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Exxon Oil Industry Peers Knew About Climate Dangers 1970s, Too
Posted by InsideClimate: None Given on December 24th, 2015
InsideClimate: The American Petroleum Institute together with the nation's largest oil companies ran a task force to monitor and share climate research between 1979 and 1983, indicating that the oil industry, not just Exxon alone, was aware of its possible impact on the world's climate far earlier than previously known. The group's members included senior scientists and engineers from nearly every major U.S. and multinational oil and gas company, including Exxon, Mobil, Amoco, Phillips, Texaco, Shell, Sunoco,...
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Controversial climate fund scrambles to fund its first projects
Posted by InsideClimate: None Given on November 12th, 2015
InsideClimate: The main fund to help the world's poorest cope with climate change cleared an obstacle last week after an all-night negotiating session in Zambia settled on the first projects to receive $363 million. Projects include campaigns to rebuild Peruvian wetlands, provide off-grid solar in East Africa and expand Malawi's extreme weather warning systems.
The Green Climate Fund's job is to eventually deliver tens of billions of dollars promised to the poor nations, and is key to achieving a global agreement...
New study says even 2 degrees of warming ‘highly dangerous’
Posted by InsideClimate: None Given on July 22nd, 2015
InsideClimate: When world leaders meet in Paris this December to agree on a new international treaty on climate change, their goal will be to keep atmospheric warming to 2 degrees Celsius, the point after which catastrophic climate change will be nearly inevitable, scientists say. But a new study being published this week by a team of 17 leading international climate scientists warns that even 2 degrees of warming is "highly dangerous" and could cause sea level rise of "at least several meters" this century, leaving...
Methane leaks from gas pipelines far exceed official estimates, Harvard study finds
Posted by InsideClimate: None Given on January 29th, 2015
InsideClimate: Methane is leaking from natural gas infrastructure in Boston and the surrounding region at rates two to three times higher than government estimates, scientists at Harvard University and other institutions found.
Published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences last week, the researchers' paper is the first peer-reviewed study that quantifies emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, from natural gas installations in urban areas--including pipelines, storage terminals...
Fracking Eagle Ford Shale: Big Oil & Bad Air on Texas Prairie
Posted by InsideClimate: None Given on February 18th, 2014
InsideClimate: Fracking the Eagle Ford Shale: Big Oil and Bad Air on the Texas Prairie is an eight-month investigation by InsideClimate News, the Center for Public Integrity and The Weather Channel.
Award-winning reporters reveal the dangers of releasing a toxic soup of chemicals into the air from oil and gas drilling and expose how little the Texas government knows about such pollution in its own state. They also show that the Texas legislature is intent on keeping it that way.
The project blends traditional...
FEMA: Caught Between Climate Change and Congress
Posted by InsideClimate: None Given on January 27th, 2014
InsideClimate: Thanks to climate change, extreme weather disasters have hammered the United States with increasing frequency in recent years--from drought and wildfires to coastal storms and flooding.
It is perhaps surprising, then, that the U.S. agency in charge of preparing for and responding to these disasters, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), doesn't account for climate change in most of its budget planning and resource allocation or in the National Flood Insurance Program it administers....
Does Keystone XL Have a Place in the Oil-by-Rail Safety Debate?
Posted by InsideClimate: None Given on January 17th, 2014
InsideClimate: A rash of explosive accidents involving oil-bearing trains has led to a surprising number of headlines and high-profile comments directly linking the fiery derailments to the fate of the long-stalled Keystone XL oil pipeline, the controversial project that would carry heavy bitumen from Canada’s oil sands to Texas refineries. "North Dakota train fire adds fuel to Keystone XL debate," said a Bloomberg News headline. The Los Angeles Times published [3] "Canada rail crash stirs debate over Keystone...
Canada: Alberta Current Carbon Strategy No Match for Keystone’s Emissions, Figures Show
Posted by InsideClimate: None Given on October 10th, 2013
InsideClimate: n the tiny hamlet of Hairy Hill, Alberta, a highly energy-efficient grain-fed distillery does what it can to offset some of the greenhouse gas emissions spewed by the province's dirtier industries—mainly the tar sands.
The upstart company called Growing Power Hairy Hill turns grain, manure and household waste into liquid fuel and electricity while emitting essentially no greenhouse gases. It says it is Canada's first "integrated biorefinery."
Hairy Hill is one small gear in Canada's carbon-control...
In the Path of Exxon’s Pegasus Pipeline across Arkansas: People, Water, Farms
Posted by InsideClimate: None Given on September 3rd, 2013
InsideClimate: The oil that erupted in the town of Mayflower back in March began its trip in an Illinois hamlet named Patoka, 90 minutes east of St. Louis. It shot down ExxonMobil's 20-inch Pegasus pipeline, under farms and forests, over the Mississippi River via a state highway bridge, through the Missouri Ozarks, across the Arkansas state line and, a few miles later, near the workplace of one Glenda Jones, whom you can find on a summer Saturday at her bar job, watching the Cardinals thump the Cubs. The other...
Scientists: Key Parts of State Dept Keystone Review Are ‘Without Merit’
Posted by InsideClimate: None Given on June 4th, 2013
InsideClimate: Dozens of leading scientists in the fields of climate change, public health and ecology have told the State Department that the findings of its draft assessment of the impacts of the Keystone XL pipeline are "without merit in many critical areas." In unusually blunt advice, they urged the Obama administration to reject the pipeline as not being in the U.S. national interest. "How is importing the world's highest carbon content crude consistent with national policy goals?" they asked. "Now is the...