Talking Real Money

June 15, 2006By Mark FloegelBlog Post

In the produce section at the grocery store the other day, I was pleased to see cherries are in season. I wasn’t pleased to see they cost nine dollars a pound. These were not organic cherries but conventional, pesticide-sprayed fruit. What makes them expensive is that they were trucked in from Michigan or Washington State … Read More

Grand Jury Lawyers Trawl Through BP Offices

June 15, 2006By Andy RowellBlog Post

There will be humiliation for BP this week, when its Alaskan Division will have to open up its offices to US lawyers working for a federal grand jury in Anchorage who are investigating the March spill of 270,000 gallons of crude oil. The lawyers will be crawling over BP’s Prudhoe Bay operations for nine days. … Read More

Night Flights Worse for Climate

June 15, 2006By Andy RowellBlog Post 1 Comment

Sick of those red-eye flights? Well you can get more sleep and help the fight against global warming by no longer flying at night. The reason? A new study has found that the condensation trails, or contrails, left by the exhaust of aircraft engines contribute more to global warming during the night than by day. … Read More

EPA Watered Down Laws on Behalf of Oil Industry

June 14, 2006By Andy RowellBlog Post

Not convinced yet of the need to Separate Oil and State? Great article in yesterday’s LA Times, that exposes how a “rule designed by the US Environmental Protection Agency to keep groundwater clean near oil drilling sites was loosened after White House officials rejected it amid complaints by energy companies that it was too restrictive”.

BP and Shell: Stop Spinning the Truth

June 13, 2006By Andy RowellBlog Post

Good article by George Monbiot in today’s Guardian, attacking Shell and BP’s for greenwashing and spinning the truth. He talks about the BP spill in Alaska that we have been blogging about requently on the site. “For a company that claims to have moved “beyond petroleum”, BP has managed to spill an awful lot of … Read More

BP: The Days of Cheap Oil Are Not Over

June 13, 2006By Andy RowellBlog Post 1 Comment

Lord Browne, BP’s chief executive, went against the grain of recent energy hikes and said that within a few years crude oil prices would be $40 a barrel or even lower. “It is very likely that, in the medium term, prices will stand at about $40 on average. In the very long run, even $25 … Read More

Kyoto: One Billion Tonne Reduction By 2012

June 12, 2006By Andy RowellBlog Post

One of the main tools of the Kyoto Protocol, the Clean Development Mechanism, will reduce carbon emissions by a billion tonnes by the end of 2012, the end of the present Kyoto commitment period, the UN has claimed. “We have crossed an important threshold with these reductions”, said Richard Kinley, the secretariat’s acting head. “It … Read More

Energy Security Fears Haunt G8 Finance Meeting

June 12, 2006By Andy RowellBlog Post 1 Comment

The G8 Summit in St. Petersburg is now just weeks away but last weekend saw the city host a meeting of the G8’s Finance Ministers. Although there was said to be “plenty of smiles and warm words about friendship and collaboration”, the politicians failed to find unity over the sensitive issue of energy security.

Climate Change Causing Genetic Change in Animals

June 9, 2006By Andy RowellBlog Post 1 Comment

Some smaller species of animals, such as squirrels and birds, are changing genetically in order to adapt to rapid climate change, scientists now believe. “Studies show that over the past several decades, rapid climate change has led to heritable, genetic changes in animal populations,” argues Christina Holzapfel, from the University of Oregon in Eugene in … Read More