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.
[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
CAMBRIDGE, MASS. — MILLIONS of Americans once wanted to smoke. Then they came to understand how deadly tobacco products were. Tragically, that understanding was long delayed because the tobacco industry worked for decades to hide the truth, promoting a message of scientific uncertainty instead.
The same thing has happened with climate change, as Inside Climate News, a nonprofit news organization, has been reporting in a series of articles based on internal documents from Exxon Mobil dating from the 1970s and interviews with former company scientists and employees.
Greenhouse gas reduction pledges countries have submitted to the United Nations in advance of global climate talks set the planet on a path that keeps critical climate goals out of reach.
California's Sierra Nevada mountains haven't had this little snowpack since the days of Christopher Columbus.
That's the finding of a new study released Monday indicating this year the state has seen its lowest snowpack in 500 years, and climate change may cause greater water shortages in the already drought-stricken, wildfire-ravaged state.
EDMONTON - New research suggests that this week's restrictions on withdrawing water from the Athabasca River for oilsands use are a preview of what the industry will face under climate change.
Alberta's energy regulator has suspended a total of 73 temporary industry licences to take water from the Athabasca because of low flows.
A recent paper published in the journal Climate Change suggests such disruptions will become more common and increase by up to 40 per cent by mid-century.
