of new oil and gas reserves dropped to their lowest level in at least two decades last year, pointing to tighter world supplies as energy demand increases in the future. Preliminary figures suggest the volume of oil and gas found last year, excluding shale […]
By Brendan Montague26 February 2015 (Desmog UK) – Willie Soon is at the centre of a perfect climate science denial storm, writes Brendan Montague with additional reporting from Kyla Mandel. The aerospace engineer working at the the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics was caught out when telling his fossil fuel industry funders that his research papers […]
By Gwynn Guilford13 February 2015 (Quartz) – Trillions of microscopic plastic bits litter the oceans of Earth, converging in huge trash vortexes before becoming lodged in the seabed and getting gobbled up by tiny fish. But since countries don’t report how much plastic they’re flushing, it’s been impossible to tell how much there is—or where […]
By Luis Andres Henao and Seth Borenstein28 February 2015 CAPE LEGOUPIL, Antarctica (Associated Press) – From the ground in this extreme northern part of Antarctica, spectacularly white and blinding ice seems to extend forever. What can’t be seen is the battle raging thousands of feet (hundreds of meters) below to re-shape Earth. Water is eating […]
By Antônio Fonseca, Carlos Souza Jr., and Adalberto Veríssimo23 February 2015 (Imazon) – […] In January 2015, 288 square kilometers of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon were detected by SAD. That represents a 169% increase in relation to January 2014 when deforestation totaled 107 square kilometers. In January 2015, deforestation was concentrated in Mato Grosso […]
By Graham Readfearn27 February 2015 (The Guardian) – In early 1998, some of the biggest fossil fuel companies in the world were hatching a plan to hijack the science of human-caused global warming. Representatives from major fossil fuel corporations and industry groups had joined forces with operatives from major conservative think tanks and public relations […]
By Julie Cart26 February 2015 (Los Angeles Times) – Water officials in Kern County discovered that oil producers have been dumping chemical-laden wastewater into hundreds of unlined pits that are operating without proper permits. Inspections completed this week by the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board revealed the existence of more than 300 previously […]
By Bruce Wallace; Editing by Stuart Grudgings27 February 2015 WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A significant majority of Americans say combating climate change is a moral issue that obligates them – and world leaders – to reduce carbon emissions, a Reuters/IPSOS poll has found. The poll of 2,827 Americans was conducted in February to measure the impact […]
BEIJING (AP) — China imposed a one-year ban on ivory imports that took immediate effect Thursday amid criticism that its citizens’ huge appetite for ivory has fueled poaching that threatens the existence of African elephants. The State Administration of Forestry declared the ban in a public notice posted on its official site, in which it […]