ExxonMobil Claims Shift on Climate But Continues to Fund Climate Science Deniers
ExxonMobil pledged $5 million to help pay for renovating the US Chamber of Commerce’s headquarters (above) in Washington, despite the fact that the Chamber opposes government action on climate change. Elliott Negin After decades of public denial, ExxonMobil now acknowledges that “the risk of climate change is real” and says it is “committed to being […]
Ask a Scientist: Nearly Everything You Want to Know about Climate Lawsuits
This summer Connecticut, Delaware and Minnesota joined some 20 states, cities and counties across the country that have filed climate change lawsuits against fossil fuel companies, charging that they have been aware of the threat their products pose to the climate for decades and deliberately misled the public about the reality and seriousness of global […]
Ask an Expert: Reviving the Gulf of Mexico’s Dead Zone
Every summer, a low-oxygen area called a dead zone develops off the coast of Texas and Louisiana when nutrient-polluted water from the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers flows into the Gulf of Mexico. Over the last five years, the dead zone averaged 5,770 square miles in size, slightly larger than the state of Connecticut. Mainly caused […]
Ask an Expert: Congress Plans to Spend Billions on Dangerous, Unnecessary Nuclear Weapons
Airman 1st Class Braydon Williams/US Air Force This week is the 75th anniversary of the US bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the only time nuclear bombs have been used in a conflict—and one could only hope the last time. To commemorate the anniversary, I thought it would be appropriate to devote this column to taking […]
District of Columbia Sues BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil and Shell for Misleading Public on Climate Change
UCS Washington, D.C., Attorney General Karl A. Racine sued four of the world’s largest oil and gas companies on Thursday for misleading consumers about the impact their products have on the climate. Coming just a day after Minnesota filed a similar suit, the District lawsuit contends that BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell have […]
Minnesota Sues ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, and Top Oil and Gas Trade Association for Climate-Related Consumer Fraud
Koch Industries’ Pine Bend refinery in Rosemount, Minnesota, supplies half of the state’s motor fuel. Tony Webster/Flickr CC by 2.0 On Wednesday, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison filed a consumer fraud lawsuit against ExxonMobil, Koch Industries and the American Petroleum Institute (API), the leading US oil and gas industry trade association. The suit alleges that […]
Ask a Scientist: What Should a Post-Pandemic Economy Look Like?
Photo by Nathan Waters There have been plenty of predictions of late about how quickly the US economy will recover from a pandemic-induced recession that has shut down most business activity and put millions of people out of work. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin recently predicted economic growth will “really bounce back in July, August, and […]
Oil Industry Ghostwrites Trump’s Deadly Anti-Environmental Policies
In January 2017, then-API President and CEO Jack Gerard was euphoric about the oil industry’s prospects. C-SPAN In the midst of a pandemic that has brought the world to its knees, the Trump administration’s latest spate of anti-environmental actions is maddening—and seemingly inexplicable. Earlier this month, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) refused to strengthen inadequate […]
