Later today, several hundred New Yorkers, backed by at least 40 environmental organisations, are heading to attend a rally on Capitol lawn in Albany to protest against the dirty drilling technique of hydraulic fracturing or “fracking.” Among the speakers will be Josh Fox, director of the award-winning anti-gas industry documentary “Gasland.” Opponents of fracking have … Read More
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The well-trodden road to ruin..
The Republicans rolled out their 2012 Budget yesterday, under the catchy title of “the path to prosperity”. In fact you could have called it the “well-trodden road to ruin”. The budget by House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan will be seen by political commentators as raising the stakes for the upcoming spending battle between the GOP … Read More
Fuelling the Fire
All conflicts are about power and who will ultimately exert control over a people and resources. That is why there is a persistent niggle about western intervention in conflicts, and whether there is a humanitarian aim, or one simply about access to resources. The brutal truth is that regime change often comes with an agenda … Read More
BP: Back in the Gulf
With a haste that many will regard as reckless and a disregard for those who died in the Deepwater accident, BP will resume drilling in the Gulf of Mexico as early as July this year. So fifteen months after Deepwater, the concept of the disaster being some kind of game-changer that shifted the US towards … Read More
Obama and energy security: another missed opportunity
The president presented some encouraging words at Georgetown University today when he spoke about the urgent need to address America’s energy security. As he so often does, he correctly identified the problem the nation faces in continuing to rely on dirty forms of energy that pollute and cause climate change and particularly on oil, the … Read More
Canadian Pipedream
Why Canadian oil does not make America secure Political turmoil in the Middle East once again exposes America’s dependence on oil and its vulnerability to global price spikes. On Capitol Hill, Big Oil’s political lackeys are stepping up their campaign for supply solutions and the current must-have item on their list is the Keystone XL … Read More
EU Looks Set to Label Tar Sands “Dirty”
OK, this week is turning into a tar sands one. The Koch brothers may be keen on cooking the climate by investing in the tar sands, but the EU is one place they may not be able to sell their dirty oil. There is one hell of a diplomatic spat going on behind the scenes … Read More
Koching up the Tar Sands
This is not looking so good. Firstly you have the multi-billionaire Koch Brothers, darlings of the Tea Party, who are the current cash providers for climate change denial industry. And then you have the dirty Albertan tar sands where the oil is so much more carbon intensive to extract that it will help cook the … Read More
Safety of Blow-Out Preventers “Just Hot Air”
One of the final puzzles of the Deepwater Horizon disaster has been solved. It is a mystery no more. A question that continues to haunt many in BP and in the oil industry is why did the supposed fail-safe mechanism to prevent a blowout, called the blowout preventer (BOP), actually fail. And fail so spectacularly. … Read More
UK Gov Drops Consumer Levy on CCS
If we are going to carry on burning fossil fuels, then either the climate will slowly fry, or we have to find a way to stop carbon dioxide frying the climate. One way is to bury it. One of the most controversial techniques is Carbon, Capture and Storage, where the CO2 will be captured and … Read More