If you believe press reports, governments are preparing for “serious” climate negotiations at the upcoming December UN climate conference in Paris. I put quotes around serious because there is good reason to believe that most governments, at least the most powerful, care little about the outcome. One indicator is their commitment to protecting the environment in two so-called free trade agreements.
Like all proper scandals, the #Exxonknew revelations have begun to spin off new dramas and lines of inquiry. Presidential candidates have begun to call for Department of Justice investigations, and company spokesmen have begun to dig themselves deeper into the inevitable holes as they try to excuse the inexcusable.
(Worst idea: attack Pulitzer prize-winning reporters as “anti-oil and gas activists”)
If you believe press reports, governments are preparing for “serious” climate negotiations at the upcoming December UN climate conference in Paris. I put quotes around serious because there is good reason to believe that most governments, at least the most powerful, care little about the outcome. One indicator is their commitment to protecting the environment in two so-called free trade agreements.
[Website editor's note: Amazing photos and video with this powerful essay]
On the Greenland Ice Sheet — The midnight sun still gleamed at 1 a.m. across the brilliant expanse of the Greenland ice sheet. Brandon Overstreet, a doctoral candidate in hydrology at the University of Wyoming, picked his way across the frozen landscape, clipped his climbing harness to an anchor in the ice and crept toward the edge of a river that rushed downstream toward an enormous sinkhole.
They are still crunching the numbers, but according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2015 is on track to be the hottest year ever recorded.
[Website editor's note: See the cautionary book review about such schemes that follows.]
Startups have figured out how to remove carbon from the air. Will anyone pay them to do it?
Three startups, Carbon Engineering, Global Thermostat and Climeworks, are making strides with technology that can directly remove carbon dioxide from the air. What they need now is a viable business model
The latest blueprint of climate pledges reportedly omits key mechanisms that were included in previous drafts, such as financing for poorer countries and accountability for wealthier ones. (Photo: EcoWatch)
Back in 1990, as the debate over climate change was heating up, a dissident shareholder petitioned the board of Exxon, one of the world’s largest oil companies, imploring it to develop a plan to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from its production plants and facilities.
The board’s response: Exxon had studied the science of global warming and concluded it was too murky to warrant action. The company’s “examination of the issue supports the conclusions that the facts today and the projection of future effects are very unclear.”
