So the Bush administration has just given the green light to oil and gas exploration in an area of the Arctic that even the hard-line Reagan administration wanted to protect.
Frustrated by its failure to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the Bush administration has given the green light to open up an area in […]

The news reported in the scientific journal Nature this month that trees might be account for about 10 to 30 per cent of the potent greenhouse gas methane that is entering the atmosphere is a gift to climate skeptics and the oil industry.

BP is on course this year to announce the largest profits ever by a British company, with annual profits of over $21bn (£12bn). This is despite the company taking a billion dollar hit over the fallout from Hurricane Katrina. The company’s giant windfall is due to the recent high oil prices.

BP is not the only one making obscene amounts of money from oil at the moment. The US Department of Energy has forecast that OPEC’s revenues will increase by 10 per cent to a record $522bn this year – this would be the largest in real terms in 25 years.

Chris Finlayson obviously likes a big challenge. Having been running Shell’s highly controversial operations in Nigeria, where the company has repeatedly been cited for environmental pollution and for being complicit in human rights abuses, he has moved to head up Shell’s operations in Russia.