Posts by Andy Rowell
Frac-Sand Nation
It is not so long ago that “fracking” moved from a term used by the oil industry to enter the mainstream collective consciousness, as the technique spread like a cancer across America. Fracking is the process by which oil companies pump a mixture of sand, water and chemicals under high pressure to release gas. It…
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70,000 Ask Shell to Clean Up in Nigeria
Seventeen years ago I was one of many protestors at Shell’s AGM in London at the prestigious Queen Elisabeth Centre that lies in the shadow of Big Ben, near London’s Parliament. There were two issues facing the oil giant that day: in Nigeria the Ogoni playwright, Ken Saro-Wiwa, lay in a disgusting and degrading humid…
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Haemorrhaging Heartland Still in Denial
Well the old adage is when you are in a hole, stop digging. Someone though has not told Joe Bast, the head of the Heartland Institute. Poor old Joe is feeling rather sorry that at his time of need his colleagues are deserting him. In a recent blog he criticises one such colleague saying that…
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Eleven Donors Dump Heartland
Next week the cream of the world’s climate deniers will descend on Chicago for the Heartland Institute’s latest annual sceptic-fest. The headline for the conference is “Real Science, Real Choices.” That’s more fact-twisting propaganda from Heartland that has pushed climate denial for years. The Institute was hoping for a bumper conference that would help it…
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Koch-ing the Climate: Exploiting the Tar Sands
Last week, the god-father of climate science, James Hansen, who directs the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, re-iterated his warning about exploiting the tar sands in an op-ed in the New York Times. His warning was dire: “Canada’s tar sands contain twice the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by global oil use in our…
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Shell in Nigeria: Its Worse than Bad
And so it goes on. It might be a different day but the ongoing vortex of violence, pollution, protest and conflict continues in the Niger Delta. The oil giant, Shell is at the middle of this vortex, as it has been for decades, with the company unwilling to take adequate steps to stop the violence…
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Sponsors Dump Heartland After Ad Backfires
Last Friday, the long-standing climate denier think tank, the Heartland Institute ran an advert featuring the Unabomber on a billboard in Chicago that read “I still believe in Global Warming? Do you?” The Unabomber advert was going to be followed by images of Fidel Castro, Osama Bin Laden, and hostage-taker James J. Lee. According to…
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Scientific Study Warns Fracking Can Contaminate Aquifers
Sorry to hark on about this – but proponents of fracking keep on saying it is a precise science that is safe, which will not contaminate water supplies. But we know that is not true. We also know the technique is still essentially in its infancy and the science and detailed surveys into the controversial…
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US Pipeline Regulations “Inadequate”
One thing is certain: pipelines have become a political hot potato. Over the next few months the debate about Keystone XL will surely dog the Presidential debate like a bad penny. But as the furore over Keystone has grown it is easy to forget about the state of other pipelines in the US and how…
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Big Oil Approved Canada’s FQD Strategy
We have known for a long time that the Canadian government was colluding with the oil and gas industry over tar sands and its campaign against Europe’s Fuel Quality Directive (FQD). But new documents have come to light that reveal the extent of that collusion, especially between Big Oil and Natural Resources Canada, the Department…
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